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Incoming numbers appear as international numbers

  • 21 February 2019
  • 24 replies
  • 22575 views
J

Feb 21, 2019 - We are seeing a problem for the last few months where local / US numbers are appearing as international incoming numbers. The issue seems to appear only on our T-Mobile iPhones. The other family iPhones / my colleague iPhones with different carriers using the same current 12.1.4 iOS don't have this issue.  It does not seem to make a difference if the incoming caller in my contacts or not, nor does it make a difference if they are in my contacts and their number has  +1 at the front  or not .... most of my incoming calls from local US numbers and/or in my contacts are all appearing as international inbound calls.  For example I live in 610 area code and calls are coming in as +61 Australia.

Any one having this problem?  Any suggestions?  Can T-Mobile comment?

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Best answer by tmo_mike_c 25 February 2019, 18:45

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snn555
Rank
Userlevel 5

This happened to me when using Google phone app on a stock X4.

Doesn't happen on my 1+6T.

E
Userlevel 1

Pretty strange. I got the phone numbers shown as international (which I like by the way) in +1 (xxx) xxx-xxxx !

But you problem, I had that with scam only, means it all depends the way the number is transferred.

Normally, the way the number is shown depends of the emitter.

So, If one person is calling you, and then is calling the person next to you, the number appears differently ?

J

It has been working fine / normal just until maybe last month.  it used to show correctly but as I mentioned - if someone is calling from 610 area code ... it now shows +61 Australia ... even if they are in my address book as +1 610 xxx xxxx.

I tried using the online chat for help - but did not get very far. They suggested that i reset my network settings on my iPhone.  That has nothing to do with inbound caller id.

I checked my reginal settings to be sure - and everything is still US / unchanged.

E
Userlevel 1

Hi,

As said, the way the number is shown has nothing to do with the settings of your phone.

Your phone is just showing what it receives.

T-Mobile, with his Caller ID feature, can interfere on it, but normally, the number is the one sent from the emitter.

So, If I am using a carrier from UK for example, that carrier, when I am calling you, will send my number, in the format they want. International or not, their choice.

Even if T-Mobile can modify this on the fly, the origin is form the emitter, who calls you.

So, does it happen with every single 610 ? Only the 610, or other areas ?

Is it multiple persons, or only with one person ?

What is the carrier of the person calling you ?

If that person is calling one of your buddy, next to you, how does his number appears ?

You need to gather more info in order to have content to provide to T-Mobile in order to solve this issue.

When you call Team of Expert, or through the chat, you have incompetent persons in technology. They know only what they have been trained for.

Do not expect them to be able to resolve this.

They try to make assumptions, and since they have no clue, they are telling you to do stupid things.

Anyway, you will have to get them opening a ticket with their engineers in order to find the issue.

But you need to provide info, like the question I was asking above, in order to find if T-Mobile is interfering with the caller ID or not.

J

Thank for the reply - I have given them all the same information you have described above.

The problem happens inconsistently, from various area codes, from various carriers within the US and Canada, regardless if people are in my contacts or not, regardless if they have the +1 in the phone number in my contacts or not.

For example - one day a friend calls (who is my contacts) from Montreal with area code 514 - and shows him name. The next day when the same person calls the caller id shows it as an international number as +51 Peru without displaying the name.

My wife and I are both on T-Mobile with 610 area codes, both in each other's contacts, and get the same behavior - one day it will show her name from the contacts, and the next day it will show +61 Australia without the name.

I have checked with colleagues that are using iPhones with the most current 12.1.4 iOS with different carriers (ATT and Verizon) and they are not having this problem.

My daughter and I both travel to Canada, and do not see this behavior when we are roaming / on different carrier networks.

If you search the community here - you will see other people posting about the same issue for the last year.

E
Userlevel 1

The fact that her contact name is shown or not has nothing to do with T-Mobile, or a bug in the iPhone. It definitely comes from how you receive the number(caller ID).

The iPhone can find your contact with the international or without the international code. But adding a "+" (without the 1, or any other international code) is changing the number, and this is why it's not recognize and don't show the name, because without the international code, it doesn't match any of your contact.

So, having someone in your contact or not has nothing to do with your problem. You can remove this from your discussion. It's only going to confuse them.

Anyway, your wife and yourself have the same carrier and plan, does she have the same issue on her phone ?

Maybe if you call her ?

And what about these person in Canada trying to call you both ? Bug only on your phone or hers too ?

It is hard at our level to find who is responsible for the bug, but definitely not your phone.

It can be T-Mobile, or another random bug between carriers, the way numbers are transferred.

