Apparently my phone doesn't need me anymore.

[Storyteller.]

So, something weird happened last night, and I figured I'd reach out here to see if anyone knows whether it was just a one-off glitch or whether I should be worried.

For context I have a Samsung Galaxy, I've had it for about two and a half years and I haven't had many problems with it (aside from an intermittent battery issue that seems to have resolved itself). I don't make many phone calls or texts, I mostly use apps or the web. I have been getting an unusually high amount of spam calls/texts recently (mostly telling me that I have a 'voicd mesadge' to listen to or a 'pakage' to pick up, followed by a link), but I always just delete and block those.

Anyway. Last night I left my phone charging in another room for an hour or so. During that time nobody went into that room, and the phone wasn't moved or touched at all. But when I picked it up, I had a text from a family member in response to a message from half an hour ago. Needless to say I did not send that message, and there's nobody else who could have. It was a very generic message (think the suggested responses you get after typing out an email) and kind of made sense as a response, and it also sounded like something that I would have written. Except I didn't.

The only thing I can think is that I did write that message, ages ago, and it somehow never went through until now? I don't know why it would have gone through now, or when I would have written it to begin with, but I can't think of any other explanations.

So, tech-savvy friends, does this sound like a potential problem, or just a weird one off?

[hocus pocus]

Maybe your phone is haunted. That is really weird. I'm not the tech-savvy one in our household but you made me think of something: how rural/populated is the area you live in?

It is pretty rural where I am and sometimes I have to leave the house to make a phone call or send a text message, especially if it is long or if I am trying to send in image. On rare occasions my mom or brother will get a text message 3+ hours later. Same happens for me. It just takes longer for it to go through.

Maybe something weird happened with it and you did type the message a long time ago but it didn't go through for a few months or something? I don't know if a message can be 'stuck' for that long or not. Maybe it could though? I mean, a lot of us have been home especially depending on where we live with the covid lockdowns and stuff.

Editing to say you might have a virus/malware which was the other thing that came to mind. Here's an FAQ that has a brief paragraph on it.

[Rivière]

This might come across a bit silly but, have you virus scanned your phone at all? A lot of people don't actually realise our phones can have viruses, and that we can download anti-virus apps for our phones. Avast! is one that you can find on the Google Play store and is legitimate as it's for desktop as well.

Other than that, one thing I could suggest is to actually sift through your messages that you may feel were in response to your text message and see if there were any related conversations. But I imagine that would be very time consuming.

[Storyteller.]

Thank you both for your responses! I'm not in a rural area and I've never had network issues, so a message not going through immediately would be unusual. I ran a virus scan (using the mobile version of the antivirus software I use for my laptop, so I know it's reliable) and it didn't pick anything up. I also checked data and battery usage to see if any apps were behaving strangely, but everything seems to be working the way it should. Aside from that one mystery message nothing strange seems to be going on, so I guess it's either a glitch... or a ghost.

[kirilpopinin]

I think your phone is just out of order, as I have experienced this problem myself. I doubt your account could have been hacked, as your page would have been frozen immediately due to suspicious activity.

[Astro04]

Hmm... first, check for updates. Then scan it with an antivirus and antimalware.
That will allow you to know if something malicious gets in the phone.
If not, probably you have not remember the message was actually send! It's higly improbably the phone did things as he likes it!

[Storyteller.]

Thank you all for your responses! Since the issue hasn't repeated itself and my phone is otherwise in perfect working order, I'm happy for this thread to be closed now.

[kirilpopinin]

I also encountered such a problem. Social media messages were sending themselves, and I had to justify myself to those to whom these messages were sent. Most of them were my business partners, and I was in a lot of trouble because of that. I decided to change my phone, and a passerby in the store where I wanted to buy a phone advised me to read the [edited which I could use to solve my problem.

[Ennui.]

Closing upon your request