THE SIM CARD INSERTED IN THIS IPHONE DOES NOT APPEAR TO BE SUPPORTED.....

Question

Hello. I bought on Dec. 17th 2007 at Orange shop in Beausoleil (south France) an iPhone with the option of unlocking the Sim (100 Euro plus). I followed all instructions. Everything was perfect, on Dec. 24th I was able to unlock the iPhone and used with Orange sim, MonacoTelecom sim and Vodafone sim. BUT the iPhone had a problem: when in sleep mode it did't received calls. So Afer 24 hours I stopped to use, UNSAFE. After Christmas holidays I called Apple assistance, they send me UPS and I returned iPhone to Apple (Jan. 4th 2008). I received a NEW iPhone on Jan. 8th 2008, VERY RUSH. Perfect service, I thought (...making terrible error...). The iPhone was LOCKED and I wasn't able to use. Now starts all the problems and for this reason I'm writing.
I called Apple and Orange many times. Orange didn't received the documents from Apple for the changing of IMEI and Serial, for them I had the first iPhone. After many cals finally I asked Apple to send something official for the changing.
....Days goes on and on.......
Every day two times I called Orange, but evert time I received different versions of my situation. Everyday I tried to restore the iPhone but still simlocked.
On Jan.15th after a meeting with a lawyer I decided to make pression to Apple: infact I returned them an unlocked iPhone and I received back a locked one.
I finally was able to speak with a "supervisor" (Mr. F...) and he tried to solve the problem.
On Jan. 16th I spoke with another "supervisor" (Mr. J...) and he told me to make another time the restore, because they changed the firmware.
From now I tried to make the restore many times with Orange sim. Everything seems to go well but when I put another sim on iTunes there is a white page with:
"THE SIM CARD INSERTED IN THIS IPHONE DOES NOT APPEAR TO BE SUPPORTED. Only compatible SIM cards from a supported Carrier may be used to activate iPhone. Please etc etc....".
So the iphone is locked!!! Maybe is country locked, I don't know.
Incredible, unbelievable.
From Apple they told me to wait someting from US, but until now ..... nothing, I received no news from Apple.
The bad situation is that after more than 30 days after the buy I am not able to use the hardware I bought!
I hope that someone from Apple can read this post (sorry if is so long, but with this details I think that in Apple can understand the problem).
I send in warranty an hardware with certain features that I payed to Apple and I received back it with different features.
That's not serious.
After many days, next week I think to go by legal means if Apple France is'nt able to solve the issue.
Many thanks if someone from Apple read my post.
Many thanks if someone help me.

Answer 1

But who has to make another unlock? Orange told me that for them is ok and the phone is unlocked. I read on other pages that Apple has a world-database with Imei numbers. So seems Apple can also do the unlock, even for the fact that they returned me a locked phone, different from the one I sent them. The warranty is with Apple, I forgot to warite in my first post that first of all on Janauary I went to Orange shop where I bought the iPhone but they told me for every problem is Apple that has to solve.