J

With the iPhone (and I assume other brands) - if there person calling you is in your contacts, then that contact name and contact number is displayed.  If the person is not in your contacts, then the carrier caller id name will display. The reason this is relevant is because I called my wife twice yesterday back to back. The first call of those two calls displayed the name she has for me in her contacts. The second time I called, the number / name displayed +61 Australia. What this indicates is that the incorrect caller id info is being passed the second time, and hence the phone does not recognize the number in the address book, so my name did not pop up, nor did the caller id info associated with my number pop up. There is not reason for my number to show +61 Australia.

The same thing happened to me. A person called me twice the other day. The first time it showed +40 Romania, and the second time it pulled the name from my address book and displayed the contact name and contact number correctly. I am on T-Mobile, the other person was not.

All of the family is on T-Mobile. The problem happens regardless if someone is calling me or I am calling my wife on T-Mobile.  I have iPhone 7, my wife and daughter have iPhone XR, my son has iPhone 6 ... all running iOS 12.1.4 but this problem has been happening for several months even on lower versions of iOS on all phones.

This behavior is random and is inconsistent. There is no detectable pattern regardless of physical location or roaming in Canada, or the location or number or carrier of the person calling me or if I am calling them ... US to US, US to Canada, Canada to US, or Canada to Canada.  The only commonality is the person experiencing the problem is a T-Mobile user.  The originating caller carrier seems to be irrelevant.  As mentioned above,it happens with T-Mobile to T-Mobile calls, and non T-Mobile to T-Mobile calls.

Because we travel internationally so much - we almost always enter the numbers with "+" and the country code.  This does not seem to make a difference in the behavior as this affects outbound calling, and the way the number is displayed when the contact name and number is displayed on incoming calls.

I have opened two tickets with T-Mobile support.  One for my work T-Mobile number, and the other for the home T-Mobile family plan.  They are two separate plans with different numbers.

I posted to see if anyone is having this problem.  I saw older threads from last year with people reporting the same thing - but nothing current - so I started a new thread.

tmo_mike_c
Rank
Userlevel 6
Badge +15

After everything you've described, I think the ticket is the best bet. You could try removing/readding the existing contacts this happens with but I understand this wouldn't account for the numbers that aren't saved in your list. We'd need our engineers to continue to investigate this further after looking over your tickets.

E
Userlevel 1
jorfanakos wrote:
With the iPhone (and I assume other brands) - if there person calling you is in your contacts, then that contact name and contact number is displayed. If the person is not in your contacts, then the carrier caller id name will display. The reason this is relevant is because I called my wife twice yesterday back to back. The first call of those two calls displayed the name she has for me in her contacts. The second time I called, the number / name displayed +61 Australia. What this indicates is that the incorrect caller id info is being passed the second time, and hence the phone does not recognize the number in the address book, so my name did not pop up, nor did the caller id info associated with my number pop up. There is not reason for my number to show +61 Australia.
The same thing happened to me. A person called me twice the other day. The first time it showed +40 Romania, and the second time it pulled the name from my address book and displayed the contact name and contact number correctly. I am on T-Mobile, the other person was not.
All of the family is on T-Mobile. The problem happens regardless if someone is calling me or I am calling my wife on T-Mobile. I have iPhone 7, my wife and daughter have iPhone XR, my son has iPhone 6 ... all running iOS 12.1.4 but this problem has been happening for several months even on lower versions of iOS on all phones.
This behavior is random and is inconsistent. There is no detectable pattern regardless of physical location or roaming in Canada, or the location or number or carrier of the person calling me or if I am calling them ... US to US, US to Canada, Canada to US, or Canada to Canada. The only commonality is the person experiencing the problem is a T-Mobile user. The originating caller carrier seems to be irrelevant. As mentioned above,it happens with T-Mobile to T-Mobile calls, and non T-Mobile to T-Mobile calls.
Because we travel internationally so much - we almost always enter the numbers with "+" and the country code. This does not seem to make a difference in the behavior as this affects outbound calling, and the way the number is displayed when the contact name and number is displayed on incoming calls.
I have opened two tickets with T-Mobile support. One for my work T-Mobile number, and the other for the home T-Mobile family plan. They are two separate plans with different numbers.
I posted to see if anyone is having this problem. I saw older threads from last year with people reporting the same thing - but nothing current - so I started a new thread.

So, why I say it's irrelevant because not having your name on your wife's phone is normal, there is a difference between :

a: (610) 111-1234

b: +1 (610) 111-1234 [or 1 (610) 111-1234]

c: +61 (0) 1111234

Case "a" and "b", your phone will recognize it. In case "c", it's a total different number.

