[affliction]

heres how flashing actually works with metro..

metro uses houdini to "flash" your phone.. well thats what they call it.. all they really do is run the program which loads a prl, unlocks the spc, and programs your sid/nid thats it... every phone that is flashed is then allowed on to the esn and billing system under the houdini phone title...

if you flash the phone yourself your not gonna be able to take it to metro and activate it because metro does not have an open esn policy.. depending on what market your in i can tell you that metro techs are a bunch of idiots and are too lazy to actually hook up a phone to flash it... if you do, flash it yourself, check out howardforums.com the metro section has dealers that are willing to risk their job to add an esn for a price..

just a note when you flash at metro the fee is automaticly charged to your account, but when you pay the flashing fee its credited back(stupid i know).. now if you have your esn added you have to pay to have it added but its essentially the same way..