Balance expired on my 3G pre-paid phone, it is now disconnected. How do I re-up the balance?

Your number is gone and your balance is gone. 

This post makes absolutely no sense

Have we time warped a year into the past? 

This is the sort of question that would have been really important in the beginning of 2022.

If you have not used service in a year, if you have not upgraded your 3g only phone to one that is capable of LTE, it is likely your account was closed no later than  May of 2022, and any balance forfeit.

If this is a business phone and number what have you been doing with it for the past year? Clearly you haven't been in business or using this phone for business for a loooooong time. 

AT&T requested people replace their phones and was even sending out free phones as far back as 2021. Where Have You Been for nearly 2 years? 

@Constructive  Where does the phone number go?  Does it go back to a list AT&T will use or into some pool all companies select numbers from?  From my research on this forum it seems to be released after 60 days but where to? 

@formerlyknownas  To explain my situation, this is one of my business lines which I have been using less frequently for texting only as I have an other numbers that are front facing / advertised for my business.  It's the number I started the business with when I had no money, hence prepaid.  Unfortunately due to the holidays I completely forgot about renewing the balance and here we are.

I had no communication from ATT, text or otherwise that free phones were being given out, that would have been great.  This was a phone that I picked up for like $2 on clearance somewhere and had the ATT store provide me with a sim card / register the phone.

Despite 3G phone calls being terminated, I was still able to receive texts right up into December.  Since I did not make calls with the phone I didn't realize 3G was being shut down since texts worked fine.  Not even a text from ATT that balance will expire, that would be nice. I would have updated my phone had I known but I also did not create an online account which is where they might have contacted me via email as well.  Since the balance is expired, the phone wont even send texts now, which appears to be the only way to add a balance. 

A folly of errors lol, it's not the end of the world, I would just like to have the number back.   Do you know where phone numbers go or how they are recycled?

Where does the phone number go?

Presuming the number originally belonged to ATT, it simply goes back into the pool of numbers to be assigned to a new line. If the number originally came from a different carrier, it goes back to that carrier. Unfortunately, there is no way for prepaid to request a specific number. When exactly did your balance expire? You have or had 60 days to refill your account before the number is lost. If you were still receiving texts in December, it would seem you are still within 60 days and your number has not been lost yet.

If that line had been regularly active it would have received a text message stating that service would be terminated because the Advent of 5G meant the end of 3G. AT&T started sending out emails if there was an email connected to the account in summer of 2020. Emails and text messages continued through 2021 and into the beginning of 2022.

Service on that line should have been terminated no later than May of last year. Again, notice either email, text message, or both should have notified you.

If you ignored a message about 5G that didn't seem to affect you 3G phone that was a mistake because it did.

Once service was terminated, the phone number goes back to the original carrier. If that was AT&T then AT&T has the number and has probably reassigned it to someone else.

Because it is prepaid (and it's been 6 months)  there is no record of the account whatsoever

Highly unlikely you'll be able to recoup the number

@sandblaster I was receiving texts until December 20 2022, then I had to travel, Holidays, etc.   After searching through the phone texts just now, I found a message where I checked my balance and the last day was Dec 22, so 60 days from that is Feb 20.  It was an AT&T number as that's the number I selected from a list of numbers provided at the store.  

My concern is, even though I am within the 60 day grace period, how will I prove to the store that I am the owner of the phone?  It was registered to some random persons name albeit with my business.  So it's not officially a business account just a prepaid account. I have the receipts when the account was activated, is that enough to add balance?

@formerlyknownas If I can't add balance after visiting my local AT&T store tomorrow, my plan is to wait out the 60 days and go to an AT&T store the morning of 2/20.  Maybe the number will show up on a list of available phone numbers?  It's a long shot but it's all I've got.

Numbers are randomly selected. The odds of you getting that number back are close to zero. 

@Constructive   I can swear that they gave me a small list of numbers, maybe like 5 to select from, so maybe they could expand a search?  This was in 2018 IIRC, so maybe the system has changed by now. 

They are randomly generated. 

Why do you need to go to a store? Can you not still log into your account? If you can access your account, you can refill it.