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Texts Are Going to a Different Person

josephruberto
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

I have had this problem off and on ever since I switched to Public Mobile where sometimes people try to text me and it goes to a different person. It shows up on people's phones within the same text conversation that I have received the message but, if they are using an iPhone, the conversation begins showing up as an iMessage conversation, even though I have an Android, and sometimes the other person responds. Also, my number begins getting registered for iMessage and I have to deregister it, and I begin getting messages from WhatsApp and other apps saying that my phone number is trying to be registered on a new device. In addition to all of this, I get messages on WhatsApp while this is happening from random women asking if I can help them with immigration...I have had Public Mobile reset my network in the past and it fixed the problem for a few months, but I can't keep having this happen. Do I need to change my number to solve the issue? Will that even solve the problem? Should I leave Public Mobile because of how ridiculous this whole situation has been? I'd love to hear other people's thoughts and if anyone has had similar experiences and been able to figure out a solution. 

48 REPLIES 48

josephruberto
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

Thanks for the reply and for reaching out to Tiana on my behalf! Tiana did reach out to me, so I hope this will be fixed soon. Also, I will definitely go to the CCTS if the issue is not solved.


@computergeek541 wrote:

@Tiana_V  @J_PM :

I feel that this is a situation that needs to be escalated.  


Thanks for flagging. I am discussing options with the team and will reach out to @josephruberto 


@josephruberto wrote:

This was part of the cs_agent's response to my escalation request:

Unfortunately, the answer is NO, we won't be able to contact Freedom Mobile on your behalf.

 

Also, keep in mind that at this point, is not just about your phone number, is used by someone else, so, no they won't disconnect a customer just because. There must be a formal request, an investigation, and a way to prove who is the owner of the phone number to determine the actions to take.

 

There 2 different customers affected on 2 different companies.

 

That is the reason why I'm telling you is a complex scenario. And trust me, is out of our scope. 


That is an unacceptable response, and I don't see it as complex at all.  As I was saying, I had a carrier accidently assign my number to someone else (in my case it was Telus accidently assinging my phone number to another customer when I was at a different carrrier).  Telus gave me a phone call and it took them all of about 30 seconds to determine what happened and Telus apologized to me and immedately corrected the issue.    This is a case of each carrier blaming the other and that doesn't surprise me, but there is one thing though - You are Public Mobile's customer. They (Public) absolutely does need to get this fixed for you. The frustrating part is that this is an extremely simple fix.  Freedom Mobile needs to assign the customer that they incorrectly gave the phone number to a new number.  While that part needs to be done by Freedom, it's Public Mobile that needs to be in communication with Freedom on your behalf as this is something that affects your Public Mobile service.  Telus has a department that they have called DNA. This department needs to co-ordinate with the equivalent department at Freedom. They will be able to understand that and will be very easily be able to dertamine that the number is now assigned to Telus (and not Freedom).  It's a simple database lookup.  This is a matter of the two companies needing to co-operate with each other.

 

@Tiana_V  @J_PM :

I feel that this is a situation that needs to be escalated.  

 

@josephruberto :

I do suspect that Freedom's customer is going to soon start complaining about not receiving incoming calls, and this issue might fix itself for you, but Public Mobile shouldn't be washing their hands of this.  If you're unable to get results, going to CCTS will be your next step.

@josephruberto   Wow...what a mess! 

 

I think for now you should push Freedom Mobile to investigate and also, perhaps, mention that you might have no alternative but to file a police report if they're not willing to investigate.

 

I would also file a report with BBB and report both PM and FM for not assisting you to get to the bottom of how this could have happened.

 

 

definitely an odd scenario... if freedom or PM doesn't want to help. maybe you should talk to a lawyer for some legal advice. if a lawyer knows they can make money off your case they will take it. that's huge security issue. it's either Cops or a lawyer. I'm sure you can easily prove that you've had this number for years

josephruberto
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

This was part of the cs_agent's response to my escalation request:

Unfortunately, the answer is NO, we won't be able to contact Freedom Mobile on your behalf.

 

Also, keep in mind that at this point, is not just about your phone number, is used by someone else, so, no they won't disconnect a customer just because. There must be a formal request, an investigation, and a way to prove who is the owner of the phone number to determine the actions to take.

