Locking Great

I am planning to purchase a Cricket Moto E from Walmart, and want to activate it on Cricket's $25/mo talk and text plan. From previous experience, I think Cricket's online activation wizard will complain that this phone can't be activated on the talk and text plan. I posted (not on Cell Phone Forums, but I can't remember where) about this some time ago. Someone responded and said I could take a number (IMEI, MEID, ESN, s/n?) from a basic phone at a Cricket store and use that number to activate a Cricket Moto E. My concern was that doing so would block a future buyer of the "host" phone from activating on Cricket. But the person who responded indicated this isn't the case.
So I would like to know if it is indeed possible to activate a Cricket Moto E in said manner, without affecting a future buyer of the basic phone. And which number do I need to get for activation? Or is there some other procedure to activating a Cricket Moto E on the $25/mo talk and text plan?

Thank you!