I cannot text my brother but he can text me

[Dave McFly]

I just got a new phone and had it a little over a week and I have a minor (but starting to become a major one) problem I cannot text my brother OR anybody else. I am in NY he is in CA but both our numbers have the same area code cause he got his phone in NY before going out west. I can't text other people but they can text me, but when my brother texts me I get it but when I send him one or reply I get this:

+1121611611 (brother's number) Error Invalid Number. Please re-send using a valid 10 digit mobile number or valid short code.


I KNOW my brother's number is valid as I can call him fine on it and he can message me on it. I called Straight Talk (my carrier) support and we tried removing battery, and sim card (I have the ZTE Merit 'android') and put them back in and rebooted same thing. I talked to the AT&T people as they carry a version of the phone but since it is a ST phone they could not really help but they suggested me deleting my brother's contact info and re entering it both with and without his area code. same error, I was gonna exchange the phone thinking I have a bad phone, but I tried one last thing, I reset the phone back to factory settings and tried sending one by entering his ph # and it went through (no error this time) so I thought I fixed it.

well after entering my Google account and getting my contacts back I sent him another one to see if he got the older one okay and I JUST got the dang Error Invalid Number problem. so, what do you guys think, is it the phone which I HOPE it is. do not get me wrong I LOVE the phone the quality of calls is great and the 3G works very well, it is just the ONE person I text the most cannot get my texts and it is driving me up the dang wall

FYI I cannot text anybody I thought it was only my brother I could not text i sent one to a buddy of mine and it just bounced back, so please help.

 

[KALEL114]

Are you using the sim card that came with the phone?

Try texting yourself. Sometimes that helps.

 

[Dave McFly]

it is the card that came with the phone my first phone with a sim card. I tried texting myself and it did not work sending one with a area code first does not bounce back but if a person replies and i reply back it bounces back. I am sure I got a bad phone i placed it on my desk a tad to hard (dropped it from a height of about an inch or 2) and it shut off and rebooted. I am gonna try to see what happens after I replace it.

 

[KALEL114]

Sounds good. Let us know what happens.

 

[Dave McFly]

swapped out phone and am all right in the world sent a test text to my buddy and one to my brother and both went through no bounce backs. I guess I just had a bad phone t:.

 

[KALEL114]

Awesome news.

 

[Dave McFly]

yeah I was on the phone with customer service 3 times, and talk to the fine folks at the AT&T store and we could not figure it out. so yeah the phone was bad new one is great, and no problems so far .