TCL Flip 3 does not receive SMS & microSD cards not recognised

[John5710]

I bought the TCL Flip 3 from https://ee.co.uk/products/tcl-flip-3-sim-free a couple weeks ago - it arrived on Feb 11th and I've been using it since. It did a quick software update as soon as I turned it on and has the features I want out of a phone and more (like Internet radio). The phone works generally okay except:

1. It does not receive SMS messages. I called 150 and was given the SMS sending centre as +447958879879 but I can't find anywhere to set this configuration on the phone. Neither could the gentleman on the phone. I can send SMS just fine - they get received instantly by my friends and family. But I do not receive any responses (which I know have been sent by friends and family). I sent a text with just the word NUMBER in it to 150. Did not receive a response.

2. The microSD card port appears to be dead - the manual says it supports microSD cards of up to 512GB - I've tried with three different cards of capacities up to 64GB and none are recognised by the phone.

I don't mind the microSD fault so much as I don't plan on exhausting the 1GB built-in storage, but inability to receive SMS is a dealbreaker due to MFA requirements - including on EE's website!

Does anyone know how to resolve this issue? This is a brand new phone sold by EE so surely there is a solution.

Thanks!

Alex

[bristolian]

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@John5710 wrote:

Therefore, this is either an issue on the phone itself or with the way the phone talks to the GSM network or something like that.

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Does the phone have any menu options enabling selection of 2G, 3G, 4G or automatic?

EE's 3G network has been switched off, but testing between 2G & 4G may give further clues. Can you receive calls when SMS are not arriving? Anything network-side is likely to affect both.

[John5710]

Yes, I can receive calls when SMS are not arriving. I can't easily check for the 2G/3G/4G settings now as I have the phone now wiped and packaged for return. I do remember that operator selection was automatic, and that 4G was definitely enabled - as it was displayed on the home screen.

My sin was that I purchased a SIM-free phone, and put my business account SIM in it, which seems to be a use case EE is struggling to deal with, as:
1. The business account people will not talk to me about a SIM-free phone I purchased as an individual - not their problem

2. The "other" helpdesk can't look me up as my (business) phone number does not appear on their systems, therefore repeatedly proclaiming "oh, you're not an EE subscriber".
3. There seems to be no department that deals with device issues for the SIM-free devices sold via ee.co.uk
4. When I follow the order link included in the order confirmation email, the link doesn't work:

After 35 minutes on the phone with 150 and three transfers, someone figured out how to initiate a return. So I'm hoping for a return and refund at some point in the near future.

[John5710]

Hi Leanne,

Thanks for the advice. Indeed there is nothing wrong with the SIM, which I've been using for many years and at least two other devices with no issues.

150 was unable to help as I bought a SIM-free phone and put my business account SIM in it - which means the folks at 150 can't look up my account therefore can't really do anything. A kind soul helped initiate a return, and I'm hoping that the next phone is less buggy.

Kind regards.

[Peter_W]

Thanks for the update here @John5710.

Just as one last thing to try before sending the phone back, I can see you mentioned using an iPhone previously. 

Have you had the chance to de-register from iMessage? 

Often if you switch from an iPhone to a different handset, you'll fail to receive regular texts as people will still be associating your number with iMessage.

Peter

[bristolian]

The whole basis of a SIM-only plan/SIM-free phone setup is that EE are providing the network coverage & account support. But device choice & support must come from the retailer &/or manufacturer.

This will be the same regardless of who your network operator is.

[John5710]

Yes sir. The issue is not that people have been inadvertently sending me iMessages instead of SMS - it's that SMS-only services (e.g. receiving the MFA code over SMS required to log into this very EE community portal) and people who send me SMS send messages that are queued and only received when I reboot the phone, once it's gone into its "I won't have more SMS" state (the trigger for which is unclear to me). As soon as I stick the SIM back into the iPhone, or restart the TCL handset, a batch of SMS messages arrive, from my bank to tell me something happened to my account, to friends replying to my SMS messages. Sadly, this is not an iMessage issue. I don't know if KaiOS (the OS of this TCL model) has a known issue with SMS handling, some buffer gets full or whathaveyou, but I can't have a phone that can't reliably receive SMS, so I'll be returning this. Which is a shame as this TCL handset gave me a very good balance between a dumb phone that can't do basic things (e.g. Bluetooth calls in the car) and the iPhone that has me glued to its screen for 8h/day.

[John5710]

Hi - I'm not exactly sure what your point is, but in case you're implying my request to EE is unreasonable: the very first sentence of this thread explains I bought this handset from https://ee.co.uk/products/tcl-flip-3-sim-free ; therefore: EE is the retailer. So I think it's fair to be requesting a return and refund from EE. If I missed your point I apologise, and please do clarify.