Doesn't have to be a phone that's already active. Two of the Alltel ones I have activated I bought from their kiosk at the mall full price. The one I use daily is off eBay--brand new. If option 3 doesn't work for you, your local towers haven't been updated to pass the ESN/MEID to the DMD yet. Either sit still until you can activate it or call up Verizon and ask them to port you over (take it to a corporate location to get it flashed or do it yourself and tell the tech). It's not really a long or a procedure to get mad over...be kind and karma will smile on you. Last phone I activated I spent a total of 7 minutes on the phone (used my Alltel TP to call...stupid Verizon, charging me minutes for calling support! lol). ~12 hours after the call I get a call from a different person telling me that my Alltel device is ready to be ported over to Verizon and we spent the next 10 minutes getting the phone setup correctly (getting everything from the guide put into the phone, most of the time was spent hard resetting to get the phone to grab the DMU keys). If you're acting like a know it all *******, of course they're gonna tell you to either wait or say no flat out. The merger isn't fully complete yet, there are techs working 24/7 to get the two companies made into one. If you find treat everyone you call like they're there just to help YOU and no one else, of course they'll hang up. I'm not gonna walk into a McDee's and ask the cashier I want a DQ Blizzard. If I ask nicely if they'd do something special with their McFlurry, of course she'll help me out
