Why my iphone's iMessage and Facetime can't be activated?

Question

hi, I just bought an iphone4 from the Mississauga apple store two days ago, the iMessage and Facetime can't be activated, so these things are what I tried: (my SIM card matches with my iphone, have a valid carrier, and I paid my bill and have a valid phone number)
1. I connected my iphone to the wifi, and make sure it works,
2. created an account on apple store, and make sure it has been logged on,
3. logged that e-mail account that I used to creat apple account on to my iphone ---> Mail,
4. go to Settings ---> iMessage, and turned it on, and did whatever it told me to do, then it just saying:"Waiting for activation..." for 2 or 3 hours, and told me that activation failed, and the same thing goes with the Facetime.
I tried with each of them 3 times, none of them are working, so I give up, and asked my friend use to working at the ginues bar in an apple store to help me, so:
He download iTunes onto my PC, connected my iphone to my PC, and logged my apple account onto iTunes, then did the PC and iphone thing which I don't really understand, and redo what I did above, and my iMessage and Facetime still can't work, and use he's iphone to call mine with facetime, use mine to call his with facetime, none of the calls worked.
At the end, we even dialed #*5005*7672# to check the SMS service centre number.
***BTW, I CANNOT even send text messages to my friends, I can only call them.
Is there anything else I can try to make the iMessage and facetime working? Or should I just go to the store and ask for an exchange or refund?
T_T, I just can't believe I can't even send out text messages with the iphone which even the unsmart phones can do.
Help me, plzzzzzz
Kate

Answer 1

Hey Bogdannae,
Thanks for using Apple Support Communities.
You might need to user recovery mode since it is staying at the Apple logo.
If you can't update or restore your iOS device
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1808
Have a nice day,
Mario