Incoming numbers appear as international numbers

We are a VoIP carrier and we see this happen (ONLY) on t-mobile very frequently.  We've spent hours and hours with their support trying to get them to understand, but no luck.  It's going on two years since we first reported.  At least we now have this thread to point the techs to so we don't have to re-explain it over and over.  As Endeavour states, the issue is that at some point, t-mobile is stripping the country code from the number.  We (and almost all carriers) use the "e.164" numbering plan.  So for example in Seattle with a 206 area code, we would send a number as:

+12065551234 where the +1 designates a US number.  Now some carriers will strip the +1 if they know it is US, so that is your familiar 10 digit 2065551234

What happens at t-mobile - and ONLY t-mobile is they just manage to remove the 1, so then you get:

+2065551234

What all modern cell phones will do when they get this is pick it up as a +20 area code (Egypt) and display the number as international.

(android and apple included - do NOT let t-mobile tell you to call apple - we made them conference call together and apple showed them it is not them). 

So here are the facts:

1. This ONLY happens at t-mobile.  We process millions of calls a day, thousands a second, and with 100% accuracy have only seen this with t-mobile. 

2. This is NOT due to android, apple or other manufacturer phones, or for that matter any type of software or callerID blocking.  The number is already formatted as international before it gets to your phone (ie, the "1" has already been removed)

3. Updating your contacts would only work if you went in and saved a "fake" or "wrong" number for the contact. It does NOT solve the problem.

4. It does not matter who the calls come from, but most frequently happens with voip - including google voice numbers, etc.  Google voice goes through Bandwidth (a large carrier) and we've also worked with bandwidth who sends the numbers properly to t-mobile.

5. The techs that you can talk to at t-mobile will have absolutely no clue what you are talking about.  The tier 3+ people who actually might will probably never get the ticket because every person that looks at it will tell you it is the person calling you's fault, or that you need to call apple/samsung/LG, etc.

6. This probably only gets fixed with a class action suit at some point when a lawyer finds a client that can make a claim for lost business.  This DOES happen.  Think about it, let's say you are an accountant and someone leaves you a message because they want to become a client.  you call them back, and it shows EGYPT or some other country on their cell phone.  Do you pick up?  Nope, probably not, and furthermore you can't even dial it back because your phone will try and call international.  You as the accountant just lost that business.

This same thing happened with the early ringing suit with tmobile. They refused to acknowledge it until finally they got fined millions of dollars. 

Sadly i had to switch from tmobile - i have friends that work there, Seattle is the home town of tmobile, but i couldn't stand seeing this happen all of the time.  Unfortunately I still have to deal with it constantly with our clients. 

If some enterprising tmobile support rep actually reads this and understands it I would LOVE to help.  I can reproduce this instantly, send pcaps, help you understand CID, e.164, whatever you want.  Free.  Gratis.  Let me help you!!! 

Just wow! Talk about unintended consequences.

Moments ago I spent 43 minutes on the phone with tech support trying to figure out why I’m suddenly getting a number of foreign phone number scam calls.

Based on the previous commentary here, I’m not actually getting scam calls from other countries, these are all U.S. numbers appearing as if they are from another country. 

What a mess. 

Come on T-Mobile, your advertising persona is one of sophistication in the digital space, and user perhydropyrene is more than willing to help you figure this out. For FREE!

Get it done! (It reads like it’s as simple as never stripping out the country code “1” for the USA but that’s just me guessing at this)

You would have saved the cost and frustration of almost 45 minutes of support time and an annoyed customer!

It’s 2021, please fix this.

