Will this work? I am looking at getting a (cheap) HTC phone from the US which has a bad ESN w.r.t. US networks. Someone didn't pay their phone bill I guess.

I would be wanting to use it in NZ on GSM networks, Skinny or 2degrees. I don't care about US or any other CDMA networks.

I have the IMEI #, which reports via various checkers
- Vodafone -> AMT, ok
- Skinny, ok
- Spark, ok
- 2degrees txt "check #" to 255, claims IMEI is invalid and should be 15 characters (it is)
- TCF, cannot check because their site cocks out.

There are some old threads on GZ re this topic but mostly apply to old Telecom CDMA so unhelpful.

Any reason this won't work? Anyone with prior experience?