Showing these different cases is what you need to show. Talking about how the name from your contact is shown will only confuse these technologically uneducated people at team of expert... Understanding how the system works is the primary step! Just as a test, try to ask any T-Mobile member at the phone how it works, you will receive exotic answers or just none.

The fact that you add the "+" for international will change nothing. You are going back to what I just explain above.

This just shows that you don't understand how it works. And no, it has nothing to do with your iPhone... Have you ever tried to spend 1 full day with for example an Android phone and your SIM card in it, to see if the problem is there ?

You will see that you will have the same issue...

The real problem is how the number is transferred. The carrier itself can badly forward it, but it forwards also what they receive.

Why do you think you receive phone calls from non-existent numbers that you can't call back, because the emitter decided to have that number shown.

Then, yes, T-Mobile can decide to reformat the number, there can be rules applied. And this is what they are doing with their option CallerID, that shows the name of the caller instead of his number.

In your case, it's probably what's happening. T-Mobile reformatting badly the way the number is sent to your phone.

This is pretty annoying, for sure, and also, after opening ticket, you should ask for a reference number for when you call back.

You should also ask for a rebate on your bill for this inconvenience that has a bad impact on your business, because you can't identify customers. This is a good reason for compensation.

Good luck with your problem. I wish to read about the way it has been solved. But you may never hear how they solve it.

J

I have been working with T-Mobile tech support.  The reset the caller the ID on all the phones (disable / re-enable / re-entered the names) and reset the Home Locator Registry.  it has been 3 days and it *seems* to have fixed the problem on the phones.  We are monitoring and will wait for a full week from today before closing the ticket.

J

I have been working with T-Mobile tech support.  The reset the caller the ID on all the phones (disable / re-enable / re-entered the names) and reset the Home Locator Registry.  it has been 3 days and it *seems* to have fixed the problem on the phones.  We are monitoring and will wait for a full week from today before closing the ticket.

P

We are a VoIP carrier and we see this happen (ONLY) on t-mobile very frequently.  We've spent hours and hours with their support trying to get them to understand, but no luck.  It's going on two years since we first reported.  At least we now have this thread to point the techs to so we don't have to re-explain it over and over.  As Endeavour states, the issue is that at some point, t-mobile is stripping the country code from the number.  We (and almost all carriers) use the "e.164" numbering plan.  So for example in Seattle with a 206 area code, we would send a number as:

+12065551234 where the +1 designates a US number.  Now some carriers will strip the +1 if they know it is US, so that is your familiar 10 digit 2065551234

What happens at t-mobile - and ONLY t-mobile is they just manage to remove the 1, so then you get:

+2065551234

What all modern cell phones will do when they get this is pick it up as a +20 area code (Egypt) and display the number as international.

(android and apple included - do NOT let t-mobile tell you to call apple - we made them conference call together and apple showed them it is not them). 

So here are the facts:

1. This ONLY happens at t-mobile.  We process millions of calls a day, thousands a second, and with 100% accuracy have only seen this with t-mobile. 

2. This is NOT due to android, apple or other manufacturer phones, or for that matter any type of software or callerID blocking.  The number is already formatted as international before it gets to your phone (ie, the "1" has already been removed)

3. Updating your contacts would only work if you went in and saved a "fake" or "wrong" number for the contact. It does NOT solve the problem.

4. It does not matter who the calls come from, but most frequently happens with voip - including google voice numbers, etc.  Google voice goes through Bandwidth (a large carrier) and we've also worked with bandwidth who sends the numbers properly to t-mobile.

5. The techs that you can talk to at t-mobile will have absolutely no clue what you are talking about.  The tier 3+ people who actually might will probably never get the ticket because every person that looks at it will tell you it is the person calling you's fault, or that you need to call apple/samsung/LG, etc.

6. This probably only gets fixed with a class action suit at some point when a lawyer finds a client that can make a claim for lost business.  This DOES happen.  Think about it, let's say you are an accountant and someone leaves you a message because they want to become a client.  you call them back, and it shows EGYPT or some other country on their cell phone.  Do you pick up?  Nope, probably not, and furthermore you can't even dial it back because your phone will try and call international.  You as the accountant just lost that business.

This same thing happened with the early ringing suit with tmobile. They refused to acknowledge it until finally they got fined millions of dollars. 

Sadly i had to switch from tmobile - i have friends that work there, Seattle is the home town of tmobile, but i couldn't stand seeing this happen all of the time.  Unfortunately I still have to deal with it constantly with our clients. 

