SMS outbound no longer works for Company Main Number

What is your account id or exact company name?

How do you send text messages from the main company number, via your app or via the RingCentral app?

The SMS text messaging industry has changed a lot since the pandemic and mobile carriers are much stricter in blocking P2P (Person-to-Person) messaging violation. Once a number is blocked by a mobile carrier because of violations, there is not much RingCentral can help to get it unblocked unless the use case is legitimate and misinterpreted.

See the SMS policy https://developers.ringcentral.com/guide/messaging/sms-content-policy

Ferreira Law

We send text messages through the RingCentral app.

RC Tech Support has been able to unblock the number on several occasions.

My Company Main Number is still experiencing the same issue with outbound SMS. The last status update I received from Tier 2 is that there is a bug on my account and the RC system is blocking it without a violation. Apparently the Engineering department has been working on it since December 27. Is there a faster resolution to this issue, can this be escalated to another department so it can be worked on immediately? Case number is 14262533.

Same stuff here, I have that feeling when RingCentral technicians have no clue how to fix it. I was speaking with support several times and every time they give me a simple answer that there is a BUG and they do not know when they will fix it.

Ana and RC Support,

This is not an answer but this has been an ongoing issue for our company as well. We go into an outbound (and sometimes inbound) SMS outage 1 or 2 days per month. Our main number is what is used by our customers and they are getting very frustrated because they cannot communicate with us in the way they have for the last 6 years. This has been happening since September and I am experiencing the issue again today. Some ticket numbers I have had created since this issue started: 13569424, 13591901, 13745448, 14137017. Phong - I have reviewed SMS Content policy and we are following the guidelines provided.

Our company has been a RC customer since 2016 and I would also like a way to escalate this issue beyond Tier 2/Tier 3 support.

This is the Case #14270538 for the case I have created.

We started noticing the same issue since September also, I have called them multiple times, but today I received an answer of the year. The representative told me that this will be happening and every time this will happen I will need to call the support to ask them to unblock our number, which is not a solution at all. Here also is an email from another representative from Tied 2 that promised to fix an issue, but he only sent an email containing this text "We are still working on this BUG, there is still a possibility that the issue will happen and we need to re-submit again ticket to our carrier to clear it. Temporarily this is what we need to do while our team still working for a permanent resolution. ". After this email I have never heard from this guy.

Hi everyone,

I fully understand your frustration of being unable to send SMS messages from your RingCentral phone numbers and the customer support could not help much. Remember that this is the developer community though. It is mainly dedicated for developers to ask questions and share experiences related to programming and application development using RingCentral API platform.

Since you are using the RingCentral app to send text messages, the issue you are facing is not a programming problem. I believe that the cause of the problem in many cases is that the numbers got blocked by mobile carriers, either by mistake or on purpose. The rules applied to SMS text messaging are not created nor controlled by RingCentral. They are guidances set by government agencies and reenforced by mobile carriers, the last node in the text message delivery chain, who decides whether or not to deliver the message to their subscribers.

It's hard for us to say why a number got blocked or a message got flagged without knowing the actual message, the number of messages and the frequency you sent, and also the send/receive 1:1 ratio, and ultimately, a list of recipient's carriers. These are the information a customer support would need to provide to a mobile carrier to investigate the root cause and resolve the problem.

You mentioned that it used to work before and now it stops working. Well, text messaging compliance has changed over the time and it changed a lot during the pandemic, particularly to business (non-consumer) text messaging. Also, carriers' messaging violation detections are automated and accumulated when it reaches a certain threshold.

Last but not least, unfortunately those case numbers are customer support cases (not dev support case) so I don't have access to the cases.

In order for me to jump in to help you with, please provide your account id and the last 4 digits of the phone number which got blocked (remember that this is a public forum, No sensitive information should be posted here). You will also grant a permission for us to access your message store to get the information needed by mobile carriers when we escalate the case to them. Alternatively, you can access your cases and ask the customer support to contact me (Phong Vu) to assist. In that case, you don't need to provide further information to this thread.

