Forum Discussion
prison calls
will i receive calls from someone in prison?
Yes you should receive prison calls. My best friend whom of which also has T-Mobile receives about 10-15 calls a day from her child's father, sometimes even as late as 9:30pm. She does not put money on his account herself as she has no interest in chit chatting with him so he calls her with money someone else has placed on the account. If you have the scam shield app, turn it off and/ or manually add the phone number to the list of approved callers. Double check that your phone does not have "filter unknown callers" enabled. Make sure the contact is saved. Make sure the phone number is not blocked in your contact list. Other trouble shooting methods after all of that is done and the issue persists is to just simply go into the store (a corporate location because it truly does make a drastic difference customer service quality wise compared to a third-party retailer)(also observe the representative and see if they even seem knowledgeable and willing to help) because it much easier than speaking to customer service. When you are in the store ask the representative if they can check your features. Have them check the line you are specifically having an issue with for any scam blocking SOC codes. You also probably want to make sure your rate plan supports collect calls. Plans such as the $10 T-Mobile connect prepaid plan will not.
If you have an android don’t let someone persuade you into getting an issue specifically due to this issue because the type of phone you have is likely not the cause.
I have had a relative in prison several times. Possibly it depends on if it is a State or Federal prison. I have never received a collect call. Possibly because he calls my cell phone number. You have to put $$ on an account with whichever company the prison uses to receive a call unless they are calling you with the one free call they receive a week. I was able to receive calls for 4 months then all of a sudden he could not get through and my phone would not show he even tried to call. A prisoner is informed if you are block because of an infraction. I could call the company the calls go through (you have an account there with $$ on it.) and see exactly when he called. T-mobile had many different reasons and tried many different things with me calling almost daily for a month. Some of the people at T-mobile would give me incorrect advice that the next person I talked to would wonder where they got that from. One even had me block the #. (Overseas person). I would say if you reach the overseas people hang up and try again. I don't know what finally worked but I know I now have scam shield on my phone and it is turned OFF. Make sure the number the person calls from is in your contacts and check that it looks the same in all allowed calls in the scam shield. It took me a month and about 20 hours of phone calls and on hold to get it fixed. If they tell you it is the other company they are wrong. It is a known problem with t-mobile. One guy told me the calls weren't even hitting there tower. Keep calling them!! Push an error report up all the way and make sure you are talking to technical support. It takes about 10 minutes to get past the first person.
There is some sort of firewall that prevents prison phones calls from getting through on T-Mobile networks. I spoken with someone from the I.T. department and this is a known issue, but they are not taking any real steps to resolve it.
It's absolutely ridiculous.
usually they’ll be collect calls.
From what I remember certain plans DO NOT allow collect/toll calls from prison.
For example Prepaid and Legacy No credit check plans don't. I believe the promotional One Plans do not also.
kitjo wrote:
will i receive calls from someone in prison?
There's a long thread on this topic. Apparently, you have to turn off all Scam blocking on your line or the filter will block any calls made from a prison or jail.
https://community.t-mobile.com/accounts-services-4/calls-from-jail-38508Yes you should receive prison calls. My best friend whom of which also has T-Mobile receives about 10-15 calls a day from her child's father, sometimes even as late as 9:30pm. She does not put money on his account herself as she has no interest in chit chatting with him so he calls her with money someone else has placed on the account. If you have the scam shield app, turn it off and/ or manually add the phone number to the list of approved callers. Double check that your phone does not have "filter unknown callers" enabled. Make sure the contact is saved. Make sure the phone number is not blocked in your contact list. Other trouble shooting methods after all of that is done and the issue persists is to just simply go into the store (a corporate location because it truly does make a drastic difference customer service quality wise compared to a third-party retailer)(also observe the representative and see if they even seem knowledgeable and willing to help) because it much easier than speaking to customer service. When you are in the store ask the representative if they can check your features. Have them check the line you are specifically having an issue with for any scam blocking SOC codes. You also probably want to make sure your rate plan supports collect calls. Plans such as the $10 T-Mobile connect prepaid plan will not.
If you have an android don’t let someone persuade you into getting an issue specifically due to this issue because the type of phone you have is likely not the cause.We were seeing the issue where the prison phone call would basically not ring the phone, but just go right to voicemail. Tried all the things that are detailed in many places regarding this issue... turn off scam blocking, etc.
Eventually we figured out a workaround to allow prison calls to a Tmobile phoneline.
I'm not going to do a detailed process, just the basic steps:
1) Set up a gmail/google account if you don't have one. Tie your tmobile number to this account.
2) Then get a google voice number https://voice.google.com
3) Set up your tmobile number within Google voice - might already be there from step 1.
4) Set google voice number to forward to the Tmobile number.
5) Ensure the prison has the google voice number setup in the authorized list.You can do this all from a PC, or could probably also do it from Google and Google Voice apps you can put on your phone.
NOTE - you need to use the google voice number at least once every 30 days to keep it active. You should get a reminder in gmail if you don't. You can keep it active by simply going into voice site and sending a text from the number or doing a call.CiiZii wrote:
We were seeing the issue where the prison phone call would basically not ring the phone, but just go right to voicemail. Tried all the things that are detailed in many places regarding this issue... turn off scam blocking, etc.
Eventually we figured out a workaround to allow prison calls to a Tmobile phoneline.
I'm not going to do a detailed process, just the basic steps:
1) Set up a gmail/google account if you don't have one. Tie your tmobile number to this account.
2) Then get a google voice number https://voice.google.com
3) Set up your tmobile number within Google voice - might already be there from step 1.
4) Set google voice number to forward to the Tmobile number.
5) Ensure the prison has the google voice number setup in the authorized list.You can do this all from a PC, or could probably also do it from Google and Google Voice apps you can put on your phone.
NOTE - you need to use the google voice number at least once every 30 days to keep it active. You should get a reminder in gmail if you don't. You can keep it active by simply going into voice site and sending a text from the number or doing a call.I'm trying this tomorrow. I don't understand why is this a sudden problem. I never had this issue before.
I set up an account with Text Now, and that has been working in the meantime, but no one should have to go through all of this.
Last week I filed a complaint with the FCC about this very well-known issue with T-Mobile, and their lack of follow-up and resolution. I received a response from my complaint a couple of days ago that the FCC is now waiting for a response from T-Mobile.
When in doubt, send the big guys to take care of it 😎
