I bought a boxed IPhone 4S from craigslist. I later found that it was not activated at all. I tried to use my micro-sim (from other IPhone 4S) but it wont allow me to activate with my sim card and is expecting the original sim card that came with the IPhone. The person took the sim card with him and I neither can contact him nor have any information of him.

Any help would be highly appreciated. 

sorry to say you are out of luck !! there is no hactivation for 4S yet !!

 @bhakte dai, thank you for the response. So even if I wanted to use it with ATT - I am out of luck?

 the problem here seems the 4S you bought is locked to different carrier (may be international coz ur at&t did not do the trick)  !! As pepsi said you can either buy on eBay or borrow someon'e micro SIM of the carrier your 4S is locked too !! 


good luck 

edit :regarding my previous response i thought u were trying to switch  carriers !! i apologize. 

 @pepsi and @bhakte dai 

I already have ATT microsim and yes the IPhone is ATT locked. I have verified that my microsim works with another IPhone 4S or any other gsm phone (with sim adapter) but just wont activate the IPHone 4S I bought. I even tried with few other att microsims from my friends' IPhone.

Perhaps, I should meet you Pepsi if you are located in boston :(

I believe the phone is ATT locked but is there any way to know which carrier the IP4S is locked to. The model of the phone is MC920LL

@lazy
try to activate phone via old fashioned way, connecting computer, going through itune ( I hate itune). If that doesn't work, call ATT costumer service dialing 611. They can activate iphone for you.

@rahasya, I spent an hour with the ATT and also visited Apple store. The guy @ apple store clearly told me that i need the original sim that came with the iphone 4s that i have with so it's a no-go there. Tried with ITunes and it wont work unless I insert a sim and once I insert sim card and try to do with the itunes - it will bring up an activation screen with the phone number (that was tied up with the iphone) and is asking me the billing zip code and last 4 digits of SSN (which I believe is of the person that bought the IPhone 4S originally).

try this link
http://greenpoisons.blogspot.com/2011/10/activate-iphone-4s43gs-without-original.html

I thought you can always activate your iphone, if you have ATT sim card, if your phone is locked to ATT.

I am not sure about iPhone 4s, but i recently bought used iPhone 4 and used my micro sim from ATT it worked without a problem.

Why don't you restore your iPhone from iTunes and try to activate it again with micro sim card you have from ATT? May be it will work.

If your phone is locked to another carrier there is no way to unlock it.

Here is a easy Jailbreak tool if you want to jailbreak:

http://greenpois0n.com/?page_id=18

Thank you all for responding and suggestions. I am now able to activate my IP4S.

Btw, the jailbreak (absinthe) wont work unless the iphone4S is activated - at least it did not work for me

@Pepsi - I have the ATT locked IP4S and the sim card that I have was being used for another IP4S.

However I am now able to activate. Thanks again everybody.

how did you do that? It might help others in future.

 @:-) sure here is the detailed problem/resolution:

Problem:
  - IPhone 4S (ATT locked), when received it was not activated at all. I got it w/o sim card that came during the purchase. If I tried using my sim card from other IP4S, it would not activate telling the number does not match. I assume the number it displayed was of the sim card that was originally in the IP4S when it was purchased.

 - Jailbreak (absinthe) wont work as it also requires the IP4S to be activated 

Resolution:
 I tried three microsims - none of them worked. I had a regular sim lying around so I just cut it by myself and inserted into the IP4S - surprisingly it worked. So I am just assuming that if we use the sim that was not previously used for activating any iphone could do the trick. Obviously I have not and cannot test it with other iphones :)