 

There 2 different customers affected on 2 different companies.

 

That is the reason why I'm telling you is a complex scenario. And trust me, is out of our scope. 

josephruberto
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

I have contacted Freedom myself, I was just hoping that PM could apply some assistance with this situation as well. Also, thanks for the suggestion! I will try to escalate this issue.


@josephruberto wrote:

The cs_agent just told me that it's my problem and that they won't do anything to make Freedom deactivate the number...exact quotes:

"I am afraid that we won't be able to interfere with Freedom Mobile if they have assigned your phone number to another customer"

"If you previously were with Freedom Mobile, you must contact them, and verify that you were the owner of this phone number prior to the other customer who is currently using it with them"


@josephruberto   this is a sticky situation.

 

I do agree you should be the one contacting Freedom on that

 

However, you might want to reply CS agent by asking them to escalate to senior support to review the case.  Freedom might need some proof that this number is now "owned" by PM and this is something PM has to provide them instead

 

josephruberto
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

The cs_agent just told me that it's my problem and that they won't do anything to make Freedom deactivate the number...exact quotes:

"I am afraid that we won't be able to interfere with Freedom Mobile if they have assigned your phone number to another customer"

"If you previously were with Freedom Mobile, you must contact them, and verify that you were the owner of this phone number prior to the other customer who is currently using it with them"

josephruberto
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

I confirmed the transfer through text, but I don't have a record of it

Fight for it. It might have been before the text confirmation days so how did you confirm the transfer? If this was after the text confirmation then do you still have record of that?

josephruberto
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

I've been with Public for over 2 years now. I always thought of this as a Public Mobile problem, so I've only tried to fix the issue with them. It's only recently that I thought that this could be a Freedom issue and I'm beginning to pressure them to fix it.

@computergeek541- I agree. It just intrigues me so I used the word wrinkle for that factor of the story that the OP can de-register the number on the Apple server and then things work again. Then obviously whoever has the number at Freedom re-registers and around it goes again. It's a stupid mess that Freedom needs to clean up on behalf of the rightful owner of the number...our OP....if all the proper actions were done by all parties when porting.


@dust2dust wrote:

This is quite a story what with the Apple wrinkle. How long have you been here? I think you need to be more insistent in getting Freedom to undo the number that was given to the other customer. You would have the record of having ported the number out successfully. Then a period of time passed. Then Freedom up and gave the number to another customer. That's on them to fix. You might need to end up going to the CCTS on them. You "own" your number. If you successfully ported out and the old sim and account is dead then you've done what you're supposed to do and the company did what it was supposed to do... at the time.

If there was a porting problem then maybe they have an argument. Maybe they think you abandoned your number. Which is why I asked how long you've been here.


I'm not entirely sure that the Apple and iMessage is the main factor here. I could see a number being linked to an iMessage account created by someone else, but that doesn't explain why Freedom has a record of someone activating/using the same phone number.  That's seperate from iMessages services and why I beleieve that Freedom gave the phone number out again in error.

josephruberto
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

I hope that the cs_agents will be willing to put pressure on Freedom for me. We'll see!

This is quite a story what with the Apple wrinkle. How long have you been here? I think you need to be more insistent in getting Freedom to undo the number that was given to the other customer. You would have the record of having ported the number out successfully. Then a period of time passed. Then Freedom up and gave the number to another customer. That's on them to fix. You might need to end up going to the CCTS on them. You "own" your number. If you successfully ported out and the old sim and account is dead then you've done what you're supposed to do and the company did what it was supposed to do... at the time.

If there was a porting problem then maybe they have an argument. Maybe they think you abandoned your number. Which is why I asked how long you've been here.


@josephruberto wrote:

I have had this number for 10+ years and brought it with me when I switched from Freedom to Public Mobile. How can the other person be contacted to change their number?


You're probably not going to need to anythng on your own. The other person at Freedom who has been given this phone number won't be able to receive calls and text messages because they'll be sent to you.  The only way Freedom is going to be able to fix tht person's service is to change the phone number.  All you can really do is apply pressure on Freedom, but really you're Public Mobile's customer, so Public Mobile's customer support agents should be contacting Freedom on your behalf to inform Freedom that that have mistaken assigned a phone number that is already in use (and has been ported over to Public Mobile).  Many years, ago Telus made the same mistake and assigned my phone number to a new customer.  They had no chocie but to give the other person a new phone number.

josephruberto
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

I have had this number for 10+ years and brought it with me when I switched from Freedom to Public Mobile. How can the other person be contacted to change their number?


