Picture Messages Sent to my Own Number

[northshields]

This month's bill was a lot more than usual, and when I looked at it in detail there seem to be a number of picture messages sent from me to my own number. They seem to be particularly associated with another number, so much so that in some cases the exact same time to the second is recorded for me having sent a picture message to the other number and myself. There is no evidence in my message app that I either sent a message to myself or received one from myself. Does anyone have any idea what might be going on?

[Anonymous]

I’m not sure what you mean by particularly associated with another number. As far as I know if the message is showing as sent from your number then that’s exactly the case. If you’re saying that you didn’t send any picture messages at all then that’s something you need to raise with customer service who unlike us will have access to your account and won’t have to play guesswork. 

[northshields]

Paddiewack

Thank you for replying and I am sorry for not making myself clear.

What seems to be happening is that the picture message to myself only seems to happen when I have sent a message (possibly including an emoji) to one other particular contact. There is, however, no sign at all in my message app that I have either sent a message (picture or otherwise) or received a message to my own number.

[Anonymous]

I know that some emojis count as picture messages but to be really honest my original advice to contact c/s still stands. Personally I’ve no idea what’s occurring and thank you for making things clearer.Sorry  I can’t be more help.

[JonathanB]

Hi @northshields,

Do you happen to know if it's messages between an iPhone and Android? I think I may have heard of an issue that causes the Emojis to convert to an MMS instead of SMS in the past, are there any options in your settings to specify that "long messages" are sent as SMS instead of MMS?

Let me know what type of phone you've got, and the other person's if possible, and I'll see if I can find out anything that might help figure this out.

Thanks,
Jonathan

[northshields]

Jonathan,

Thank you very much for the reply.

Yes, my phone is a Google Pixel 4a and the other person's phone is an iPhone, so any help you can give would be greatly appreciated. I still don't understand, though how I am being charged for apparently sending picture messages to myself

[JonathanB]

Hi @northshields,

I also use a Pixel, mine's the Pixel 6 so it's probably similar enough to have the same settings.

I've had a check through all the available message settings and I can't see anything that might cause this though.

I've 2 ideas to try, can you set a spend limit of £0 and check if the message still goes to the particular contact, and/or if you get any error message that references the message attempted to be sent to your own number?

After this, try going into the messages app and try starting a new conversation with the contact? If the same layout as mine there's a little button in the bottom right for "start chat". Do you still get an error? (assuming the spend cap causes one)

Hopefully a fresh conversation should stop the message getting duplicated to your own number.

Please let me know once you've tried this, I'll send you some info to link you in with some colleagues that can have a closer look at your account and billing, but it would be good to confirm if the issue is still persisting now with the tests I suggested above. 

Thanks,
Jonathan

[northshields]

Johnathan,

Thank you very much for those suggestions. For the moment I have deleted and recreated the contact in question and there does not seem to have been a repeat experience since. However, do you happen to know whether, when using a Google Pixel to send a text message, adding an emoji (but no other form of picture) turns the text message into a MMS? My understanding is that it shouldn't but I may be wrong.

[JonathanB]

Hey @northshields,

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you. I've tried to check it out but not had much luck. In the past there were specific phone settings on whether a "long text" (over 160 characters) was an SMS or MMS but this seems to have phased out.

I'm sorry it's not the most helpful answer, but I'm not sure on current Android devices whether SMS/MMS will be default and whether that's going to be consistently the same for all devices. It's technically the device that decides what format to send the message to the network as, so it could be either.

Thanks,
Jonathan