Need help with txts im not sending!

Worried0512

Hi All,

Is the following possible:

Somebody is sending my fiances 14 year old female cousin txts from my phone number. i've met the girl twice and dont even have her phone number but it turns out she has being txting who she thought was me and i have even being txting her back, which i havent - ive had no knowledge of this until the gardai phoned me on Saturday night and warned me to stop.

my fiance was in her house today and saw txts from my number. the txts are very obscene and a few have been frightening for the poor girl.

before anyone says it no, im not txting her!

does anyone know of this happening to anyone or know if its even possible....

thanks for the help,
worried0512

MagicMarker

They could be being sent from webtext.

I would immediately contact my provider and get my login details changed asap.

Timmy_d

weird

irish_boy90

change phone.
new number. keep it with you at all times.

hopefully that will solve it and if the texts continue it will prove it wasn't you.

Worried0512

Hi Magicmarker,

have already changed my login details and been to the guards - wasnt very helpful but felt better about giving my side of the story.

meteor tech guys not in work til tomorrow morning so will be calling into the nearest meteor shop i can find!

horrible situation, whole family knows and everything complete mess

Worried0512

Hi Irish_boy90

she has already blocked my number so not sure if anymore txts have been sent - im sure i can check that tomorrow with meteor.

feel like throwing my phone away and never using one again!

littlemizz

that is really weird! i would have also assumed it was been done over webtxt but if you have changed your details??? sure god knows what new devices and ways they have come up with to get into your fone and send txtxs from it these days! thats just mad i hope its all sorted for you soon!

donutface

Meteors security is absolutely a load of crap

For the last 3 years ive been able to log into any meteor phone number, ive contacted them about this but no response and no fix on their site even after they revamped. They limit you to a 4 digit pincode and on their site theres no checking to lock out accounts if you get it wrong more than 3 times. Realistically this means within 3-5 hours you can get any pincode with a basic program which i wont attach here. Change your pincode to a longer than 4 digit pin (ideally 8 or 9) and you should be safe enough.

Hopefully this will encourage meteor to fix their site

Edit: I have nothing to do with your 14 year old cousin btw, but this is utter common sense and anyone interested in the topic would have spotted this already so I know im not the only one who knows about this

Gaz

It is possible to clone a sim and also to bluetooth hack a phone but to be honest this is unlikely.
Sounds like someone got your webtxt details.

You have explained it wasnt you and your also trying to sort it, that should be more than enough to get everyone on your side

irish_boy90

"get into your phone"

yes that could be it. my mate has a program on his phone. he can hack into any mobile he is around that has blue tooth on and basically do as he wants.

i would ask if u had it on but my mate also told me of a different program that can get into your phone even if blue tooth is off.

littlemizz

im a bit worried now...........:eek: im with meteor!!!!:eek:

Worried0512

Hi Donutface,

my fiances cousin has being txting this person to my number but im not getting any of the txts but she is sure that she is sending her replies to my number.

she has now blocked my number so she shouldnt receive anymore txts but i wanna get to the bottom of this and know who is doing this and how

Victor

Does she have someone else's number attached to your name?

Can I suggest you find someone tech savvy and a solicitor if necessary.

takola

Where are the messages she's been sending going to though?

Zillah

Phone networks can do really weird things. One night when the whole family was in bed, my mobile started ringing. It claimed the call was from my fathers mobile, which was on the counter in the kitchen. At one point I was holding both phones in my hands, one powered off, one receiving a phonecall from the phone that was powered off. It rang me like three times, silence on the line if I answered.


Aaaaanyway: Get a new phone. Leave Meteor. Ask her, via someone else, to unblock the number to see if they keep coming. Give her your old phone so she can be sure its not you.

Twinkle-star15

That's really odd, and I hope it gets sorted out soon!! At least the family know it's not you doing it.

dame

Phone networks can do weird things alright. I got picture messages sent by my fiance but they showed up as having come from a completely different number. I rang O2 to see what the story was and they said basically not to worry about it, that things get switched accidentally now and again.

