Security Concern - text messages

[Anonymous]

I was recently away for work with a colleage for one night.  While we were away text messages sent to me also appeared on my colleague's phone.  They showed as having what I know to be my husband's number.  These texts also appeared on his own phone as new messages.

I find this really worrying - my husband was sending me texts which were duplicated to my colleagues phone.  He does not know my colleague or have her phone number, nor have I used his phone previously.

My colleague complained to her mobile phone company (Talk Talk) and was told it was impossible for this to happen.  Obviously it isn't!

I find it extremely concerning that this could happen for the privacy of texts generally.  I would be really grateful if anyone could explain how this could have happened!  My phone is Tesco, my husband's is O2 and my colleague's phone network is Talk Talk.  We were away near Birmingham, we live in the North East of England if that helps at all.

[Martin-O2]

Hi @Anonymous This is an unusual one? Please update us once you get to the bottom of this. 

[Cleoriff]

I am hoping the OP has phoned Samsung to see if they have any idea.....

[MI5]

They will just blame the network.

[Cleoriff]

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@MI5 wrote:
They will just blame the network.

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Probably.....:smileytongue:

[MI5]

Well it's not physically possible on the phone, so they won't have a clue otherwise......

[jonsie]

I think it will remain one of life's mysteries like why is lemon juice mostly artificial ingredients but dishwashing liquid contains real lemons?

[Toby]

Hi @Anonymous,

How are you getting on with this issue? It seems to be one that has stumped everyone! If you have not found any info, I can see what I can find out

[Anonymous]

Technically unless they're sharing the same account somewhere (ie cloud service) or using some external messaging system that has a group-share on it, that should not happen...

I've heard of accidently forwarding text messages a the same time as sending them to a single number, but either they was drunk or not paying attentio to what they was typing/choosing.

I know iPhones can do that using the same account on both phones, but I've never heard of Android ones doing that - even with my tablet and phones sharing the same accounts - data transfer/update yes.. but not on demand messaging.  Would be interesting to see if they could rerecreate this - as it would mean there was a flaw in something - or it likely was human error.

But Samsung/Android phones doing it on purpose for some reason... that's Apple's job.. not Androids..

[Anonymous]

Hi just to update on this issue, we never got to the bottom of it but out of interest, my mum mentioned casually that she had also recieved the text from my husband that night.  It was a night that was memorable as I was away from home at an awards ceremony, which I won.  My mum mentioned it when we were reminising about the event saying how proud my husband had been, she'd just thought that my husband had sent her the text in error and forgotten about it in all the excitement.  My mum has a really, really basic Dora (?) type of phone aimed at pensioners and on a different network.

Its not a biggie, we both have changed our phones since - I never bothered ringing samsung as I knew they would just say my husband had made a mistake.  I know that is not true as he never had my colleague's phone number (he did have my mum's).  I just thought I would update you all, many thanks for your interest.