3GS phone won't activate--now what?

[faustina1]

I have seen multiple users with this issue. Not sure what I need to do and I'm a newbie at this. We got the 3GS phone from Amazon from a 98% positive seller with good customer service. Went to get the sim card for GOPhone from AT/T today and plugged it in. The phone will not activate. It says "cannot find the activation server, try using Itunes, or contact support." Itunes doesn't work either. I gather the phone was jailbroken, but I'm not sure what I need to do next. Am I screwed? Appreciate any ideas...
Thanks.

 

[faustina1]

ok tried the dfu and restoring to factory settings, also, in itunes. it got completely thru the upgrade, said "leave phone attached to itunes," and after a while said, "This process cannot be completed. Contact support,' or something. Tried again to activate and get the same error message above.

 

[Jmills87]

A Go phone SIM won't work for activation, you'll either have to use a normal AT&T SIM or hacktivate with redsn0w