Your situation is beyond weird though. It does sound like someone is deliberately doing this and knows it's wrong so they're hiding behind your number. Get all the records you can from Meteor, itemised bills, a log of what traffic has happened on webtext, etc and set about trying to find out what computer that traffic originated from if you can(?). I'd get a new phone too but don't advertise the fact in case whoever's doing it stops to make you look guilty. Hand the old phone to someone responsible and ask the girl to give them her phone for a week or so too ( with your number unblocked) and see if it can be proved you didn't send those texts. A solisitor might be no harm either. If you can catch whoever did it bring them to court if you can at all.

vir7ual

Phones can be cloned and its very easy to do so. Even though the texts show they're coming from your number and when she replies, you dont get them, thats easily done to re-route the outgoing text. Change sim, can happen on any network.

celt262

It's wierd that the girl is someone that is known to you. Would it be possible that it is someone that know both of you who is sending these messages?

Sam Vimes

vir7ual wrote:

Phones can be cloned and its very easy to do so. Even though the texts show they're coming from your number and when she replies, you dont get them, thats easily done to re-route the outgoing text. Change sim, can happen on any network.

so how is a phone cloned then if its so easy? And how can texts be rerouted? The networks tell me it can't be done so you must know something they don't. OP, rest assured that unless the culprit is someone very high up in the technical department of meteor this is not happening

irish_boy90 wrote:

"get into your phone"

yes that could be it. my mate has a program on his phone. he can hack into any mobile he is around that has blue tooth on and basically do as he wants.

i would ask if u had it on but my mate also told me of a different program that can get into your phone even if blue tooth is off.

it would be possible to hack into a phone if the bluetooth was on but the culprit would have to be within ten metres of the phone at all times. However its not possible to hack in if the bluetooth is off. Your friend was either lying or misinformed

me and the biz

It has to be someone you both know, how else would she have thought it was you if they were some randomers? I think its fairly odd that you didn't receive the msgs she was replying...

This is all really weird. Is there anyone in the family who would do this?

humanji

As was said before, could someone have changed the entry in her phone for your name? Check to see if the mobile number (not just the name attached to it) is the same as yours.

Also, is your mobile contract or Pay as you go? If it's contract, your bill will show all the txts you made and to what numbers. It it's Pay as you go, meteor should be able to provide you with a list.

craichoe

Worried0512 wrote:

Hi All,

Is the following possible:

Somebody is sending my fiances 14 year old female cousin txts from my phone number. i've met the girl twice and dont even have her phone number but it turns out she has being txting who she thought was me and i have even being txting her back, which i havent - ive had no knowledge of this until the gardai phoned me on Saturday night and warned me to stop.

my fiance was in her house today and saw txts from my number. the txts are very obscene and a few have been frightening for the poor girl.

before anyone says it no, im not txting her!

does anyone know of this happening to anyone or know if its even possible....

thanks for the help,
worried0512

Check the message center number. The originating caller id on SMS messages comes from the originating SMS gateway and can actually be changed to whatever you want. If the message center number is no +353857000000 then it did come from Meteors network, same with if its +35386 +35387 whatever.

You can send a message from any number to any number, its really quite easy. Do a search for the message center number on google and you'll more than likely get the provider, send them an email reporting the abuse and they can track it back to the users account, from this they can get them via the billing address of the credit card they used to purchase credit for their SMS account.

Just like when you get a message and the sender ID is "Meteor" or "Vodafone" or "SMS2WIN" or some rubbish, its just an ID and very easy to abuse.

AFAIK, bluetooth hacking is a load of rubbish, most people have it turned off by default as it wrecks the battery and all phones are different, there is a few exploits out there for specific models but their mostly windows ce smartphones.

PM me if you need further info.

cold_filter

OP, ask Meteor to check out the IMSI. Most likely this persons IMSI and yours have been inter changed some how. I worked for one of the the other operators and one day a similar issue landed in my email. It took a while but we found the problem in the end much to the persons relief, we also found the guy who was sending the messages he was at the other end of the country.

craichoe

cold_filter wrote:

OP, ask Meteor to check out the IMSI. Most likely this persons IMSI and yours have been inter changed some how. I worked for one of the the other operators and one day a similar issue landed in my email. It took a while but we found the problem in the end much to the persons relief, we also found the guy who was sending the messages he was at the other end of the country.

If the IMSI had been cloned in some way, they would have needed his SIM card to do it and also her number, plus technical knowhow and a motive. All sounds very unlikely to go to all that trouble, cloning would usually be done to rack up big phone bills on other peoples accounts.

AFAIK its difficult if nigh on impossible to grab a IMSI from the air as its encrypted with a KSN during handshake when making a call. It has been done in the past with expensive specialised kit.

Again, too much hassle for whats being done in this case.

