Brand new O2 iPhone locked to Vodafone?!

[Yasser]

I upgraded to a brand new iPhone 11 Pro yesterday (Saturday) and a new 36 month contract to boot. When I moved my sim card over from my iPhone 7, it just doesn't work, says No Service. The sim still works in my old iphone 7 and it also works on a demo iphone 11 that another guy in a seperate O2 shop tried so it's clear there's something wrong with the phone. 

I had this feeling it was locked by a different carrier because (1) when I do a manual network search I see Vodafone alongside O2 and (2) In setting - general - network it says "phone not allowed" And indeed when I put my GFs VODAFONE simcard in it works perfect, 3G and signal and all. 

It feels like my supposed iphone used belong to Vodafone and was never properly unblocked/unlocked. Reading on the internet it even seems like this is a stoken phone! How on earth could O2 do this? Not only does a brand new phone not work, it seems it could be associated with some dodgy theft. Not only that - if the phone is indeed not new (e.g., refurbished) then why on earth am I paying full cost (+£1K) in my contract?! I got this phone from the Kilburn O2 branch.

Extremely dissapointed. Any help would be appreciated before I go back to the O2 guys. 

[MI5]

@Yasser 

You just need to call O2 to activate the phone Guide: Coronavirus Community Help and Support 

[Yasser]

The phone is active. As I said - my girlfriends vodafone sim works fine on it. My old o2 sim card (also still active) works fine on my old o2 ipone 7. So the issue isn't the sim or the phone it seems, but their interaction. 

Ive been on online chat twice and in-store (not the same as the one I bought it in) and no one could help so dont think its a simple issue of not having activated it. In fact no one seems to know whats going on and will probably just exchange it for a different phone (despite not knowing the underlying issues)

[MI5]

@Yasser 

Just call as i said above.

[Marjo]

Hi @Yasser , how are you doing with the new iPhone today? Did you get in touch with customer service and find out what the issue was in the end?