Help Cannot Text or Call

[aml1025]

I'm using a Virgin Mobile HTC Desire 816, and posting this here to hopefully get the largest possible audience.

For several weeks, I had been having problems with delayed texts, and calls not ringing through to my phone. VM told me there had been a tower outage that had been cleared, but to check back with them for an update. Then, yesterday morning, I tried sending texts and began getting a failure message, and when I try to call I either get a message that I'm roaming (I'm not) or that I have dialed an invalid number or code (not true). My data connection seems to be unaffected.

VM has had me try all the usual fixes: account refreshing and reprovisioning from their end, PRL and profile updates, ##72786# resets, and even a factory reset. The next step is higher level tech support, but it will take up to 72 hours for them to contact me.

Tomorrow I need to go out of town with my family, and need to have a working phone since we'll be at a university where we'll be separated over the course of the day. I'm hoping someone here has experienced a similar problem and has a fix. Right now, finding a new cell phone service is sounding pretty appealing as a solution... it's a bad time for a problem like this.

Thanks for any ideas!

 

[tli]

Personally, I would try a quick and simple test, drive ~5-10 miles away to a known different tower location and check for service. This would verify if the problem is indeed with the local tower or it's the phone.

 

[aml1025]

Yesterday I was about 45 miles away from home, and it made no difference. Family members aren't having the same problem, so I'm pretty sure it's something account-related rather than an outage in my area (there had been an outage earlier causing me to have only a weak signal, which seems to have been resolved).

My phone itself does not think it's roaming; the messages I get are recordings I hear when trying to make a call. Still waiting to hear back from higher technical support, but I assume that will be tomorrow at the earliest. Good thing I'm one of those people who still has a land line so they can actually reach me.

 

[mikeca]

One time a couple years ago or so my account and number actually had to be cancelled and restarted to get it sorted out. Something with my account just wasn't working until they made it appear as though it was brand new and then it worked fine. Very strange how this can happen, likely a box that was checked or not on their end but no one could figure it out.

GOOD LUCK!