Hope this helps!

P.S. If you would like to ask non-programming questions in the forum, use the Customer Community instead.

What I don't understand is why is it sporadically working. If I send 10 text messages to and from the main line when we are in an outage. The messages are sent and received maybe 1 out of 10 times and sometimes they arrive 2-5 hours later.

If the carriers were "blocking" the number it would 100% failure rate until they removed the block.

This makes me think it is getting stuck in cue somewhere in RC servers and catching up when the server has the processing power.

Thoughts?

Again, I cannot say w/o knowing if the recipient number is always the same number. Or recipient numbers are different and different carriers too.

Regarding the delay, we cannot be sure where it got stuck without the detailed data. This is the short path a text message would go thru, RC - Upstream (SMS Gateway) - Mobile carrier - Subscriber. Any node can cause the delay.

Pls clarify that if all 10 text messages failed or some failed, some passed?

Phong, reaching out to you, as I consider you the authority on RC...hoping you can assist (level 2 and engineering depts haven’t been able to)

I’m NOT a developer, but AM an 11year RC superuser, so i speak with knowledge experience and understanding of the platform.

In a nutshell:

1.  i am the super-admin and designated operator “0” extension
2. previously (10+ yrs), no problem sending/receiving SMS from company main #, across all platforms

Today: I am still super admin and still operator assigned, but…

• on mobile/iPad (iOS 18/iPadOS), i am unable to use the company main # to send SMS
• i am restricted to using direct extension/additional assigned numbers 
• inbound SMS to main number -> view access only on mobile apps
• cannot reply (unless i start a new chat from one of the other numbers)
• the mobile apps do not respect the “outbound caller ID” rules per user/extension
• on web/desktop app, the previous functionality hasn’t changed.
• Yes, I’ve tried loggin out/in, clearing caches, deleting and re-installing apps, and some deep developer key press combos/repeats to send logs to devs as well

Truly bizarre behavior. I know I’m posting on an old thread, but this is kinda both a related and a new problem. 

Thanks!

So you have submitted a customer support ticket for this? If so, can you provide the case number?

This is not relating to app development nor the RingCentral platform. But let me try to understand what exactly going on from your side so I can try to help.

So as far as I understood from the above, you can receive inbound text messages to your mobile/iPad RC app, but you cannot start sending text messages from the mobile app, right? If so, is it because when you start a SMS chat, you cannot see the main phone number on the list?

The RC app on your desktop/Web browser works as expected, right? This means you can send/receive and start sending text messages from the app?

And finally, can you explain this “cannot reply (unless i start a new chat from one of the other numbers)”?

Phong,

Appreciate your time. Case number 26339898 sitting with Tier 3 Advanced Support Group… since November. 
to clarify a few things:

I am logged in to mobile/ipad/desktop apps as super-admin. I am assigned operator. Since 2014. 
• desktop: normal behavior. can send/receive SMS with main number 

• mobile (iOS 18): can view all company activity. Full admin privileges.
• For mobile SMS outbound, send but only from additional numbers I have. 
• For mobile SMS inbound- I can view all SMS, including SMS from desktop sent from main number.
• On mobile: I cannot reply to these incoming messages in the same thread. I have to reply by starting a new thread using one of the additional numbers I have. This doesn’t feel right with my customers.

• User setting for outbound SMS caller ID has drop down for the main number, but it always just reverts to the additional numbers  

• All possible solutions have been made- log out/in, clear cache, delete/reinstall. 
• The lack of parity between desktop and mobile makes no sense. 
screenshots attached 

thanks!!

Hi, ​@myobgyn, I went ahead and deleted the screenshots you attached since they contained personal information, which goes against our policy. Thanks for understanding! 😊
 

**also, I just sent you a DM. 

I’ve sent you an invite to RC team chat, please join so I can help you better via that conversation channel.

Where do I find that DM/Invite?

Thanks for your help, ​@PhongVu! 🙏🏼

BUMP… this issue persists (since November, now in 5th month). We need a response and a fix ASAP!