Expert: DebiN - 12/3/2011

Question
Hi, my Dad has had a Tracfone for several years, in September Tracfone switched their carrier to Verizon in our area.  I purchased him a new upgraded phone from our local Wal-mart 11/24/11 and had his number changed to a local number in our area and had his minutes transferred to this new phone.  The number he was given has prefix common in our area for Verizon.  The phone worked the first night when calling it from a local landline phone but the next day when calling the Tracfone number from a local landline phone it rang one time and gave message "number has been disconnected".  I was able to make calls from the Tracfone and I could even call it from my Verizon cell phone I have.  I called Tracfone and they could call the Tracfone from their 800 number but I still couldn't call it from a local landline phone without getting the disconnect message.  Customer Service has given me a ticket number and told me to wait 48 hours for their network support to look into the problem. Do you have any idea what the problem may be?  I can tell you the Verizon phones with this prefix are working fine, there is no problem calling from a local landline phone for them.

Answer
When you call the number, are you dialing the area code and number or just the 7 digits? Are you using a 1 in front of the area code? I don't know who your landline carrier is, but it's likely it's a new number that may not have gotten into the database yet. It's not about the prefix or what number is calling it. I would recommend asking Tracfone to change the number and I will bet it will work.  They may have inadvertently cancelled this number in one database but not another and it's kind of stuck in limbo. Changing the number should resolve the issue. I hope this helps.