[gambatte]

Since you really have nothing to lose at this point, unless you have alot of contacts at stake already, have you tried a hard reset? You don't know what the reseller had to do, e.g. remove programs, etc. I assume he had to do a hard reset at some time but you never know. Or you might ask him if he flashed the phone back to original ROM. You should still have his email contact and if he doesn't answer give him bad feedback.

Another possiblity is the earpiece is bad. Don't think they are too expensive. There's always Bluetooth headsets!

As far as activating your service, I'd say it's probably possible. Looks like you bought an Alltel phone. Afterall, that's all the guy is doing at the store is punching in some code to put it on the network and then calling the network. One time, I had to wait thirty minutes or so but don't know if it was that complicated or the guy was incompetant! Give 'em a call, can't hurt.