If some enterprising tmobile support rep actually reads this and understands it I would LOVE to help.  I can reproduce this instantly, send pcaps, help you understand CID, e.164, whatever you want.  Free.  Gratis.  Let me help you!!! 

A

I get local calls tagged as International incoming calls all the time. Not only that, random countries and their flags are shown on my caller ID when this happens. All area codes are for the Atlanta area where we live. Something is broken at Tmobile and needs attention!

D

This is happening to me too. I recently switched to T Mobile and never had this problem until I switched. I tried calling support and they opened a ticket for me, as the person above suggested, but after following up the support folks just blamed it on Apple and closed my ticket. I’ve done everything I can to reset my phone, check all settings, etc and still have the problem. Someone at T Mobile needs to actually address this instead of pointing fingers at Apple, because I am on the verge of switching back to Verizon.

N

Just wow! Talk about unintended consequences.

Moments ago I spent 43 minutes on the phone with tech support trying to figure out why I’m suddenly getting a number of foreign phone number scam calls.

Based on the previous commentary here, I’m not actually getting scam calls from other countries, these are all U.S. numbers appearing as if they are from another country. 

What a mess. 

Come on T-Mobile, your advertising persona is one of sophistication in the digital space, and user perhydropyrene is more than willing to help you figure this out. For FREE!

Get it done! (It reads like it’s as simple as never stripping out the country code “1” for the USA but that’s just me guessing at this)

You would have saved the cost and frustration of almost 45 minutes of support time and an annoyed customer!

It’s 2021, please fix this.

E

Still not resolved! 🤬

M

This issue just began to occur with me. It happened concurrently within the last week where I had to upgrade my storage and I incorrectly thought it was connected. Glad to read I’m not the only one!!! It’s been very stressful and extremely irritating. Need to find a permanent solution. This cannot be a regular thing. 

 

A

I have the same issue, I was not answering calls thinking they were SPAM as the caller Id kept showing them as Canada, but there are genuine calls from New York, Texas and other parts of the US.
when the call is done and I look at the call history it correctly displays the state. And now I have to call back.

Its very annoying. Please fix.

M

I started having this issue when I transferred from Sprint to At&t (2019). Prior to the transfer, my phone number worked as it should. 

I believe it was from the way the number was ported from Sprint to At&t. Sprint made us go through their International Customer Service to get the number ported, which both the At&t rep and I, thought that was odd. Ever since then, I have been experiencing the same thing: incoming calls are showing up as international numbers. I've tried all the fixes with the phone numbers in my contract but it doesn't make a difference, because when I try to call a local number, it tells me, "the international number you are calling cannot be completed as dialed." At&t says it's Sprint's fault. Sprint said it is an At&t issue. I just kept getting the run around. I thought switching carriers would fix this, but it hasn't. I tried switching to several different carriers, explaining what happened to my phone number, but it just gets ported as the screwed up one between Sprint and At&t. Here I am with Tmobile and still the same problem. 

I also noticed that my voicemail number default is +11352***-****. 352 is my area code. I have tried every mode and combination to change it. It doesn't matter - still the same problem. My phone is showing as though I'm in Germany or Sweden. 

Since the original switch, I also noticed the location on my photos in Google shows foreign locations too. 

This is the first post I've seen with this issue too. I was just thinking about changing my phone number. I'd hate to do that because I've had this number for over 8 years. 

If I miss a call and try to call the caller back, it would not go through because it thinks I'm calling an international number. I have to manually call each number back using 13525551234. I have to remove the + if it shows it, or add 1 then the area code if it's a local number. 

I believe what perhydropyrene stated about the cause, is correct, however, it is Not Exclusive to T-Mobile. It is the way the number is being ported and stripped from one carrier to another. 

It is also not exclusive to iPhone, because I have a Samsung. 

So can this be fixed for the people currently having this issue, without having to get a new phone number?

Can anyone fix this issue, or does it have to be a carrier tech person?

J

Over 2 years and this is not resolved. Do better, T-Mobile.

A

Same issue here. T-Mobile, get this sorted out please.

Z

From my friend in the 925 area code in the San Francisco Bay Area whose number is stored in my contacts.

The most recent of many examples. 

M

Just encountered this issue. US 408 number reconfigured as +40 Romania. I realized several previous calls were also mis-identified as international from countries. This started when switching to T-mobile about a year ago. Clearly NOT an Apple issue as I’ve always had iPhones and never had this problem. Just FYI since this thread is 4+ years old. Still happening March 2023.  

B

This just started happening on my phone, I am using an android, Motorola Power 8, what is the fix?

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