Lebara /Vodafone phantom SMS on my account

Pete99

Does anyone know who this number 447537 452 550 is for, it appears multiple times on my Lebara / Vodafone account as an outgoing SMS which I didn't send, Lebara offer no help in identifying it other than suggesting that my phone's been hacked, but it's a spare and switched off most of the time, I checked it anyway with Malwarebytes and it came up clear, on checking the number on who-calls.me.uk other people have also had exactly the same SMS billed outgoing number on their Vodafone accounts, Vodafone also don't want to know, is it a scam, any ideas ?

savergrant

Is there any pattern to the texts? Anything else on the phone which could be being used at the time and has permission to send messages?

Pete99

This is an old spare phone that's mainly switched off, I'd ring the number if I could be sure that it wasn't some sort of premium rate scam, as I said before there are at least 4 other people with Vodafone accounts and the same SMS texts being sent to the same number, for me it's only 19p per text but the ones with Vodafone accounts are being charged pounds, I'll probably take the sim out of the phone and see if any more appear on the account, I wonder if it's happening to others but they're just not noticing them on their account, I certainly didn't, thanks anyway.

dc_scotland

I was looking at my Lebara history yesterday and noticed it showed an outgoing SMS to this number at 1124 on 23 June.  My Messages app showed no record of that SMS, only an incoming spam text message at 1127 that day. 

It's the first and only time that number has shown in my history.  But I have had similar experience before with history showing occasional outgoing SMS to numbers which do not show on my Messages app.  When I have googled those numbers, they have shown up as Google account verification numbers.  I wonder if this latest number is also a Google number, or perhaps a Vodafone verification number as it seems to be only Vodafone/Lebara customers reporting the issue.

Bob_Uppendown

I've just started with Lebara two days ago, and the SIM has texted that number 6 times since then. 

But it doesn't show up in my phone's outgoing texts.

PHK

The number range 07537 4 is allocated to Vodafone.

I'm not sure why the OP is being charged as it would be a standard SMS included in any allowance. 

This could be something like the registration text for facetime or the texts Google sends on Android. 

savergrant

Bob_Uppendown said:

I've just started with Lebara two days ago, and the SIM has texted that number 6 times since then. 

But it doesn't show up in my phone's outgoing texts.

I presume you mean it doesn't show up in messages history. This would suggest that either the history is deleting itself or that another app has permission to send sms messages. If you can see when the messages are being sent and match up with what the phone was doing you might find out where the texts are originating.

J_B

Have you tried Google?

https://who-calls.me.uk/phone/07537452550

Pete99

Just to be clear, the mobile in question is an old one that I keep as a spare which is mainly turned off, I have a new mobile that also has this number appearing as SMS messages, the reason for the charges on my spare mobile account are that I don't have a monthly plan for this phone, I just have PAYG with automatic top up, but that's irrelevant as I don't know that number, I didn't send those SMS texts, they may be few and far between but I still don't want billing for Texts I haven't sent, if I'm to be charged then I want to know why, what is this number connected to, how is it being sent from a mobile that's switched off, why don't Lebara or Vodafone know the answers. There could be loads of people affected who just haven't checked their account because they have a free allowance on their mobile plan.

km1500

the text is most likely being set by an app which has permission to do this. An app sending a sms would mot show in your texts

go to settings then privacy then permissions manager. This will allow you to show what apps have sms permissions

PHK

We'd really need to know more about the phone(s) other than that one is old snd one is new.

Just to summarise what we've got so far:

It's a number range allocated to Vodafone.
It's either being sent by the OS to setup something (eg facetime, play store)
Or an app.