LG CU500

I don't know if I'm supposed to say, but I got it from cellphoneshop.net. Usually they have good stuff. It doesn't have the "box" in the middle either. My computer recognizes it as a USB cable. It just doesn't recognize the phone or chip at all. And the chip is good because I've used it with other phones before and it works fine, and the pics I had from other phones showed up just fine on the LG. So I know the chip is fine. Please let me know what I should do. What about this card reader that everyone is talking about? How does that work? I have the microSD...how would I be able to transfer stuff to my computer and vice versa with that? Any help is much appreciated! Thanks.