Verizon unlock process has been a complete mess

I bought a Verizon iPhone 18 from Best Buy and paid for it in full. I already have an existing Verizon postpaid line. When I got the phone, I activated my Verizon line on the new iPhone first, then contacted Verizon to have the phone unlocked.

Yesterday, the first rep told me they submitted an unlock request and said it should take around 4–5 hours.

Nothing happened. The phone still showed SIM Locked.

Then this morning I contacted Verizon again and somehow got an even more confusing answer. That rep told me the phone couldn’t be unlocked unless I opened a new Verizon line for it. That made zero sense to me because I already have a Verizon postpaid account, activated my existing Verizon line on this exact phone and the phone is fully paid off.

So I contacted Verizon again. This time the rep asked where I bought it. I said Best Buy, and they told me I needed to contact Best Buy to unlock the phone because that’s where I purchased it. Again, that didn’t really make sense, because it’s a Verizon-locked phone.
I pushed back and told them that fully paid Verizon devices are supposed to be eligible for unlocking.
Then the same rep basically agreed with me and said yes, a fully paid device should be unlocked automatically, but their system was still telling them to send me to Best Buy.

So I kept asking them to actually check the device.
Eventually they checked the phone and confirmed that the device is already showing as fully paid / bought out in Verizon’s system. Then they told me something completely different “The phone’s unlock is apparently already in process and is almost done.”

But when I asked for estimate completion time and case number, they told me they actually have no tool to see the unlock ETA and that it can take anywhere from 2–35 days after buyout. So at this point I’m not even sure whether the previous rep actually saw an unlock “in progress”.