Razr a no-go in Europe?

I've just returned from 4 months in Holland. Before I left, I purchased an unlocked Motorola V3 quad band. Upon arriving in Holland and inserting the sim card I had purchased, no signal. The helpful phone shop guy tried several other cards to no avail. I ended up having to buy a different phone. He said he had heard that these phones wouldn't work in Europe despite being quad band GSM. Was he just blowing smoke or do these things really not work as advertised?

Don