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The Apple Support Community will permanently close on November 20, 2026. Starting today, the site will no longer accept new posts and is available in a read-only state.
You can continue to find trusted guidance and support on the official Apple Support site.
We want to thank the community members who have contributed their time and expertise to help others with their Apple products.
yesterday, I sent my mom a text. The message failed to deliver and I received "sorry, this service is not available" from "666" #. I sent the message about 5 more times and the same thing happened.
Is this a standard message or was I (or my mom) being hacked? Any info helps. Thanks.
iPhone 11, iOS 15
Hi Michael2613,
Thanks for coming to Apple Support Communities for help today sending a text.
Does this happen to all messages or just the one to your mother?
Can she text you?
Have a look here: If you can't send or receive messages on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. It sounds like this is an SMS message. Have you contacted your carrier?
Have a fantastic day!
Michael2613,
Thanks for coming back with more information. If both texts were green, that means they were SMS and not iMessage. It sounds like you lost cellular data briefly and you weren't connected to Wi-Fi. The service message was most certainly from the carrier.
It's difficult to say why the messages between you and your mom were deleted. If you were using Messages in iCloud, once a message thread is deleted, then it is deleted everywhere. Please see: Use Messages in iCloud.
If you aren't using the feature and have been making regular backups, then your messages would be in the last backup made. If restored, you would lose data saved on your iPhone between that last backup and now: Restore your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch from a backup.
Cheers,
Hi MichaelIB2019,
Thanks for your response.
It only happened for messages over the course of about a half hour. Our texts were green at the same time, despite us both having iphones. After that, everything was ok. Except that all of the text messages between my mom and I, previously going back years, were deleted.
To be honest the error message coming from "666" number made me think I was being hacked.
I contacted my carrier and they said to contact Apple about it.
Thanks!
"sorry, this service is not available" from "666" #
