That does not work from my experience. I tried to create a member from a number that didn't exist (#1028) using the account info from member #50xx (my bro's friend, wanted to have an earlier member#).
I created the cgi file, copy and pasted all info from the 50xx account and edited the appropriate fields, and rebuilt the member stats. It worked at first. However, when this person was viewed in the directory, they had no post history. Additionally, they tried to login to the account the next day and was told they didn't exist. I verified this both using UBB CP and looking for the file on the server. It was gone completely.
I'm thinking possibly the UBB got confused with the lack of post history and cleared the file? I'm not sure, but Ian's directions were what I did and it didn't work out for me.
Good luck, though. Maybe it was something else
