Is cricketwireless.com Safe?

I had a T-Mobile Samsung Galaxy SIII T-999 that I wanted to bring to Cricket at the recommendation of a family member so I went on the website where it said "bring your phone" and I typed in my phones IMEI number to see if it was compatible with tricket, Cricket said everything was okay and that my phone was compatible with their company. I placed my order with cricket for a micro sim and the first $40 for the first month of service. Once I received the sim card from cricket and put it into my T-Mobile Samsung Galaxy S3 that they said was "compatible" and cleared to work on their company the phone asked me to enter a Network Unlock Pin in order to work on Cricket so i contacted T-mobile to try to get an unlock code but T-Mobile said that you can only request an unlock code if you have an active account with T-Mobile. Now I already paid the $40 for the first month which is non-refundable, paid $10 for a sim card, and my phone isnt compatible with Cricket even after their website said that I could use my phone on their network.