Prepping Classic To Sell - How To Remove Blackberry ID?

I am getting ready to sell my Classic (Verizon) and have heard some horror stories about permanently locked devices if this isn't done properly. I have done the security wipe, but the device still wants to be associated with my blackberry ID (after the wipe, message said that anti-theft was on and made me log in with my blackberry ID). I've gone to Blackberry Protect and when I first tap, I receive this message: Blackberry Protect Unavailable - unable to connect to the blackberry protect service. Please try again later. I hit 'cancel', and it shows me the Blackberry Protect screen, indicating that the service is disabled. Not sure why it tells me anti-theft is active...

Does anyone have experience with this, or know precisely how I should go about this so that the next user can start fresh?

Thanks in advance.

you need to disable bb protect first then wipe the phone