T-mobile struggling to unclock apple swapped iphone
I have iPhone 12 pro max that I got from T-Mobile on EIP. It was paid off. Recently, I accidentally damaged my iPhone 12 pro max and took it to Apple Store to fix it. Apparently, Apple doesn’t fix iPhones and just swaps them for new ones which I was totally ok with. I got a brand new iPhone locked with T-Mobile. Now I’m looking to do some travel and want my iPhone to be unlocked so I can use a local sim. For some reason, T-Mobile support doesn't want or cannot (I don’t know) unlock this iPhone that I got from Apple, stating that it is not bought from T-Mobile (even though it's a T-Mobile locked device) and it has to be unlocked by Apple. Hard reset of the phone doesn’t help. I contacted T-Mobile support like 5 times and each time the response was the same or they tell you that 48 hours required to resolve this issue and never follow up. I contacted Apple support and they escalated this case to their Engineering department. The response from Apple engineering department was that “phone can be unlocked, but only carrier (T-Mobile) can unlock the phone and Apple doesn't have the physical ability to do that”. Basically, T-Mobile and Apple keep pointing fingers at each other with no result. I don’t understand why T-Mobile cannot unlock iPhone that was provided by Apple? I didn't buy it somewhere on the street, I paid $500 to get that phone swapped and now I cannot utilize it as I want. Looking forward to getting some advice on how to work out this issue?