How to activate an IPhone 3G (or 3GS) when it doesn't want to?

This girl came up to me today with a IPhone 3G or 3GS (I can't tell) and asked me to activate it, I took it home and it was already on the setup screen like how you get when you restore it. I went through the steps and got to the activation part, I connected it to the Wi-Fi and tried to activate it, but about a second or two of processing, it says "Activation request could not be completed." Tried it again and again and it kept doing it. So I tried connecting to ITunes and the same problem on ITunes occurred. Can anybody help me out in activating it?

It's probably factory locked and the girl tried to put a faulty, bad, or illegal sim in it. Or she could've bought it from Ebay and it was reported lost or stolen. It's best to talk to the carrier about this issue.

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