I am among, what seems like, several others who are unable to register a phone number with my Battle.Net account. It is NOT a prepaid phone/phone number. It is a number I’ve had for over 15 years. This number was established in the US and has a US area code associated with it. It’s a number currently under a Cricket Wireless family plan. This seems as if it’s an issue between Blizzard and Cricket. Can we get any sort of confirmation about this? Do I need to open a Blizzard support ticket for this issue? Is this an issue that can be fixed or are we Cricket users just plum out of luck?
Addendum: I have verified that my phone number is NOT associated with another (secondary) blizzard account. I have NEVER assigned my phone number with any blizzard account ever.
I also have a Google voice phone number, but this number also receives the “Invalid Number” error upon entering. This doesn’t surprise me, as I can see how this probably falls under something more of a VoIP number. But just for clarity, I’ve tried the 'ol Google phone number thing as well.
64 Likes
Same problem here. I opened a support ticket a couple days ago and the answer is basically we’re screwed unless we somehow use a mobile number other than Cricket. They said Cricket’s numbers are registered as pre-paid numbers even though they aren’t. I’m sure Blizzard could make an exception for Crickets block of numbers, but sounds like they don’t want to. If enough people open tickets, maybe they will.
Thank you so very much for contacting us regarding this situation. It is an issue we are aware of at the moment.
So you wanted to link a Cricket mobile number into your account.
The things is , apparently, Cricket mobile numbers aren’t usable in this situation, as they have never worked with our SMS system as their block of numbers are registered as prepaid numbers.
The only solution is to link a different phone number, one that is not pre-paid nor has anything related to Cricket( different operator).
Here is a link with an article explaining this situation :
I hope i was able to enlighten you in this regard. The solution would be to get a different mobile number. We here at Costumer support cannot bypass this.
Sincerely,
Game Master Datasray
8 Likes
Thank you for replying and telling your story. I’m going to rephrase - make a new feedback post now that we know that this is a blizzard problem and something that they have to change. Recommending the customer to buy a new phone through a different network shouldn’t be a solution that they’re ok with giving.
33 Likes
Blizzard says that prepaid numbers are not accepted. Now, where are you going to find a company selling a non-prepaid phone plan? Well in 2020 all major competitive company’s have switched to prepaid. Yes you heard that correctly, companies like AT&T and Verizon dropped their contracts in favor of prepaid plans. Which would technically mean no phone number works now because everyone switched to prepaid. Smart move Blizzard.
34 Likes
Same exact problem here. Cricket number. Registered to US. No hyphens etc. Very frustrating and the rote copy & paste reply from Blizzard is pathetic.
15 Likes
I chatted live with Blizzard about this problem and they act like it’s Cricket’s fault. And now that I’ve let Cricket know of the problem, they blame Blizzard. Seeing as how my phone number works for literally any other site on the planet, I have to go with “it’s a Blizzard problem.”
50 Likes
It’s some serious bullsh*t is what I’m hearing.
16 Likes
yep same problem here …i have cricket and tried for days to get it to work and got nothing …but if at&t works why dont cricket they are a sister company from at&t …and anyway hackers still get around it and mess the game up … your letting them in why not drop it so everyone can play…i play from my xbox but i want it on pc
10 Likes
Add me to the list of gamers bit by Blizzard’s decision to not even attempt to verify my Cricket Wireless phone number. I have had the number for over six years now.
I even tried using the Blizzard Authentication app and telling it to authenticate every logon with my account. No joy.
I understand that Blizzard wants to keep one gamer from opening multiple dummy accounts, but denying every member of Cricket Nation is not the solution.
After much consideration, I have found the solution. If my choice in wireless providers is not good enough for Blizzard Entertainment, then Blizzard Entertainment / “Call of Duty” is not worth my time or money. Farewell.
25 Likes
Just came back to see if anything changed.
If any fellow cricket users here (or others who want to have pity on us) want to try to do anything. Go to the link that RomrStompr linked to here Receiving Error When Adding Phone Number (Pre-paid number not usable) - Blizzard Support
Under the “Is this helpful…” thing, click No and select “I’m frustrated with Blizzard’s policies…” Maybe they’ll listen if they get enough negative feedback on this. … Probably not (it’s pretty clear they don’t care at this point), but hey why not shrug
8 Likes
Had i known this, I wouldn’t have removed my old phone number. Here I sit screwed too!
7 Likes
So basically change your phone provider just for blizzard right because no effort is being put to fixing this problem and the responsibility is on the customer to fix the problem.
12 Likes
Chiming in. I had to go through live chat and they told me this… WHY BLIZ, saving money on my phone bill should not constitute being unable to enter the top500 in overwatch. Why do you think so? Don’t you think that boosters will find some other way to cheat the system? Plz remove cricket off of your blocked numbers list. Or find a new phone data info provider that doesn’t allow for sh*t data to accumulate into your database… You guys are better than this… Plz thx.
7 Likes
It must be a block of numbers associated with a certain region. When I had an east coast number with cricket I didn’t have any problems adding my old phone number to sms protect or authenticator. But, as soon as I moved to the west coast and changed my number to a west coast area code, my phone number is blocked as a pre-paid.
Sounds like Blizzard just wants you to jump on Spectrum Phone or Verizon.
4 Likes
So, basically no fix? Other than getting another number? Shame.
7 Likes
same issue in indiana and have cricket and im not paying 100$ more for a plan just to play a game… guess blizzard won’t be getting my money anymore… i can use my number on ANY other site that uses mobile authenticator and my number is my same number for the last 10 years… sad that i see all these comments and im assuming 100’s of thousands of support tickets! blizzard come on step your game up…
6 Likes
This has nothing to do with the actual phone numbers. I got 4 numbers from AT&T, and used one of them to create a free blizz account. Then I switched over to Cricket to save a &$(k!#@ $&!t ton of money in a year, and my free account STILL WORKS. They JUST SENT ME A TEXT on it so I could log in and add this reply. However, I cannot use the SAME NUMBERS I GOT FROM AT&T to create a new account. It has nothing to do with the numbers. They’re blocking Cricket as a provider because they think only cheap @$S losers use cricket and they know cheap @S$ losers will never buy games from them. It’s Social Profiling, not blocking scammers.
End result? I can only play Warzone with one of my sons, because he created his account before they wanted phone numbers, and I created my account before I switched to Cricket.
Blizz, when you screw people over, you get screwed too. It should matter enough to you to care. But it clearly doesn’t. And being frugal is not the same as being a Cheap A$$.
16 Likes
Exact same issue here. Number on AT&T for years, switch over to cricket with same number, Number Is Invalid. This is genuinely baffling as to why their policy would be this way.
8 Likes
Looks like they’ve had this problem for over 3 months now and they still arent bothering to fix it.
Whoever made the decision is a hack
If you dont consider cricket mobile to be a real phone company then blizzard isnt a real game company (because obviously only nintendo, sony and microsoft count 
)
12 Likes
so your telling me that I can’t play the game I bought because I don’t own a damn phone number you don’t accept?!? complete and utter bullcrap, your company you work under, and they staff, and the head, are what and why people are beginning to realize that companies that get big suck, and suck hard, I remember a time when this “giant” was a team of devs making super Nintendo games and now as time went on they ruin the whole branch with bullcrap like this!?! wow, just… wow your work and the work of your company is pathetic and the definition of stupidity…
9 Likes