PAYG texts never send, outgoing calls are fine

[nokia-veteran]

Hi,

I am posting on behalf of my elderly mother, long time EE PAYG user.

She has a Nokia "dumbphone", only a few months old, bought from EE shop.

She has loads of credit. She can make calls, receive calls, and receive SMS texts. But when you SEND texts, they appear to go, but they never get received by the recipient. This includes that you can't send texts to 150!

I've tried the SIM in other phones, always the same.

Anyone have ideas? Might the SIM card be dodgy (it's probably fairly old).

She bought the new phone from an EE shop which has subsequently closed. She doesn't want to go to the other nearby EE shop because last time she went there, they made her feel unwelcome and said they only sold smartphones, and did not seem willing to engage with her. Not sure what bit of EE training covers that sort of thing... 😞

Thanks

[bristolian]

Can you expand on what you mean by texts "appear to go". What is the specific make & model of your elderly mother's phone?

If a text is sent from that phone to its own number, does it get received?

[nokia-veteran]

Hi - thanks for replying. When you press send, there is no error message, and the text moves to the "sent messages" folder.

Her current (new EE) phone is a Nokia 105 4G 128MB in black.

Thanks

[nokia-veteran]

I didn't think to try the "send to yourself" option - I will get her to do that

[XRaySpeX · Accepted solution]

For sending texts, ensure your phone's Messaging app has the Message Centre no. setting for EE as +447958879879.

[nokia-veteran]

Thanks for replying

As far as I can tell, on a Nokia 105 "dumb phone" (ie. not a smart phone) there is no such setting? I did wonder about that, but I couldn't find it in menus or the online manual.

[XRaySpeX]

My wife has a Samsung feature phone, not smart, & it has a Service Center No. under Messages > Settings > Text Msgs.

[nokia-veteran]

Ah, OK, that's interesting! I will get my mum to check that tomorrow - many thanks 👍

[XRaySpeX]

There's gotta be a Message Centre No. in it somewhere. It couldn't have been hardcoded by the manufacturer as they're all different for different networks. 

[nokia-veteran]

Thank you so much - this has fixed it! (the message centre thing)

It took a while, getting a not-very-techno octogenarian with dodgy eyesight and crooked fingers to drill through the Nokia menus, whilst describing the steps to her over her landline phone, but we got there in the end, and now she can send SMS messages.

Cheers to all who replied - I am very grateful!