many times people will sell their phones on craigslist and then call their phone company and list the phone as stolen or lost. then they get a new phone through insurance plan. the buyer of the phone gets screwed. i bought my phone from a guy who met me in a ATT store. we made sure the esn was clean. in any case, I didn't care if the phone was blacklisted or not because I was going to use it on claro, dominiana in dominican republic. paid 25 dollars to get the code (ebay) to get the phone unlocked. if the phone is still on android 4.1.1 then the phone can be unlocked free via patching the modem. In your case, you will certainly have the phone on 4.4.2 (NC2) or MJ5 (bootloader). this will make the modem impossible to patch or get the software to be down graded. your best bet is to contact ebay and buy a code for your phone based on your IMEI number.
then if you come to santo domingo, come visit me and I will make that phone from good to perfect and turn it, into international version. then you will not settle for any other phone.
AZB