A friend's ex SO has somehow hacked their phone and can see every text they receive and send. What can you do to stop it? Does my friend need to go to the cops about this? Surely this is highly illegal? Me, I would get vicious fast, but there reasons my friend doesn't. 

1. I doubt anyone that is considered an Ex SO is smart enough to hack anything 

2. I'm sure it was some app they somehow installed on the phone. 

3. Get a new phone or do a hard reset

4. No you wouldn't 

5. Be smarter than the machine. 

The phone isn't hacked.  There are apps that can be installed on a phone that do this.  Have your friend go through their phone with a fine toothed comb and make sure there aren't any applications on there that they don't recognize.  Apps can also be disguised as something else so make sure they actually open every single application to verify that it is legit.  You can request to make a basic information report over the phone with your local department but there isn't anything they can do as it isn't illegal.  Getting vicious in response to what has taken place would not be recognized as "justified" in the eyes of the law, so be careful of what you may say or do.  

Thank you. It should be illegal and by viscous, I didn't necessarily mean physical. More like turn about is fair play. So a hard reset might not be needed, then? 

First off, what kind of phone.

Second who is the provider.

Third who is the primary on the phone plan. 

Hard to tell you what needs to be done without more information. iPhones have a lot of settings you can mess with for kids that will share all txts, location, ect with you. Also, sometimes they can even set these settings up through the phone carrier if they are the primary on the account. Your friend personally should go and have the phone company help. They know these phones like the back of their hand. 

Every divorced person and their SO thing their phone has been hacked.  99.99999% of the time it hasn't.  Remember the FBI couldn't even hack into an iphone.  I highly doubt the ex can.  

Usually, it is a "friend" who is just taking screen shots and forwarding it to the other one.  

Best thing to do is take the phone to the provider and have them look for the app that is the problem, these providers have people trained and know how this all works, should be a easy task for them. I think if it were me I would just get a new phone and a new number.

Thank you. 

That is what I would do, too. I just have no confidence in the AT&T people down here. They are a joke. But maybe if they go to a different store it would be different. Thank you. 

Well, they sure wig out every time this person plans to do something fun or talks to someone of the opposite sex. Conversations only by text. And people the ex doesn't even know. So I guess my friend is just imagining this? I think not. 

Nope, not in this instance. 

Is it an iPhone? If so and they have an ipad that is associated with the apple account they could be seeing them that way. I know my text come through on my iPad too. 

Look and see what devies are linked to the apple ID (assuming it's an iPhone)

Or if they share the cloud I think there might a way to see it there, but I'm not really sure. . 

I have personally never tried it... But being a bartender, I get to overhear some pretty interesting things from girls who are suspicious of their boyfriends cheating.

If it's an iPhone, I believe they go in the settings on his phone and add their phone number to his Apple ID and then to the "Send & Receive" option under messages so they get access to every conversation the person has. Might be worth it to search through the settings and make sure the only number associated with their messages is actually their personal number.