Help Phone tries to send text by itself

[Tony Android]

I have a 18 month old Epic 4G Touch through Ting, which is a Sprint reseller. Running ICS 4.0.4 Build IMM761.FL24. Not rooted.

I have SMS turned off at the account level, and I have never sent a text from this phone. No one besides myself has physical access to this phone.

One morning a week or two ago I found the phone had attempted to send a text at 3:29 AM. The user was "9230". There was an error notification: "You are not allowed to send text messages. Msg 2120."

When I google that, all I get is results from people who want to send a text, but cannot.

I've run a virus / spyware scan with no results. I've uninstalled a couple of apps that I wasn't using, there was no change. I've tried a cold reboot with a battery pull, and every reboot the text tries to send again, producing the error notification.

I'm not sure if this is malware or malfunction. No new apps have been installed in the past six months. Nor have I installed any recent updates.

I have very few apps installed, about 12 or so, and except for Tesla LED, Kindle Reader, and LookOut Ad Network Detector, they are all common and popular paid apps. Full list of other installed apps: Moon+ Reader Pro, Aldiko Premium, Smart Tools (paid version), MyBackup Pro, HDR Camera Plus, GPS Test Plus, Where's My Droid, Dolphin browser and Chrome browser. No games installed. No social networking (Facebook, Google+. Twitter, etc) in use.

The text attempts to send every few days, or every time I reboot the device. I'd like to see the content of the text, but I can't find any outbox. Only "Conversations", which does not display the contents of the failed outgoing text.

Obviously, I'd like put a stop to whatever is trying to send a SMS from my device without my consent. I'd like to avoid a factory reset.

All help, information, and suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

 

[Rukbat]

Bring the phone into Ting. Tell them what happens - that every time you reboot the phone it tries to send a text. (Back up everything before you bring it to them - apps, data, SMS, everything. They may want to reflash the phone.)

 

[Tony Android]

Bring the phone into Ting. Tell them what happens - that every time you reboot the phone it tries to send a text. (Back up everything before you bring it to them - apps, data, SMS, everything. They may want to reflash the phone.)

I've already tried Ting tech support. Nice people, but they were not able to solve the problem. For Ting to flash it, I'd have to mail the phone to Ting. It is my only phone, and if it came to it, it would be more convenient for me to do the factory reset (or even flash) myself. But the factory reset is what I'm wanting to avoid.