Help! Can't receive Text Messages from any carrier but Sprint

[stormie070401]

Bought a new phone at the Sprint store on Sunday. It's a Sprint brand picture phone, but I'm not sure of the model number as I can't find it on their web site. It was $80 after new customer rebate.

Anyway, we signed up for the unlimited text messaging service, but we have not been able to receive text messages from users of any other carrier except Sprint. We can receive from Sprint users and can send to seemingly anyone.

Anyone experience the same or any ideas on how to troubleshoot?

The people at Sprint have no idea what's going wrong. They say they don't see any messages arriving to that number at all and are blaming the other carriers (like three other carriers might all coincidently have the same problem...hmmm...)

Help! This is for my daughter's phone, and she's in High School...if not fixed soon, things are going to be very difficult at my house... :eyeroll:

Thanks!

[DF@Work]

I assume this is a new line? (Not ported from another carrier?) I wonder if the SMS block may still be enabled and hasn't been released properly or someone was using the old # previously as a spamming tool. (never seen thathappen either). How about the rest of the lines on the account? (Yours?)

[stormie070401]

Yes, this is a new line added on to my account, and we did not port the number over from another service; Sprint generated it for us. I can receive text messages from outside carriers on MY Sprint Sanyo 8100. We had my daugher's friend, from whom she can't receive text messages, text message me as a test. I received it immediately.

Interestingly, I noticed a NEW NUMBER attached to my account suddenly this morning. It's listed as an Add-A-Phone number for $0 per month. The interesting thing is that it has the same exchange as my daughter's phone number. Something funny is going on. Yesterday I noticed my service options had totally been changed. I straightened that out, and now this. I doubt this is related to the text messaging problem, but who knows? Weird!

In any event, is there something I can/should ask Sprint to do? Maybe I should request a new number or for them to reset the "such-and-such" (SMS block?) -- I'm just not sure what things are called or what to ask for, and when I call to explain the problem to tech support at Sprint, they seem to have no clue...

In fact, when I called yesterday, the first person I spoke to said, "Yes, I can help you. I can cancel your text messaging completely." I'm like -- okay, no, that's exactly the opposite of what I just asked for...too weird.

Thanks for any clues you can provide!

[pcstech]

Sounds like you may be listed wrong at the Intercarrier messaging gateway. If that number was previously a Cingular number for instance, the ICM may have not updated to Sprint, so they are sending msgs to Cingular instead.

[leslikay62963]

I too am having this exact same problem. I have been on the phone twice now with CS and keep getting put off another 24-48 hours. I can send sms out just fine and everybody gets them, but I don't get messages from anybody other than other Sprint phones. Not even Nextel!!! My daughter and I have a shared plan, so we have the exact same services, and she has no problem at all getting messages from everybody. We both had numbers we ported over from Nextel, and I had text messaging on my number when I had Nextel.

No one at CS seems to know what the problem is and I'm about to cancel my service and go elsewhere. They tried to tell me that there had to be a 1 in front of my number and I said no that is not acceptable. I can't be trying to tell people that they have to add a 1 to text me. They will think it's long distance and won't do it...

Any ideas anybody? Getting really frustrated

[leslikay62963]

Well just an update... I have now called FOUR times and have 3 trouble tickets open. They have NO IDEA what's wrong with my text messaging. I can send them out to other carriers, but I cant receive them from anybody other than sprint users. They said they are not even showing up in my Inbox in their computer system. Nobody from tech support will call me back, I have to call them. NOW the latest is they say it may not be fixable, which means I will have to switch to another carrier, and so will the other phone on my account (as we need text messaging for work) and then I guess Sprint is going to have to reimburse us for the phones we just bought.... THIS IS RIDICULOUS.....

[shaw789]

somebody help i'm reading things that have been posted from a year ago almost. i have the same problem. was this ever solved?