TracFone Roaming (not)
 

My wife is a limited cellphone user, so for the past year or so she's had a TracFone prepaid cellphone. An annual card works out to 8 or 9 dollars per month.

We're in Dallas this week, and her TracFone shows no service! I checked TracFone's coverage map and Dallas is definitely within the coverage area. Am I missing something obvious? I think at home Tracfone uses the Verizon network, if that makes any difference...

Call customer service and get it sorted out. Tracfone are notoriously sloppy when getting accounts to work of the different networks used by Tracfone. It took them two days to activate an account for me and it was another day before people from outside Cleveland could call me. If Dallas is a different network, then data pertinent to your wife's account will be missing off a switch (probably no phone registered where you live will work there at the moment - not uncommon - it even happens in the happy global world of GSM).

Yeah, I started a trouble ticket via their website -- looks like there might not be anyone staffing the desk over the weekend.

I'm wondering whether there's something like a Preferred Roaming List that's supposed to be kept up-to-date on the phone. I know that you have to periodically enter some code into Verizon cellphones to keep the PRL up to date and as I said it's my understanding that TracFone uses Verizon, at least in my home region. There isn't any indication on TracFone's website that you have to do anything similar to that, though.