Re-activating my returned stolen phone

Go to iCloud.com, then Settings and see if your device is listed there as lost. If so, go ahead and remove it for your account. Next, contact Sprint and let them know you want to use the phone otherwise it won;t activate they are a CDMA network and utilize a radio that is not reliant on the sim card. The sim card is still needed for the activation process as it is used for international options.

Best action is to report the finding to the insurance company. By paying for the replacement, I believe they do, in effect, now own your old phone. If you do what you propose you could well be accused of theft. Don't risk it.

RitterA wrote:

My iphone was stolen from my work and I had reported it stolen to Sprint and had my phone deleted of everything and wiped clean. About a month later I had recovered my phone once again at my work. I had already used the insurance and paid for a new phone. I would like to re activate the old original phone instead of using the refurbished phone I was sent. I tried to change out the SIM card but I am not sure that Sprint uses the SIM cards as other carriers do because it only allowed me to get through logging into itunes and stopped me when I was trying to update my last back up from icloud.

Would anyone have any advise on how to reactivate my old iphone and complete the restoring process. I have a feeling I am going to need to either contact sprint or Apple to have this phone "unflagged" stolen.

If your insurance company replaced your iPhone, then you don't own the original anymore. You need to contact the insurance company, inform them of what has happened, and partner with them to decide what to do next.

As of this moment, you are in possession of property that does not belong to you.

Consider this: If you car was stolen, and then you insurance company repealed it (with a deductible, of course), and then two weeks later the police recovered your first car, do you now own both cars?