AT&T iPhone users' texts misdirected to same stranger instead of my wife's 2nd number

Question

My wife just got a 2nd phone# with Verizon on her Samsung Galaxy S23 FE.    She can text me from the 2nd number, and I can reply, just as you would expect.  We both have Samsung phones and are on the same Verizon family plan.

Today, my wife texted a co-worker who has AT&T + iPhone.    When this co-worker replied to the text, the co-worker's text went to a stranger and not to my wife.    So this evening, we tried it with co-worker #2 who also has AT&T + iPhone.   Co-worker #2 text went to that same stranger, who acted ugly in the same way.

I put in a support case in Verizon tonight.    Any idea what's happening?

Llamabob · Accepted Answer

Thanks for reaching out Jaquetta,

On Friday 2/14/2025, I chatted with Verizon technical expert Harper, who figured it out and solved the problem.

It turned out that when I added a 2nd line to my wife's phone, I picked a phone# from the website at random.    It turned out that that number in Verizon's inventory has previously been ported to Verizon from an AT&T customer.    The porting process apparently wasn't 100% successful.   AT&T ported the voice part of the routing, but did not finish porting the text part.

So people with AT&T could call my wife, but when they text the same number, it went to some unknown user at AT&T.    Verizon-to-Verizon text worked fine.

So this was a 1 in a million technical glitch, that Harper in tech support figured out right away.   Harper offered me 2 solutions..  either re-porting the same number or switching to a new number.    Porting can take a while and relies on AT&T, so we decided to switch to a new number since only a few people had the old 2nd number.    A few keyboard clicks and a phone reboot, and everything magically converted to the new number.     We tested it with a couple of AT&T friends, and the new text worked great.

This was the best example of customer service excellence that I can remember ever experiencing.   Kudo's to Verizon to finding and fixing this for us.

Bob

Verizon_Support · Accepted Answer

Hey there, Bob, thank you so much for taking the time to send an update! We're very glad to hear that everything has worked out with your wife's second line and that we were able to quickly diagnose the issue for you. Have a great day!

-Lauren