I bought a reconditioned Snapper phone from the Virgin website for $41. It looks perfectly new. I bought a $20 prepaid card at Walmart, and did all the activation procedures on the Virgin website and the phone.

Here's the problem:

It connects only to the American Roaming Network. If I try to make an outgoing call, I hear a recorded message from American Roaming Network advising me that the call will cost several dollars. If I try to make an incoming call, I get only the Virgin voicemail.

I know there's a strong Sprint PCS signal because I've can detect it with my other phone, a Sprint phone with a Sprint account - so the problem is not a lack of signal.

That's 15 hours after I activated the phone.

I phoned Virgin's customer service, and after a long wait I was told to just wait another day to see if it worked then.

Does anybody know what's happening?