topic Re: Unable to Respond to Text Abroad in Network

Unable to Respond to Text Abroad

ST3V3 — Mon, 08 Sep 2025 17:59:08 GMT

I’m a relatively new Three customer, with a PAYG SIM. On a recent trip to the USA, Go Roam worked exactly as I expected/hoped it would, with one exception.

I had a text message from my credit card company asking me to confirm some transactions, and I was unable to reply to it.

The text message came from 61175, asking me to reply with a Y or N. It was a legitimate text (confirmed by my credit card company), but I couldn’t reply. Every time I tried, it said Not Delivered/Message Failed to Send.

Is this simply because I was trying to respond to 61175 from another country, or should I have been able to reply? Grateful for any help/insight in case I’m ever in the same situation again.

Re: Unable to Respond to Text Abroad

jr0 — Tue, 09 Sep 2025 09:01:04 GMT

hmm this sounds like settings... can you check your SMSC number
and old thread for android... not sure about ios but surely there is something similar or even the short code *#*#4636#*#* may work on ios...
mine shows "+447782000800",145 and works fine (I had similar problem when I went away once and then had forgetten I had played/changed such. Then I went back to the thread above and then updated it with +447782000800 - the 145 it is added automatically in my case- and finally sending pure text and worked straight way).

Re: Unable to Respond to Text Abroad

JadeF — Tue, 09 Sep 2025 09:04:42 GMT

Hey @ST3V3

I believe it's because you are trying to contact a UK short code and the network will try to find a non existent equivalent number in US. Do you have a spend limit set? It may also be that it's a chargeable text excluded from Go Roam.

Jade

Re: Unable to Respond to Text Abroad

ST3V3 — Tue, 09 Sep 2025 10:16:31 GMT

Thanks, @JadeF, that makes sense.

In terms of spend limits, I can’t see any relevant settings to check/change in my account. Because I’m a PAYG customer, I assumed the credit balance on my account would effectively set the limits. There was a £15 credit balance on my account at the time. How can I check if a spend limit is in place, please?

Re: Unable to Respond to Text Abroad

ST3V3 — Tue, 09 Sep 2025 10:42:34 GMT

Thanks, @jr0. I didn’t know about SMSC so have just looked into it. My network settings appear to be up to date, and there doesn’t seem to be a way to check the SMSC number on an iPhone in the way you can on Android devices. However, I am able to send normal SMS messages to other numbers without issue. If there was a problem with my SMSC number, would any of my SMS messages send?

Re: Unable to Respond to Text Abroad

jr0 — Tue, 09 Sep 2025 11:10:12 GMT

sounds like you may have not messed up with the SMSC settings before (unlike me), and these are fine most times. I did a websearch for the code for showing the SMSC for ios and sorry it is different from android (of course it is!)

To my understanding when you replying to 61175, your message is handed over to Three's SMSC (+447782000800) and only then the SMSC does the delivery of the message to 61175, so imo it should work even if you are in US (as your smsc is in the UK as well as Three network)
Did you have enough credit (as you are a payG)?
Did you reply back to 61175 when in UK and worked? - I'm assuming this is a legitimate number!! please check, double check and triple check!!!

Re: Unable to Respond to Text Abroad

jr0 — Tue, 09 Sep 2025 11:40:51 GMT

replying to the other questions around you being able to send sms to other mobile(?) numbers: there is now a thing called RCS and I believe it is enbabled by default on ios (so your sms works a like a chat service and chat service works over data). So while replying to other numbers (it is likely they also have RCS) it is not pure sms but replying to short codes it a pure sms

Re: Unable to Respond to Text Abroad

ST3V3 — Tue, 09 Sep 2025 18:05:22 GMT

Yes, there was a £15 credit balance on the account. So even if it wasn’t included in my Go Roam bundle, there would have been sufficient credit to cover the cost.
Re legitimacy of the number, I had a separate text from my credit card company advising me to expect a text from 61175 (and then a phone call afterwards as I didn’t respond to the text) - so I’m as sure as I can be. I haven’t tried to respond since getting back to the UK.

Re: Unable to Respond to Text Abroad

jr0 — Tue, 09 Sep 2025 18:25:17 GMT

I see...
well if you had credit and potentially replied to "pure"/true SMS (in case some of your contacts not use RCS their android) I can only think of something else on Three side (e.g. misconfigured for 71165 short code ??) or maybe @JadeF is correct, and only Three support team could come up with the true reason for it
I understand that it doesn't make sense for you to reply now to 61175 🙂

Re: Unable to Respond to Text Abroad

MichaelP — Wed, 10 Sep 2025 10:34:09 GMT

Hello @ST3V3,

To check your spend cap via My3, you can do so by scrolling down to 'manage plan', and checking the 'Spend cap' tab.

This will display any limit that is currently in place and also allow you amend it.

Thanks,
Michael

Re: Unable to Respond to Text Abroad

ST3V3 — Wed, 10 Sep 2025 10:54:09 GMT

Thanks, @MichaelP. Can I double check that tab exists for PAYG customers, please? I don’t see it at all.

Re: Unable to Respond to Text Abroad

JonathanB — Mon, 15 Sep 2025 12:54:48 GMT

Hey @ST3V3,

Sorry for the confusion here, the spend limit is a Pay Monthly feature to help control bills. On PAYG you can't spend more credit than you've topped up, so there isn't an equivalent feature. It may be worth speaking to the team to make sure that premium services are provisioned though, as @jr0 suggested,

Thanks,
Jonathan