New phone number, replies to texts from Apple users go to wrong recipient

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Android Central Question

A very odd thing is happening. I added a Phone to my Cricket account for my daughter. Just a cheap LG Fortune. Of course it came with a new sim/phone number. When she communicates with Android users via text everything is fine. When she sends texts to my sister and her friends that have iPhones, they receive the message just fine, but when they reply to my daughter's messages, another unknown user replies to the text. My daughters phone never gets the reply. Unfortunately the person responding is not very friendly and is cussing telling my sister to stop harassing him. I'm assuming maybe this has something to do with iMessage which the previous phone number owner may have had. But I'm not sure.

Any idea what's going on here and how I can fix it? I may need to go back to Cricket and have them change her phone number.
 
Speak to your carrier and, if that's not the problem (it probably isn't), bring the phone into an Apple store and ask for help. (With your daughter if the account is in her name, with or without her if it's in your name.)
 
Was her old phone, if she had one, an iPhone? It's possible the iPhone people are using an existing "conversation" with her and it's stuck with the old messaging method. Have one of those people start a new conversation with her using her new number and see if it continues working properly.

Otherwise - yes, it seems the number may not have been "released" by iMessage if a previous user of that number had an iPhone.