Cant receive texts whilst in the USA

[Mlindenuk]

Hi I just landed in the US I have the roaming package but I can't make or receive texts. I've not even had the welcome to America text. This happened to me in September too. It's pretty urgent as car hire will be texting me in a few hours. Please help! 

[bristolian]

Regardless of any billing add-on, your ability to get coverage abroad (which calls, texts & mobile data rely on) is dependent on roaming being activated - which allows your phone to connect to foreign networks.

Have you used your phone abroad previously, did you receive a welcome text message on first arrival abroad? These are good evidence of roaming being enabled if so. In these cases, manually cycling through all available local networks often resolves issues - toggling flight mode can have the same effect.

If not...On PAYG, roaming is auto-enabled once your phone is used in the UK first. On pay-monthly, this needs to be enabled manually - usually by texting ROAMING to 150 before leaving the UK. Did you do this?

If you are on pay-monthly and now find yourself abroad without having enabled roaming, your only recourse will be to contact CS to request it activated. You can either contact +44 7953 966150 from another working phone, or +44 800 9566000 using a web-calling app such as Skype over WiFi.

[Mlindenuk]

Unfortunately these offices all close at 9pm so I can't get through to anyone today. No I didn't receive the text and this happened when visiting in September as well. 

[zackkyc]

This issue has been going on for a while, I was in the US for 10 days in September and I could not receive text messages - really annoying considering that banking  uses OTPs to authorise payments and 2FA also involves the receiving codes by SMS.

This problem also happened in South American countries too.

I received this message on 22/07 from EE and have had problems with roaming ever since:

“Hi, you've opted to set a Spend Cap to limit usage outside of your plan, such as international / roaming calls & texts and picture messages. We've made some improvements to ensure you stay within your chosen limit.

You won't be able to make a call if the first minute would exceed your spend cap, or if you reach the limit during a call, or the next minute would exceed the limit, the call will be disconnected. Remember you can change your Spend Cap at any time by texting SPENDCAP to 150. Please visit https://discover.ee.co.uk/o762X3D2 for more information.”

I complained but about the issues around receiving SMS messages when roaming (except in the EU) but they denied that there was a problem even though I knew there was. For the other issues I had with roaming; being unable to make calls despite them being inclusive within the US with my Roam Abroad Pass, I was reimbursed 1 month’s line rental and had my contract commitment period removed so that I was free to leave.

[Peter_W]

Good morning @Mlindenuk.

Welcome to the EE Community, and I hope your flight out the the US was a nice smooth one!

It's worth trying to search for a roaming network manually in your phone's settings, as occasionally this will just need a bit of a kick start to get you up and running. 

On an iPhone this will be in Mobile Service > Network selection, or it can differ a bit depending on the Android model, but it should be in 'network or internet' or something similar.

If you continue to struggle from there, it's definitely worth giving our team a shout like @bristolian mentioned and they can get this checked at our end.

Peter