iPhone 14 eSIM-locked but not physical SIM-locked?
Hi everyone I hope this is the right place to ask about this sort of thing.
I just bought a 3rd-party refurbished iPhone 14 (in Europe) and am having trouble putting an eSIM on it. I have an existing physical sim from an Australian provider, and that's working just fine on this phone. It can take and give calls, texts, etc. I'm not seeing any error messages about the SIM being incompatible with the phone or whatever.
However, when I go into settings, it says that the phone is Service Provider Locked. Not carrier locked, if that makes a difference. And whenever I try to install my eSIM for my actual current plan here in the EU, it just gives me this error: "Unable to Activate eSIM. You can try again or contract your service provider for assistance."
I can't find any information on who the phone is actually locked to, and different IMEI checkers give me different answers. Some say it's locked, some say otherwise. One suggests the phone is locked to Ultra mobile in the US, and that the phone is a US model, but it has a physical sim tray so that can't be the case.
I'm honestly just real baffled about all this. I can still return the phone but I'd like to avoid the hassle. Does anyone know why my phone is half acting like it's locked, and half like it's not? Can I do anything about it? I've contacted the seller about it but I don't expect anything more than an offer to return it.
Thanks for any insight.