OP, i recon you should go down to the garda station and dump the phone on the counter. If their so sure its you, tell them they can have your phone and get a new number.

I'd say its more likely to be coming from a non irish sms center.

Riesen_Meal

I used to fix mobiles,

mobile phones can be cloned (IMEI), if ya know what your doing.... I cloned mine!


Hard to do, and a lot of effort on a technicians behalf, but yes it can be done....

seamus

OP, you really need to get someone technical to help you with this one.

All of the simple explanations, such as online accounts being hacked, can be explained away or eliminated very quickly.

Other things, such as cloned SIMs are harder to trace. As best I understand the system, it's not possible to have two SIMs on the network at the same time with the same phone number. So if your mobile is on and someone else is sending texts from your number, then they're not being sent from a phone.

Other things to consider - would you often leave your phone unattended? Do you turn it off much? Are the texts being sent at certain times during the day/night? Do the texts actually identify who is sending them (i.e. within the text of the message) or is it just a number?

My best advice is this: Contact meteor and have them cancel your number. Get a statement of sorts confirming that your account has been cancelled and your SIM deactivated.
Stick the old SIM in an envelope along with a copy of this statement. Seal it and sign along the seal, along with the date, in the presence of a witness, and give the envelope to this witness to look after it - your fiancé will do fine.

If the messages continue to come after this, you have solid evidence, with a witness, that it's not you. So rest easy.

cold_filter

craichoe wrote:

If the IMSI had been cloned in some way, they would have needed his SIM card to do it and also her number, plus technical knowhow and a motive. All sounds very unlikely to go to all that trouble, cloning would usually be done to rack up big phone bills on other peoples accounts.

AFAIK its difficult if nigh on impossible to grab a IMSI from the air as its encrypted with a KSN during handshake when making a call. It has been done in the past with expensive specialised kit.

Again, too much hassle for whats being done in this case.

OP, i recon you should go down to the garda station and dump the phone on the counter. If their so sure its you, tell them they can have your phone and get a new number.

I'd say its more likely to be coming from a non irish sms center.

No I don't mean that this person has hacked the network. The IMSI switch occured due to an error on the network so that person A when sending SMS it appeared on the receivers phone that it was coming from person B and vice versa.

echosound

Isn't there a facility with meteor where you can check online what calls and texts you have made even with a pre-paid phone stating numbers called/texted and time and duration etc? have you checked this to see if your account/phone has indeed been the one that is sending these texts? Change your number/sim card and get the old sim card closed by meteor, and as someone suggested, perhaps give your phone and sim to the guards, get the 14 yr old to unblock the number and give the phone to her parents(so she doesn't have to be upset by the content of messages that may arrive) , and see if the texts continue to come in. That may clear your name if it continues. Also, I assume you have contacted Meteor about this and asked them to investigate?

Sam Vimes

All this talk of sim card cloning, bluetooth hacking, network manipulation and diverting texts is ridiculous. Its like something out of a james bond film. Its either something simple like the numbers are similar or someones telling porkies, be it the cousin, the fiance messing with the op, or the op himself seeing if someone on boards can come up with a plausible explanation to help him get away with it

craichoe

Commander Vimes wrote:

All this talk of sim card cloning, bluetooth hacking, network manipulation and diverting texts is ridiculous. Its like something out of a james bond film. Its either something simple like the numbers are similar or someones telling porkies, be it the cousin, the fiance messing with the op, or the op himself seeing if someone on boards can come up with a plausible explanation to help him get away with it

Nope, its really very easy, If you don't believe me PM me your number and i'll send you a message from whoever you like !

Tazdedub

I think the best thing to do here is to call meteor and ask them to provide you list of all the numbers that have been sent a text from your phone. That way you will have proof the that you didn't send the texts from your phone. They should also be able to provide you with all the numbers that have been sent via the web text application. This way you will know where the texts are coming from. This is easy to do so it shouldn't be too much of a problem getting that information.

Also I would do as a lot of others on here suggested and change your number.

Sam Vimes

craichoe wrote:

Nope, its really very easy, If you don't believe me PM me your number and i'll send you a message from whoever you like !

yeah i can do that too. That doesn't explain how the cousin apparently texted the op back and the texts didn't arrive on his phone

@Tazdedub, the meteor gives your call records going back 3 months so there's no need to call them for that. He would have to call for the webtext records though

seamus

Commander Vimes wrote:

yeah i can do that too. That doesn't explain how the cousin apparently texted the op back and the texts didn't arrive on his phone

Again, disclaimer, I don't know a whole pile about this, but if the previously mentioned IMSI is used for routing (instead of the sender ID) then it's likely the sender is attaching the OP's phone number, but the girl's phone uses the originating IMSI to return the messages.

