Used iPhone stuck in activation loop, nothing is working, help.

Hello, my friend purchased an iPhone from Facebook and they had told her it was unlocked and all she needed to do was insert her sim card. When she got the phone it asked for a password, this indicated that it was not wiped completely, so she erased all contents and setting. When she put her sim card in it led her through the iPhone activation steps, after filling in all the steps it took her to the home screen and promptly returned her to the start of the activation steps again. Apparently it said "activation required." She has tried several sim cards from varying cellular company, the Sprint sim card said it was not compatible with the phone. Verizon and T-Mobile went through the steps without error, but still ended up in the loop.

I have tried to assist her, we have hard reset the phone, we have updated it, set up as new, and have gotten several errors in iTunes. It has said the activation information was invalid, we have received an error 0xE800001A, and at one point we were stuck in an activation lock loop that was connected to her iTunes account but would not let us through.

We do not have an Apple store nearby, and the sellers are not helpful. They said that it should have worked just putting in the sim card, they asked her why did she reset the phone, and are essentially blaming her for it's malfunction. The sim card it came with was unusual, she said it didn't look like any company she recognized, it possibly had the letters GT on it. It only worked with that sim card, without it it is stuck in a permanent activation loop.

Was she purposely sold a broken phone, or did she do something by resetting it? The only other thing she did was purchase a new sim card tray.

Edit: We have looked up the IMEI number, it is not blacklisted, it says the phone was sold to a Walmart but does not say the carrier.

Edit 2: Friend showed me pictures from seller, and it is a TracPhone apparently on a lease to own plan, is it essentially useless?