T-Mobile Is Blocking My Texts Because They Think I'm a Spammer. I'm not the Only One.
I can't send texts for ten days. An obscure list from an obscure trade group is why.
I’ve had my cellphone number for almost 25 years. My first phone with that number was a StarTAC phone on the CellularOne network.
In all that time, moving from Cellular One to Verizon to T-Mobile, I’ve never had a problem with that number. Until this week.
On Tuesday, it turned out wife could not receive my text messages. As the day went on, fewer and fewer people were able to receive my text message.
My wife did yeoman’s work trying to track down the problem, change the system settings, the network settings, and everything under the sun. On Wednesday she had the idea to check the sim card by swapping phones. Still no luck. So it is settled upon that the phone needs a new sim card. Great. Mischief managed.
Until it wasn’t. A new sim card didn’t solve the problem either.
Another call to T-Mobile support finally landed on the fact that a block has been placed on my phone. Some system somewhere thinks I am a spammer. The technician on the phone landed on two reasons why this might be happening:
Being a part of too many group texts;
Texting too many links.
Now, like most sane people, I am in multiple group texts. I have one for the girls softball team that I coach. One for some of my closest political types. One for my fantasy football league. This is a normal part of life in the year of our lord 2022. And yet, because of this, I am blocked from sending texts until October 27th at 2 AM. Even though we pay for unlimited texting.
I wonder if T-Mobile is going to give me a refund for these ten days.
What’s better is that it is, apparently, not just a T-mobile problem. The cell phone carriers have a list they share of numbers caught up in this. The block appears to be across carriers; a new SIM card, a new phone, or porting the number to a carrier doesn’t work.
I’m apparently not the only person this is happening to. There are quite a few T-Mobile users who have been caught up in this dragnet in the last week. And not all of them are people who text links or are in group texts.
I'm in the same boat. Blocked outgoing texts started yesterday. Agent was saying CTIA was the one who flagged me due to a group text stated by our Cub Scout den leader for our camping trip last Saturday. Agent said I should use a third party app like whatsapp for group messages (ridiculous).
Still getting inbound but no outbound. Switching carriers in my near future if this isn't resolved by Friday.
That puts the onus on the CTIA, a trade group representing the wireless industry. Why CTIA, a trade group, is involved with phone numbers, which are in fact regulatory, is beyond me.1
Both T-Mobile and CTIA owe an answer to customers like me and thousands across the country an answer to a simple question: What the hell is going on her, and why?
In the meantime, you can reach me by email, Instagram Messenger, Facebook Messenger, Signal2, carrier pigeon, or signal flare.
Those of you who want to use Section 230 on social media companies? This is the kind of crap you’re advocating for.
Big fan of signal. I can still use that to message people using the number that I’m blocked from texting with. And if that doesn’t prove this thing makes no sense, I don’t know what will.