Sim inserted but no service

So what happened was, I wanted to use my old Pantech Vybe for my daughter, so I contact Tracphone because I needed it to be unlocked for a different carrier. But the problem is they cannot authenticate me. I bought a sim and redeemable card at Best buy in april. The plan lasted till july. We hardly used the phone. So a month went by and I turned on the phone to see if it still worked, and I had no serive. No biggie, but I was !#^&@@ because it said I had till July till I needed to refill. So now I want to go to a new carrier and they wanted the last most called or texted #'s in the last 60 days. We didn't use the phone in the last 60 to produce what they needed. I had no service so they couldn't send me a text with a code, even though I had tracphones sim in. So I thought I would pay for the cheapest service to get a code texted to me, but that didn't even get me service. So now I am out a phone and $9.99 because they cannot authenticate me. No matter I cannot get service on my Pantech Vybe

In the UK if the sim is unused for a length of time they cut it off so it no longer works. Not sure if they do the same where you are