Either that, or the increasingly likely case that the number is one digit off (or two digits transposed) from the OP's.

Thomas

As far as I know on older phones ONLY the last 4 or 5 digits are used to distinguish a number in the phone book. So the cousin could have been receiving msgs from a number with the same last digits as the OP and his name would come up on her screen. Then when she hit reply it would show as sent to his name also even though it was going to the real sender.

littlemizz

Commander Vimes wrote:

All this talk of sim card cloning, bluetooth hacking, network manipulation and diverting texts is ridiculous. Its like something out of a james bond film. Its either something simple like the numbers are similar or someones telling porkies, be it the cousin, the fiance messing with the op, or the op himself seeing if someone on boards can come up with a plausible explanation to help him get away with it

judging by your reaction you sound as tho you work for meteor or for the telecoms industry......;)

muboop1

Worried0512 wrote:

Hi All,

Is the following possible:

Somebody is sending my fiances 14 year old female cousin txts from my phone number. i've met the girl twice and dont even have her phone number but it turns out she has being txting who she thought was me and i have even being txting her back, which i havent - ive had no knowledge of this until the gardai phoned me on Saturday night and warned me to stop.

my fiance was in her house today and saw txts from my number. the txts are very obscene and a few have been frightening for the poor girl.

before anyone says it no, im not txting her!

does anyone know of this happening to anyone or know if its even possible....

thanks for the help,
worried0512

hey, i work in carphone warehouse... know alot about phones...
there is realistically only 2 possibilities...

as already said web texts...change ur pin or pass or something... you could easily of been key logged or similar, or a mate just knows and thinks its a great joke...

2 it could be a duplicate sim, these do exsist, if say for example you lost ur phone and someone found your sim, and you got replacement without cancelling the old one... or it was a recycled number but shudnt of been recycled, their can be 2 people with the same sim card and number.,.. gets weird and complicated... usualy this will be discovered quite fast! as ur credit etc will be vanishing! this goes for cloned sims to... you will have lost money on credit account... plus now a days... there are much easier ways to run up nice big bills... u dont need to clone phones..,its just a more risky and much more effort way of doing it...
if you have the brains to clone them... u have the brains to figure this out!

so tbh its most likely the first one...
somebody knows ur pass...

LegacyUser

My brother is on meteor and i got a few missed calls from him. When i rang him back he always told me he hadn't rang me. Weird.

I came across a website once for revenge and you can send text messages to any number. As far as i can remember u can enter someone else's number and make the receiver believe its from someone else. Or was it that you can enter a name like Joe Soap and pretend its from him? I dont remember but its 1 of them.

Sam Vimes

Thomas wrote:

As far as I know on older phones ONLY the last 4 or 5 digits are used to distinguish a number in the phone book. So the cousin could have been receiving msgs from a number with the same last digits as the OP and his name would come up on her screen. Then when she hit reply it would show as sent to his name also even though it was going to the real sender.

this is true on nokias anyway. If the number is 0861234567 and you call 0871234567 it'll still show up as the persons name. Just tried it on a sony ericsson and it didn 't though

littlemizz wrote:

judging by your reaction you sound as tho you work for meteor or for the telecoms industry......;)

yes i work in the industry

Red Alert

I would imagine that this came through webtext but the real question this brings up is who is actually doing the texting? It must be somebody known to both you and her.

Hitchhiker's Guide to...

could there be a bitter ex-boyfriend of your fiance who is trying to break you up? or maybe some family / friend members who are not in favour of the marriage?

must be an inside job ...

davyjose

looks like your phone has been hacked. This is apparently p!ss easy to do with a laptop within range of someone's phone - I read an article on it recently, but can't find the link. You could try the tech forums.
Contact the police and let them know you are suspicious of this, also contact the phone provider ask them if they can track where/when these texts came from (I'm no expert, but it's worth a punt).

This is a really horrible thing to face and it's quite scary. Many of the newer phones have prevention in place to prevent this. If I were you , I'd get one of these and a new number. So that if the messages are sent again (off the old number), you're effectively vindicated.

syklops

Hi,

Can I ask the make and model of your phone, and of hers? From this I can tell you whether it is vulnerable to bluetooth attacks.

