Testing cell phone messaging Australia to USA

[Jane Herbert]

Hi guys... I was wondering if someone who has a cell phone which is not barred from receiving international messages might be able to PM me at ausstorm@gmail.com with their number - I need to test our Australian cell phone but the friend's numbers that we have tried to message to seem to be blocked from receiving messages from o/s...and the carrier in Australia thinks that the problem is not my phone... (and I think it is)

a million thanks!!

Hopefully we trip over some of you under a meso somewhere during April & May this year.


Jane

 

[Matt Tottle]

Wish I could help, but I put an international block on my phone. Your friends may have a similar block or their carrier may block international by default and they would have to opt in to receive them. This is because with international texts, the RECIPIENT gets charged for each incoming. They are a separate line-item charge that is not included in your text plan, and there is no way to reject/ignore an incoming text. I put the block on because one day I started getting spam texts from international numbers. I have a call blocking app, and I simply blacklisted the prefix 011 and that put an end to it.. Or so I thought. I got spammed over 150 times that first month (I have unlimited text, so what did I care), and when my bill came I found that I had been charged something like $40 extra for spam simply being sent to my number. That's when I found out that you get charged for INCOMING international texts and blew a gasket at Sprint for allowing it to happen. They apologized, reversed the charges, and blocked international access. So yeah ask your friends if they have anything like that.

 

[Jane Herbert]

Thanks Matt - that might explain it!!!!

 

[Austin Marti]

I have a Google Voice number. You can feel free to text it if you'd like. I'll PM it to you.

 

[STexan]

Could you not implement a "Messenger" of "Facebook" app on your phones and "text" that way free (leveraging the web data portion). But I understand if you're trying to work with some "automated texting" app.

 

[Jane Herbert]

We're actually trying to make sure that we can use our iPhone purely as an emergency contact points between arriving in the country and getting a US cell phone.......have tried an unlockec number (thanks Austin!!), but the problem remains the same....I think it's because as you type the number into the iPhone it puts brackets around the area code..ok with phonecalls but I think that's what's stuffing the text messaging because the phone doesn't recognise the ( and )....