Help with Tracfone after trying transfer number from lost phone to new one

So my boyfriend lost his Tracfone last...march or april...(he's in jail right now)

In January I got him a new phone and tried to transfer the old number to the new phone, because he really has his heart set on keeping his phone number. (I had not activated this phone yet or anything before having the man transferring it.) Something went wrong I guess because I was never able to make a call.

After a few days, I called again was sent a new sim card. When I got the sim card I called them to activate it (making it clear I wanted to keep the original account's phone number, and she told me it would be the same) and after an hour the phone worked, but with a completey DIFFERENT phone number.

So once AGAIN I called for assistance and after an hour of waiting she ends up telling me that the original number is unavailable. I know no one else has it. When I put the original card that came with this phone (that the number was originally tranferred to) in, the "this phone number" area still says my original phone number, could this be why they said it's unavailable? Because it's still linked to that sim card?

A couple of weeks ago I opted to e-mail (I thought I could explain the situation better by writing it) and once again I was sent a new sim card.

Tonight I bought him a new tracfone. I have not done anything with that last new sim card they sent me, and I'm not sure which action I should take now.

Is that new sim card they sent me linked to the original phone number that I wanted (or did they just send me some random new sim card)? Should I try to put it in the new phone? Or activate it or something?

Pretty much the most important thing is that he keeps his original phone number at all costs.

 

You may be out of luck trying to keep the original phone number. I tried doing that as my old Tracfone was analog (Nokia 5125) and wanted to transfer the original number to my new phone (Nokia 2126). They told me that it cannot be done as it has to do with the phone's serial number. I gave up on Tracfone and went ot a contracted phone service. Too much hassle in getting the airtime to show up on my phone.