Unsent texts

[TwoHoots]

I have a PAYG Android phone. I live overseas. I can call my husband in Spain using this phone with no problem but although I am being charged for texts these are not being received by him which is of no use to me in an emergency.

[BandOfBrothers]

Just to clarify your on a Vodafone UK Payg account living abroad sending texts to your husband in Spain @TwoHoots ?

If so then Vodafone UK cannot guarantee everything will work when a person is abroad and roaming via being latched onto a foreign network. Also roaming is for a limited time and not meant to be long term. 

If your on another countries Vodafone Network then as the different countries networks using the Vodafone brand are not linked you would need to contact that countries Vodafone customer services. 

Have you perhaps thought in the interim to use WhatsApp or BBM or Viber or Facebook Messenger etc. 

It may also be worth you both checking your phones to ensure neither of you have accidently added your numbers to the phones text blocking feature if applicable. 

[TwoHoots]

Thank you for your reply. This happened to us some time ago and then seemed to sort itself out. We both live in Spain. However the phone I am trying to send a message to is on a Spanish network. Sometimes I get a warning triangle that tells me the text has not been sent but on both the last ones there was no indication that the text hadn't been sent and I only found out when I got home. I have been charged for sending the texts though!!! I do not have data on this phone so unable to use Whatsapp etc otherwise I would. We have not blocked each others phones. 

[AnnS]

Hi @TwoHoots

I notice you have been having this problem since 2013 when you first enquired about the issue on the forum.

As you are roaming using a UK phone, it is going to be very difficult for Vodafone to find if your texts are leaving the roaming network for forwarding back to the Vodafone UK message centre, leaving the Vodafone UK message centre, forwarded onto the Spanish message centre before being sent to your Husbands Spanish mobile.  As this is a receiving problem, it might be worth your Husband making enquiries with his Spanish network, they should be able raise the issue to find if his receiving text are hitting the Spanish message centre.

As you are now living in Spain a Spanish SIM card may solve the problem.  If you are paying for an international texts using a UK number, this will work out a lot cheaper and your Husband should receive the SMS.

The next time you are back in the UK, it might be worth testing your Husbands Spanish number, it's more than likely a problem with the Spanish network and not Vodafone UK. 

If you are using the same SIM card since you first noticed the problem, you may also benefit from a new SIM card as would your Husband from his Spanish network.

[TwoHoots]

Thank you for your response. I did take this up with the Spanish network previously and of course no-one wants to take responsibility for the problem. When this happened previously it was because the settings had been changed within my Vodafone and not by me. It's something I'm going to look at again but now that data roaming is a thing of the past I didn't think that I would have any problems anyway. We prefer to keep our UK phone numbers - we already have 3 phones, I don't want to have another one! The Uk phone is only used for emergencies and the odd call to the Spanish phone. I don't appear to have a problem sending a text to my friends be they in the UK or when we are travelling. Maybe it is the Spanish network but s I said they wouldn't take responsibility before and I doubt they will again but I will try.  Thank you again for your comments and suggestions.