Phone Not Recognizing Sim Card

Hi there

I have an iPhone X that is not seeing the sim card. The real problem I’m having is that the Apple online chat turned it into a brick! Before their “handiwork” at least I could use everything except the cell service!

One day the phone stopped seeing the sim card. I did the usual - turning off/on etc. Didn’t fix the problem.

I was on the online chat with Apple who assured me that the problem would be solved with a full phone reset. I did this…and you guessed it, the phone didn’t see the sim card. Not only that, but the phone now can’t be activated. It sits with the “It may take a few minutes to activate your iPhone” message for some time and then says it’s unable to activate.

Obviously I’d like to get the cell service working as well as activating the phone.

The phone has not been in water. It has a small bit of damage to the rear glass, but this was done months before the sim card problem.

My bills are of course paid and the cell service is active. This is proved by putting my sim card in another working handset and a known working sim card in my handset.

If anyone could recommend a solution, that would be great.

Thank you for your help in advance!