iMessage Major Problem that Apple can't fix!

xorjo · Oct 19, 2011

Hello all,

I've been a MacRumors reader forever but finally registered. This is my first post, and really I need help and I don't know what to do. This may sound bogus, but it's far from it. Basically, last night I noticed so many texts that were sent to my wife that weren't sent from me. I called her up to find out what the heck is going on. Apparently, I've been texting her asking my wife for naked pics. I went back home and told my wife to continue the conversation. I could see the conversation unfold in my iPhone! She was getting iMessages from me that I never sent and I can see in my phone that I sent them.

I made a few test, I turned off my iMessages in settings, I asked her to send me another text to see if this clown replies, and HE DOES reply, I got her message as a text, but he got it as a iMessage and was able to reply to her although that time I didn't see his reply in my phone. So I told her to stop texting and this morning, I called Apple and they were shocked. I told them I have no other devices with my apple ID so they asked me to change it. I did, I changed the apple id email and password. Thinking it was fixed, I text my wife regularly. Well to my surprise, this clown texts her AGAIN and I see it AGAIN in my phone! I called apple once more just now and they said they can't do anything about it that its something that they never heard before. I don't' know if there is a way i can see what devices are linked to my apple id to kill em, but right now, even switching my apple id does no good. Anyone have any better ideas?

EDIT:
More info. After changing my apple id and password with a hard reset, this guy can still reply to the iMessages. Also, on settings>messages>receive at, I used to have it to receive with my phone number and apple id. I logged out of the apple id so that the only way to receive it is via my phone number. That did not fix it, I can still see his reply to my wife and brother, I'm thinking is my phone number and not the apple id that maybe the problem.

Galahadoc · Oct 19, 2011

xorjo said:
Hello all,

I've been a MacRumors reader forever but finally registered. This is my first post, and really I need help and I don't know what to do. This may sound bogus, but it's far from it. Basically, last night I noticed so many texts that were sent to my wife that weren't sent from me. I called her up to find out what the heck is going on. Apparently, I've been texting her asking my wife for naked pics. I went back home and told my wife to continue the conversation. I could see the conversation unfold in my iPhone! She was getting iMessages from me that I never sent and I can see in my phone that I sent them.

I made a few test, I turned off my iMessages in settings, I asked her to send me another text to see if this clown replies, and HE DOES reply, I got her message as a text, but he got it as a iMessage and was able to reply to her although that time I didn't see his reply in my phone. So I told her to stop texting and this morning, I called Apple and they were shocked. I told them I have no other devices with my apple ID so they asked me to change it. I did, I changed the apple id email and password. Thinking it was fixed, I text my wife regularly. Well to my surprise, this clown texts her AGAIN and I see it AGAIN in my phone! I called apple once more just now and they said they can't do anything about it that its something that they never heard before. I don't' know if there is a way i can see what devices are linked to my apple id to kill em, but right now, even switching my apple id does no good. Anyone have any better ideas?

I would suggest you watch your wife a big closer.... o___O Sounds like she's on the prowl..

PNutts · Oct 19, 2011

Are all the phone numbers and addresses correct in iMessage in both your phones? Did she delete all messages and group chats from her phone and select your name from her contacts? If you and he received the messages you are in a group chat and all parties get all messages.

xorjo · Oct 19, 2011

Hi,
No, we are not in group messages. Basically, it's just me and her. ALSO, I made another test when I told my brother to send me an iMessage asking me if I wanted to see a naked pic of him (her in this case). This guy REPLIES to my brother again from ME, and I can see his reply on my phone. In my brother's phone, it shows me sending him an iMessage.

HazyCloud · Oct 19, 2011

xorjo said:
Hi,
No, we are not in group messages. Basically, it's just me and her. ALSO, I made another test when I told my brother to send me an iMessage asking me if I wanted to see a naked pic of him (her in this case). This guy REPLIES to my brother again from ME, and I can see his reply on my phone. In my brother's phone, it shows me sending him an iMessage.

So basically he's logged in as you on a device, correct? Why didn't you changing your Apple ID and password not eliminate this?

xorjo · Oct 19, 2011

HazyCloud said:
So basically he's logged in as you on a device, correct? Why didn't you changing your Apple ID and password not eliminate this?

I DID do that, and it DID not fix it. I changed the email and password on my apple id, I called apple tech support and they have no answers, they don't know and never heard of this before. This sucks

sviato · Oct 19, 2011

Try going to Settings -> Messages -> Receive at and make sure your old e-mail isn't listed there and put in your new id. Also maybe sure the caller id isn't set to you old id, try changing it to your number maybe instead

CrAkD · Oct 19, 2011

I wonder if someone is using one of those spoofing applications for text messages. if they replicate your phone number it would register as an imessage because apple would check your phone for imessage.

xorjo · Oct 19, 2011

sviato said:
Try going to Settings -> Messages -> Receive at and make sure your old e-mail isn't listed there and put in your new id. Also maybe sure the caller id isn't set to you old id, try changing it to your number maybe instead

I did that, added my new apple id (also new email). I though it fixed it, I was wrong, it didn't' fix anything, as of right now as I'm typing, he is texting my wife pretending to be me.

xorjo · Oct 19, 2011

no other ideas?

blueroom · Oct 19, 2011

xorjo said:
no other ideas?

Send the naked pics.

vitzr · Oct 19, 2011

The title of this thread is based on a very incorrect assumption.

