Paid out of contract for Sprint iPhone 5 and it's carrier locked

Hello all,

This is quite frustrating and ANNOYING!

I got up at 12midnight for launch day showed up to the Victoria Garden's Apple Store, located in Southern California, to line up for iPhone 5 launched.  Upon arrival a security person told me and others that we couldn't line up until after 6AM, otherwise we would be trespassing... bummed out, so I went home.

Set my alarm clock for 5:00AM, arrived back at the store at 5:30AM and there's already a long line forming... what the heck!?  Security lied to me and others prior about being there after 6AM, or quite possibly there were 50+ people and only one of him, he probably didn't want to get mobbed and just let it be =)

Anyhoo lined up talked to a few cool people, excited, finally got in and purchased the Black 64GB AT&T version, out of contract full price $914.80.  Went home and realized that I purchased the wrong model... I needed the A1429 which supports more bands for out of the country, the AT&T version is A1428, so I figured I'll deal with it tomorrow.

Saturday rolls around, I called a few Apple Stores, long hold time and I could only imagaine why... day after launch; all the local stores within a 50 mile radius of where I live are completely sold out of the A1429 model(Verizon and Sprint).  I finally located the mother load in North County located in San Diego, 75 miles from where I live, representative states they have a lot of Sprint version of the iPhone 5, but are completely out of AT&T and Verizon.  I was thrilled that I located one, so I headed out on a mini road trip to San Diego.

Arrived at North County Apple Store, I explained to an Apple employee that I needed to exchange for the Sprint version, he went in the back and got me the correct version, unfortunately he couldn't flat out exchange it, he had to refund the AT&T iPhone and I had to repurchase because for whatever reason their POS system will not allow a flat out exchange... pretty lame, but whatever, now I have a pending refund of $914.80 and two debits of $914.80 which gives me a pending total of -$1829.60 charge on my checking account until it sorts itself out on Tuesday because it takes one business day for the bank to process all pending debit and blah blah blah charges. Annoyed but happy that I finally was able to go home and play with my new iPhone 5!

Got home at around 9PM poped in my T-Mobile SIM card, got to the activation screen and I get this notorious carrier locked message "SIM Not Valid Only compatible SIM cards from a supported carrier may be used to activate iPhone.  Please insert the SIM card that came with your iPhone or vist a supported carrier's store to receive a replacement SIM card."  P-I-S-S-E-D OFF I WAS.

Scheduled a phone appointment with Apple for 5:25AM.

The next morning I get a call from Apple, explain to him about what was going on.  He states that my iPhone should be unlocked because I bought it out of contract at full price.  Suggested that I do a restore.  Restored and nada, same problem =(

I got on the phone with Sprint to see if I can get it unlocked and the representative states: "If you buy any Sprint version of the iPhone, regardless if you paid full price or on contract, it needs to be on a Sprint account for the GSM side to be unlocked and ONCE YOU LEAVE SPRINT, IT WILL BE LOCKED AGAIN.  So regardless if you're on contract or don't have a contract SPRINT IPHONES are LOCKED PERIOD, you can't take it to another carrier, you pretty much own an expensive iPod touch that will only work on Sprint's network and nowhere else.

Verizon is the only carrier where they come FACTORY UNLOCKED out of the box.  I'm starting to like Verizon already.

I wanted to have the added bonus of CDMA if I decide to go with either Sprint or Verizon, but also travel abroad, I will surely not go with Sprint and hopefully in the future they will follow Verizon's modest example.