It could be the webtexts as the meteor site is very easy to get into, though assuming you did not have her number someone who knows you both can be the only culprit.

Your number could also have been gotten from her phone via bluetooth, again they would have to know you and your relationship.

What doesnt sit with me, is this: Why use your number? I suspect this is not someone cloaking their illegal actions, but rather framing you for the drop. Its pretty obvious aswell.

Spoofing the source number of SMS's is almost as easy as spoofing the source address of emails, but I still think there is someone who knows you both who wants to drop you in it. Do you get on with her family? Is there a brother who you dont get on with?

If I was you I would get some technical advice in real life. PM me if you want. I would also get legal advice. If you are close to the family, would they not have talked to your Fiancee before going to the police? Or even confronting you?

Hope this turns out ok for you.

matt-dublin

all a bit technical here, are you sure that someone didn't change ur number in her phone book on her phone?

CrazyNoob

OP in order to get to the bottom of this, you need to get the 14 year old's phone.

Do so with witnesses, in fact do not handle the phone and let them see where she texted back (if you didnt get those text they must have gone somewhere, and then the perv replies) Thats how you track it down further
Remember comms is a two-way process!!

Also look at the message details she received to check msg center numbers.

At the moment you can only see one side of the comms link look at both and it should point you closer to the answers you seek

masseyno9

Read this tgread a few days ago, and something just occurred to me. I remember a while back a few people figured out how to send texts where instead of them appearing to com from a phone number, they come from a named company/organisation. Sounds complicated so i'll try explain better.

right, when a phone receives a text, it recognises the number it came from and substitutes the name from the phone book. so, text received from 0871234567 appears as from 'joe bloggs.' Now the people who i know used to be able to make it show up a from 'ucd library' and then saying you owe €75 or something (funny, but was only a joke!). It is possible that somebody is doing this 'trick' but instead of putting 'ucd library' in, they put in your name (as it appears in the 14yr old's phone) so it looks like the text is from you. complicated to explain, but i think i did an ok job!

Anyway, this is just another possibility, and i hope you get this sorted.

hullaballoo

masseyno9 wrote:

Read this tgread a few days ago, and something just occurred to me. I remember a while back a few people figured out how to send texts where instead of them appearing to com from a phone number, they come from a named company/organisation. Sounds complicated so i'll try explain better.

right, when a phone receives a text, it recognises the number it came from and substitutes the name from the phone book. so, text received from 0871234567 appears as from 'joe bloggs.' Now the people who i know used to be able to make it show up a from 'ucd library' and then saying you owe €75 or something (funny, but was only a joke!). It is possible that somebody is doing this 'trick' but instead of putting 'ucd library' in, they put in your name (as it appears in the 14yr old's phone) so it looks like the text is from you. complicated to explain, but i think i did an ok job!

Anyway, this is just another possibility, and i hope you get this sorted.

I thought of that too, but you can't reply to those texts, I've tried.

My initial thought was that this sounds like a likely story. It's easy to prove the texts didn't come from your phone when they didn't. A print out of your account history would help things for starters. Failing that, meteor will be able to say for definite whether or not the texts came from your phone. If the Gardaí become involved, that will come to light very quickly.

s_carnage

hullaball&#250 wrote:

I thought of that too, but you can't reply to those texts, I've tried.

You can actually reply to them texts. It goes back to the person who sent the txt in the first place. That would explain how OP never got any of the texts back to his phone.

LegacyUser

there are web apps out there that let you spoof a phone number simply enter the phone number you want the text to appear to come from and the receiver will not know the difference between the real thing I had some of my mates near killing each other sending txts after mad nights out where I knew they wouldn't remember clearly if what they are being accused of doing was true. Just used to stir things up and watch the fireworks (all harmless fun now) the replies however are normally sent to the spoofed number meaning you should have received the txts as this didn't happen in this incident I'd say the said person is using one of the other methods mentioned previously

LegacyUser

It should be quite easy to narrow it down to a list of suspects. Somebody who knows both you and your fiance's cousin and is crazy & hateful enough to do it. It can't be a long list.

I have to say though, the fact you say you didn't receive the replies is strange. And it makes me doubt your story. As somebody says the OP could be looking for a way out of this. I hope that's not the case. I know number's can be spoofed but the fact you say you didn't receive the replies is strange.