iPhone 3GS - Could Not Activate

[Anonymous]

OK.  This is a long story which I will try and keep brief.

Basically my daughters iPhone 3GS will not activate after it was sold and subsequently returned to someone on eBay.

The 2 year iPhone 3GS was working perfectly until xmas. We then gave our daughter an upgrade to an iPhone 4 and decided to sell her old iPhone 3GS over eBay.  We reset the iPhone and a person eventually bought the iPhone from eBay. We then shipped it off and thought that was the end of the matter.

3 weeks later this eBay person came back saying the iPhone was faulty and wanted his money back.  I eventually agreed and thought I could get the iPhone working again on an O2 Pay-As-You-Go and so purchased a new Sim Card, inserted it into the iPhone and no matter what I try I can not get it to activate.  It just keeps saying "Could Not Activate iPhone". 

I have tried activating it through iTunes and WiFi a dozen times but nothing seems to make it activate. 

I have reset it many times and even took it to our local Apple Store who also reset it to factory settings but again the iPhone will not activate.

The Apple Support Specialist said someone may of tried to unlock the iPhone and in the process permanently damaged the firmware but he could not be 100%.  Either way he tried to sell me another iPhone 3GS!

So here I am wondering whether this iPhone is now useless. 

Any body got any suggestions.

Thanks

[Anonymous]

Thanks for all your help today.

I will pop down to Tesco and purchase their sim card and see if it will activate or not. I will come back later to tell you how it went.

[MI5]

To answer your question above, yes, you need a Tesco SIM if the phone is locked to Tesco (which it appears to be), hence it will not activate with an O2 SIM. If you originally used "this" phone on O2 you have been done over by the guy on ebay. He has swapped your phone with his old one and you need to pursue this matter further with ebay / police etc.......

I've seen this happen before which was why my very first question was if you were certain you had got the same phone back 😞

[Anonymous]

Ok I purchased a new tesco SIM card which apparently uses the O2 network. I did check the phone online using the IMEI database and it said the "Next Tether Activation Policy Description: UK O2 Tesco".

I also tried the checkmend database and it did not report any issues with the phone e.g blocked etc..

So I did a full reset again Delete All Content/reload firmware on the iphone using itunes and tried activation. It came up with the same problem as before, it could not activate the phone.

Any last suggestions before I give up and close this query. Thanks for your help.

[Anonymous]

I have thoroughly externally checked the iPhone 3GS with the close magnified pictures I took of it before I sent it to this ebayer and externally it is identical although its impossible for me to check it internal workings.