i can't get the cheats to work. and i don't know what i am doing wrong. i've tried them, and so has my friend but they won't work.
can you help?

Look at this. That's the cheat list. There are directions in each one of them. Have you followed all of those? Are you missing a step, or doing one wrong? I'd suggest copying the cheat down and putting a checkmark after each thing it tells you to do, and do it all the way to the end.

There is a possibility that the cheats you tried to do previously were fake cheats.

cheats work for me although i don't usually use them if i can help it. They are hard to do but they are possible!