Help! My new phone keeps texting Belgium. Anyone else had this problem?

Tamzincaryl

what apps did you have?
Not many...
A few games for my kids to play: Angry birds, A kids matching game, Gems.
Facebook preloaded when I got the phone.
3g Watchdog to keep an eye on my data usage
App killer downloaded by the rep who sold me the phone to cut down on battery usage.

what were the permissions on those apps?
did any of them have 'send sms' permissions?

Can't remember precisely, but I did go through and uncheck sms permissions if that was highlighted in anything I had in my phone. I also unchecked auto updating etc as was a bit paranoid about my data usage at the start having never had a smart phone.

were any of the apps downloaded from other sources other than the android market?
No. Straight through the android app market on the phone itself.

Is it a new phone or refurbished phone or 2nd hand phone? Could the phone have been 'rooted' and apps loaded and some hidden from your view if others have used your phone?
Brand new from carphonewarehouse.

Does it have stock firmware or does it have other ROMs installed by others?
Stock firmware as far as I am concerned.


To grumbler: the 'texts' don't show up at all on my handset so can't see what the number looks like from my handset. It only shows on my orange bill. UK texts show on the bill as 44 and these ones that are causing the problem start with 32. It is the code for Belgium, so maybe that is why they first told me that. I am going to phone them back and query that though as the next digit is a 0 and that is no area code in belgium at all. Not sure about mobile codes though.

Slightly tempted to call the number from my old pay as you go handset and see if anyone answers.

Tamzincaryl

Update. Back on the phone to orange. They still insist I am making the texts. I insist I am not.
I ask if I can change my number or sim or handset to try and stop this happening.
They have changed my phone number. I am not entirely sure how this will help, but will keep checking to see if it happens.

Thanks for the link Michael. It sounded right, but my sim card number isn't the number that is showing on my bill. Was good to have something to check though.

Tech head: Is that a definite that Belgian mobiles start 324? I have tried querying it with Orange that it is a Belgian number but they are certain, even though it is a 15 digit number. I've even told them that I can't find in my research an area code within Belgium that starts with the digit 0, but they aren't being swayed.

I wait with bated breath to see whether something that they or I have done has helped.

gjchester

It comes back to my first post. It may be a pain but factory reset it and start from scratch.

Something is making the texts and odds on its an app you have installed, wipe everything out, start and load apps on a one every few days and see if you can isolate it that way. Just because you asked an app to uninstall it does not mean it uninstalled everything, especially if it's malware of one sort or another.

bubblesmoney

also if you download an app from the market that has sms send permissions, you just cant instal the app and uncheck the sms permissions like you state. just dont download such apps.

Do you put your phone in airplane mode when your kids were playing on your phone? Could they have dialled some numbers accidentally? See the reviews for the apps in question and see if others have this problem with those apps.

Bongedone

I've just called the number via 18866 and it works. No answer though.

Defo sounds like you have a rogue app on your phone or Orange is making errors