Why do they make it so difficult? Because they can. It's counter-productive, of course, because all it does is make you resentful. I just went through this with T-Mobile. I moved to New Zealand from the U.S. We don't have T-Mobile here, but I like my crappy, old phone, so I wrote them to get the unlock code. It took a couple of weeks and a little persistence on my part, but they finally relented. I was tempted to use an unlock code from the Intertubes, but I'm kind of glad I got the "official" code. Life is good now.