dude...yes, you have to have a cricket account before you can give them the esn...you can just call them and setup an account over the tele...then set you min, mdn, & sid mannually and then try the *228xx code...if that doesn't work, then you can try setting your min and mdn to six zeros and the last four of your dec esn (0000001234)...your sid neeRAB to be correct in either circumstance.