Does "Find your iPhone" send automatic text messages, which do not appear on the phone?

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Level 1

8 points

Does "Find your iPhone" send automatic text messages, which do not appear on the phone?

I am on a prepay programme with my iPhone 5S. Recently, I discovered that my phone balance was reducing, even though I was not using my phone at that time. My local carrier has since advised my that my iPhone has been sending international text messages (which I cannot see on my phone), and that is due to "Antitheft" being activated in the settings on my phone and that I need to disable this.

1) I cannot find anything called antitheft on my phone - does anything like this exist?.

2) I am now working on the assumption that maybe my carrier meant the "find my iPhone" and not Antitheft. But does "find my iPhone" send text messages to a UK number, without any notification to me?

iPhone 5s

Posted on May 17, 2016 8:09 AM

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Answer 1

May 17, 2016 8:29 AM in response to pms7981

1. No. Find My iPhone is probably what they're referring to.

2. No. SMS messages are sent to the UK for iMessage activation, which you will not be charged for if you are using your phone with a supported iPhone carrier.

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Answer 2

pms7981 Author

Level 1

8 points

May 17, 2016 8:26 AM in response to Templeton Peck

Thanks!!

So, every time I send an iMessage, an sms gets sent to the UK for activation of that message?

How do I disable iMessages?

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Answer 3

BBoiss

Level 4

1,433 points

May 17, 2016 8:42 AM in response to pms7981

Right, iMessage does an initial silent short code to your carrier to activate iMessage, but Find my iPhone doesn't send these as a means to keep your location up to date. It sounds like your carrier representative was stringing words together on their first week of work =\.

Anything using location services will use cell/wifi data so if you are noticing a drain in your available data, that is why. Additionally, unlike dial-up, your connection to the internet is always maintained and constant. To do this, a small string of data is always trickling to keep this connection.

Below are some useful articles that cover both battery and data (both are generally relevant to one another)

Maximizing Battery

http://www.apple.com/batteries/maximizing-performance/

About Cellular Data

About cellular data settings and usage on your iPhone and iPad - Apple Support

and just because I didn't see it mentioned, also check that automatic updates are disabled in your Settings>iTunes & App Store for your Apps when on Cellular.

Follow these articles and you will be better for it.

Best of luck!

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Answer 4

pms7981 Author

Level 1

8 points

May 17, 2016 8:43 AM in response to BBoiss

Thanks for the reply.

Just to check,

So, every time I send an iMessage, an sms gets sent to the UK for activation of that message?

How do I disable iMessages?

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Answer 5

May 17, 2016 8:44 AM in response to pms7981

pms7981 wrote:

Thanks!!

So, every time I send an iMessage, an sms gets sent to the UK for activation of that message?

How do I disable iMessages?

No. It will only send it once when you activate iMessage on your device.

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Answer 6

pms7981 Author

Level 1

8 points

May 17, 2016 8:52 AM in response to Templeton Peck

Thanks for the quick reply!!

My phone appears to keep trying to activate iMessage every so often - I get a message saying that my carrier may charge me for the SMS for activation (even though I am able to send iMessages) and when I just checked it in settings, under iMessage, it said activation failed - any ideas what may be happening?

For the meantime, I have had to switch off iMessage to stop this from happening.

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