Apple will sort this out, they always do.

That they are being judged so harshly, given the complexity of creating a major point OS upgrade, reveals more about the author than about Apple.

Bugs like this don't always appear before an OS is shipped, therefore we witness the minor point revs that all platform creators release. To suggest Apple can't fix it before allowing them ample time is to fail to understand the challenge.

iSIILENT · Oct 19, 2011

WTF thats gotta be one of the craziest stories i have heard , apple really needs to get to the bottom of this. imagine the possible things that people can do using imessage.

Rubo Draco · Oct 19, 2011

Not much of a good idea but...
Have you tried finding you (him) with Find My Friends?

if it finds YOUR device, turn it off to force it to find the other guy

xorjo · Oct 19, 2011

thanks for the reply guys... today i talked to apple for about 2 hours and they had no answers... they asked me to call at&t for support which was useless as well and they said they can't do anything since it all goes to the apple servers. at this point, even turning off my iMessage won't do any good. All that does is have my wife or any other person with iOS 5 send me a text and the intruder get the iMessage, he can still reply! The only solution is to tell everyone I know to NOT send me any iMessages. I got an appointment with an apple genius to see if he has any better ideas. Really, there should be a way for you to see what devices are connected to your apple id and delete them from there. I went to iTunes and checked on "manage devices" took out all devices there and still, the guy still texting under my phone number or apple id, I don't even know what it is

----------

Rubo Draco said:
Not much of a good idea but...
Have you tried finding you (him) with Find My Friends?

if it finds YOUR device, turn it off to force it to find the other guy

interesting, i will try that now.

----------

vitzr said:
The title of this thread is based on a very incorrect assumption.

Apple will sort this out, they always do.

That they are being judged so harshly, given the complexity of creating a major point OS upgrade, reveals more about the author than about Apple.

Bugs like this don't always appear before an OS is shipped, therefore we witness the minor point revs that all platform creators release. To suggest Apple can't fix it before allowing them ample time is to fail to understand the challenge.

You are right but as of now, all the peeps I talked to say this is the first time they heard this, in the apple tech support and his "senior" tech support didn't even know what to say, they said this is the first time they heard this. I'm sure apple will fix it at some point, but right now I'm left with a key feature in ios5 and also, remember that even if i have the iMessage off, anyone that has it on that sends me an iMessage, the intruder will be able to read it even if in my device I get it as a text.

IrishVixen · Oct 19, 2011

The only thing I can think of--and it probably has no bearing on the issue--ever sold an old iPhone? One previously linked to your Apple ID, that could be accessing it now? Again, I've got no idea if it could be done, just throwing out a possibility.

Otherwise, I'd go with some kind of spoofing. That's just really messed up. Sorry you're having to deal with this!

donnaw · Oct 19, 2011

While I appreciate the technological aspects of this I would be more worried about exactly what other info this guy has about you. Yes, he could be on the other side of the world, or he could be in the same town and have your address. The fact that he is carrying on this conversation with your wife is actually frightening. It might just be some teenage hacker or it might be someone with more sinister motives. To be honest this isn't really any different that someone making harassing phone calls. If I were you I would seriously consider calling the police. They may tell you they can't do anything or they may be able to get Apple/AT&T to dig deeper.

bpeeps · Oct 19, 2011

LOL I love these kinds of posts. iOS5 on the prowl.

saving107 · Oct 19, 2011

xorjo said:
You are right but as of now, all the peeps I talked to say this is the first time they heard this

iOS 5 and iMessage was just released publicly one week ago, not enough time has passed to gather enough feedback and troubleshooting to form a solution, unfortunately.

Someone obviously got a hold of your password, so either you had a password that was easy to guess or it's someone you know.

Like others have said, create a new Apple ID, create a password that is more difficult to guess (use lower case+upper case letters with special characters), then delete all conversations from your Messages.app (from everyone, start fresh).

Joell · Oct 19, 2011

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148a Safari/6533.18.5)

Strange
But if you changed your apple id password then the only thing left is your number
Doesn't seem clear to me but he managed to activate on another device your phone number
Perhaps trying another number might bring possible solutions
Also if this is the case maybe your carrier can do something to find out who is behind this

rocknblogger · Oct 19, 2011

I think at this point I would call the police. This sounds incredible and even hard to believe but I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. It would seem like this is something quite sophisticated. Like someone else said its frightening if true and if it was my wife I would want to make sure she's safe.

I would even consider calling the local FBI cybercrime unit. Again, like someone else asked, what else does he know about you or your wife?

Just curious, what is the conversation like? What does your wife or you answer him when he asks for pics? Obviously you're not sending him any so is he just insistent about it? Or does he change the subject? And how long has it been going on?

NJFP · Oct 20, 2011

Sounds like the phone was cloned? Spooky man.

LIVEFRMNYC · Oct 20, 2011

Just send naked pics of 500lbs guys and he'll stop texting.

ZipZap · Oct 20, 2011

I would speculate that your phone is being cloned on the fly. Or your traffic is being intercepted and spoofed.

Might this require close proximity?

Suggest you look at your neighbors.

Send a text that says the police have zero'd in on one of your neighbors and will be moving in shortly. See if the texts stop.

DJBBOX · Oct 20, 2011

this smells like bull$#!% to me. some one just registered to post this. the way iMessage works it will not allow for spoofing of any kind and by cloning you would get the same message in both devices, not just one.

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