If you have international roaming on your phone enabled (most people do) you should be able to send SMS text messages to people abroad, right? Not if you’re with O2 it turns out.
Having switched to O2 at the beginning of the month, because they’ll be the sole iPhone carrier in the UK, I found out to my great annoyance this week that you can’t SMS people in South Korea and visa versa… if you’re on O2 anyway (Orange works fine). Several missed text messages later, which mysteriously vanished into a black hole somewhere, I called and emailed customer services who eventually came back with this:
“Thanks for emailing us about not being able to send text messages to a South Korean mobile number. I understand it’s important for you to send text messages to your friends in South Korea. We don’t have an agreement with SK Telecom, so we can’t guarantee that you’ll be able to send text messages to any mobile numbers of this network”
What?!!! “Can’t guarantee” - it simply doesn’t work!
On their website O2 boldly proclaim “our international coverage is unsurpassed” - clearly not if they don’t have an agreement with the biggest provider in South Korea, the most digitally connected country on the planet. This is a pretty annoying state of affairs and I can only imagine how many other gaping holes there are in their international coverage.
Enjoyed this post? Please subscribe to my RSS feed to stay up to date.
I know what you mean, I recently found out I cannot send SMS To China with O2 - OFten i have had international SMS dissapear in the black hole to different countries. Since O2 have been around since year dot, you would have thought their service was the move evolved.. it appears thats not the case
Shame I still got 12 months left on my contract
Interesting… I’ve found text messages get through to my friends in Beijing OK so perhaps its a regional problem? Seems O2’s international coverage is pretty shoddy. I wonder if we still get charged for the messages that go into the black hole?
I have the same problem and you get charged for all the messages even though they are never delivered to the person you are sending them to!
Yeah I noticed that on my last bill - pretty criminal behaviour! I’ve got a technical fault logged with O2 but not heard anything back yet. Doesn’t look like it’ll get fixed any time soon.
I can send text messages abroad for example to italy and mexico, but i cannot receive any, my friends do get my texts but I cannot get theirs. Is it the same problem with you guys???
Sounds like it could be a similar problem but strange that they still work one-way. All I can suggest is calling their customer services to complain & ask them to raise a technical defect ticket.
I got the same problem!
Has anyone been successful in claiming for a technical defect ticket yet?
thanks,
Ash
Nothing from my complaint - they never got back to me!
I managed to text message my Dad in the uk from South Korea, i used the code 002 44 then the phone number, it worked, but he couldn’t send messages back, he’s a vodaphone user.
Interesting, so it appears the problem is not just O2. I still find it incredulous that they are charging people for messages which never arrive thought. You would have thought they test these things!!
i have the same problem here i cant send txt messages to south korea. im with vodafone… can anybody please help me?
I’m afraid there is really very little you can do other then complain to your provider.
One solution you may find useful is to use Skype - you can send SMS messages to anywhere in the world using it (and quite cheap also).
i can send SMS message to my wife in saudi arabia, but i can’t receive her replies…what and where is the problem? here in south korea or there in saudi arabia networks? please help me.thanks.
I get numerous SMS messages from my partner in Mexico City, but I cannot send any back. I have tried using Vodafone, Orange, and most recently Skype, all to no avail. MOST frustrating !!!
I have the same problem and you get charged for all the messages even though they are never delivered to the person you are sending them to!
I do get text messages from South Korea but my contact has to put in a preamble number, if anyone would like this number let me know and i will look it up. I might add I have been trying lots of way to send one back and have spent over £5.00 on texts wasted. as for 02 surport like most of them is like talking to a black hole in its self. I shall change as soon as I can get a human on some other network, it would seem the only way to get a human is to call a sales line they soon answer then. Frustrating is not the word. on top of that I often get charged when some calls are said to be free. if you want any money back it can cost as much to get some one to refund it . So I dont bother.