jorfanakos wrote:
With the iPhone (and I assume other brands) - if there person calling you is in your contacts, then that contact name and contact number is displayed. If the person is not in your contacts, then the carrier caller id name will display. The reason this is relevant is because I called my wife twice yesterday back to back. The first call of those two calls displayed the name she has for me in her contacts. The second time I called, the number / name displayed +61 Australia. What this indicates is that the incorrect caller id info is being passed the second time, and hence the phone does not recognize the number in the address book, so my name did not pop up, nor did the caller id info associated with my number pop up. There is not reason for my number to show +61 Australia.
The same thing happened to me. A person called me twice the other day. The first time it showed +40 Romania, and the second time it pulled the name from my address book and displayed the contact name and contact number correctly. I am on T-Mobile, the other person was not.
All of the family is on T-Mobile. The problem happens regardless if someone is calling me or I am calling my wife on T-Mobile. I have iPhone 7, my wife and daughter have iPhone XR, my son has iPhone 6 ... all running iOS 12.1.4 but this problem has been happening for several months even on lower versions of iOS on all phones.
This behavior is random and is inconsistent. There is no detectable pattern regardless of physical location or roaming in Canada, or the location or number or carrier of the person calling me or if I am calling them ... US to US, US to Canada, Canada to US, or Canada to Canada. The only commonality is the person experiencing the problem is a T-Mobile user. The originating caller carrier seems to be irrelevant. As mentioned above,it happens with T-Mobile to T-Mobile calls, and non T-Mobile to T-Mobile calls.
Because we travel internationally so much - we almost always enter the numbers with "+" and the country code. This does not seem to make a difference in the behavior as this affects outbound calling, and the way the number is displayed when the contact name and number is displayed on incoming calls.
I have opened two tickets with T-Mobile support. One for my work T-Mobile number, and the other for the home T-Mobile family plan. They are two separate plans with different numbers.
I posted to see if anyone is having this problem. I saw older threads from last year with people reporting the same thing - but nothing current - so I started a new thread.

So, why I say it's irrelevant because not having your name on your wife's phone is normal, there is a difference between :

a: (610) 111-1234

b: +1 (610) 111-1234 [or 1 (610) 111-1234]

c: +61 (0) 1111234

Case "a" and "b", your phone will recognize it. In case "c", it's a total different number.

Showing these different cases is what you need to show. Talking about how the name from your contact is shown will only confuse these technologically uneducated people at team of expert... Understanding how the system works is the primary step! Just as a test, try to ask any T-Mobile member at the phone how it works, you will receive exotic answers or just none.

The fact that you add the "+" for international will change nothing. You are going back to what I just explain above.

This just shows that you don't understand how it works. And no, it has nothing to do with your iPhone... Have you ever tried to spend 1 full day with for example an Android phone and your SIM card in it, to see if the problem is there ?

You will see that you will have the same issue...

The real problem is how the number is transferred. The carrier itself can badly forward it, but it forwards also what they receive.

Why do you think you receive phone calls from non-existent numbers that you can't call back, because the emitter decided to have that number shown.

Then, yes, T-Mobile can decide to reformat the number, there can be rules applied. And this is what they are doing with their option CallerID, that shows the name of the caller instead of his number.

In your case, it's probably what's happening. T-Mobile reformatting badly the way the number is sent to your phone.

This is pretty annoying, for sure, and also, after opening ticket, you should ask for a reference number for when you call back.

You should also ask for a rebate on your bill for this inconvenience that has a bad impact on your business, because you can't identify customers. This is a good reason for compensation.

Good luck with your problem. I wish to read about the way it has been solved. But you may never hear how they solve it.

I get local calls tagged as International incoming calls all the time. Not only that, random countries and their flags are shown on my caller ID when this happens. All area codes are for the Atlanta area where we live. Something is broken at Tmobile and needs attention!

This is happening to me too. I recently switched to T Mobile and never had this problem until I switched. I tried calling support and they opened a ticket for me, as the person above suggested, but after following up the support folks just blamed it on Apple and closed my ticket. I've done everything I can to reset my phone, check all settings, etc and still have the problem. Someone at T Mobile needs to actually address this instead of pointing fingers at Apple, because I am on the verge of switching back to Verizon.

Still not resolved! 🤬

Over 2 years and this is not resolved. Do better, T-Mobile.

This happened to me when using Google phone app on a stock X4.

Doesn't happen on my 1+6T.

Pretty strange. I got the phone numbers shown as international (which I like by the way) in +1 (xxx) xxx-xxxx !

But you problem, I had that with scam only, means it all depends the way the number is transferred.

Normally, the way the number is shown depends of the emitter.

So, If one person is calling you, and then is calling the person next to you, the number appears differently ?

It has been working fine / normal just until maybe last month.  it used to show correctly but as I mentioned - if someone is calling from 610 area code ... it now shows +61 Australia ... even if they are in my address book as +1 610 xxx xxxx.

I tried using the online chat for help - but did not get very far. They suggested that i reset my network settings on my iPhone.  That has nothing to do with inbound caller id.

I checked my reginal settings to be sure - and everything is still US / unchanged.