So thanks to you guys I’ve checked the IMEI and it says the phone IS blacklisted, although not why. My fear was that the seller was trying to scam me even though he has over 2000 positive reviews but it seems like he’s not lying. So unless there’s another way he can be scamming me I’m just going to refund them and then just smash this thing into pieces out of annoyance. 😂

Thanks for the help everyone.