@josephruberto wrote:

Update: I just contacted Freedom and there is an account on their network that is connected to my phone number, but they couldn't give me any of the person's details due to privacy. I also called Apple Support and there is an Apple ID under my phone number that is not registered to me. Thus, there is someone on the Freedom network who is using my phone number on an iPhone. Apple suggested trying to get in contact with the other person by calling my own number (it just went to my inbox) or going to the police in case this is someone trying to commit fraud. Freedom basically said they can do nothing and all I can really do is change my number, which I want to avoid if I can. Does anyone have any suggestions? Also, should I even get the police involved if there is no definitive proof of fraudulent activity?


I believe that a more likely explanation is that a carrier accidently assigned your phone number to another customer.  This has happened before and in all cases, the person who got assigned the phone number by mistake must change the phone number.  There's no reason to contact the police. This is a cellular service provider issue.

josephruberto
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

Update: I just contacted Freedom and there is an account on their network that is connected to my phone number, but they couldn't give me any of the person's details due to privacy. I also called Apple Support and there is an Apple ID under my phone number that is not registered to me. Thus, there is someone on the Freedom network who is using my phone number on an iPhone. Apple suggested trying to get in contact with the other person by calling my own number (it just went to my inbox) or going to the police in case this is someone trying to commit fraud. Freedom basically said they can do nothing and all I can really do is change my number, which I want to avoid if I can. Does anyone have any suggestions? Also, should I even get the police involved if there is no definitive proof of fraudulent activity?

josephruberto
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

Yeah, I am going to reach out to Apple and see if they can fix the problem. Also, whenever I deregister my number it gets re-registered


@josephruberto wrote:

It switches from regular message to iMessage within the phone conversation on their phone. That's how they've recognized that something is wrong


Morning @josephruberto 

 

it's an iPhone/Apple problem, not PM 

 

Did you try to use the link I provided earlier to deregister the iMessage for that phone number?

https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/forums/recentpostspage/

 

If you still have trouble, I think you can go to Apple store and seek help even you are not using an Apple.  They should help to clean up their "mess"  

josephruberto
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

It switches from regular message to iMessage within the phone conversation on their phone. That's how they've recognized that something is wrong

@josephruberto 

I did a little more digging around for you and it seems this has also happened to other people. so the notion is maybe before you acquired that phone number 10 years ago someone had it linked to an iPhone at some point. it still doesn't make sense that they are linking your number to WhatsApp. I'm still thinking there is some sort of fraud that's trying to be accomplished 

 

I would buy a cheap iPhone(6 and newer) so that you can register an apple id and your phone number to iMessage. and then delete the number. also ask your friends with iPhones to delete the conversation and your contact id off of their phone. this should delete the cached messages from the apple servers and hopefully it stops sending to that other person. but, create an apple id and iMessage first. otherwise talk to apple support as @hTideGnow mentioned

@josephruberto   your friend sending via iMessage?  Ask your friend what colour of the text is that, it can tell exactly if it is iMessage or just SMS text

 

if they send you via iMessage, it will be an Apple issue

 

@josephruberto 

I agree, neither would I. I would call Telus and the police to try and figure it out.

josephruberto
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

Yeah, I'm trying to take it seriously and figure it out but the cs_agents have no idea what the problem is or how to fix it...I don't know if it's a Public Mobile problem, a SIM problem or a phone number problem, and I don't want to change the number I've had for 10 years if there's no guarantee it will change anything

@josephruberto  

oh okay. I was thinking your sim was cloned from the representative. the thing is one needs to have a sim with that phone number to activate iMessage. so either someone somewhere ended up cloning that sim at some point or PM gave your number to another customer and the cs_agents aren't qualified to figure this out. that's a pretty scary scenario you're experiencing. idk man, I wouldn't brush it off as nothing

josephruberto
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

It was through self-activation

@josephruberto 

when you joined public mobile was it through self activation or did a store activate it for you?

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