Can you actually disable Voicemail Viewer or will it just keep turning back on?

Forums › Spark New Zealand (including Skinny and BigPipe) › Can you actually disable Voicemail Viewer or will it just keep turning back on?

Kyanar

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#142754 23-Mar-2014 22:16

Way back a while ago, I asked Telecom to disable the voicemail viewer on my account because, frankly, it's terrible. I was on the phone with them for an hour trying to diagnose why I was never receiving the voicemail notifications - and when they found an apparently "corrupted" notification and cleared it, I received every voicemail notification from the previous three years. Basically, not a service I'm willing to rely on. They dutifully disabled the stupid thing, and I found that a year later it had re-enabled itself (and, of course, stopped notifying me of voicemails). I called them up again, and once more they disabled it. Now, 2 months later, I find that it has again re-enabled on my account.

Can I actually turn the stupid thing off and have it stay off? It is not a useful service to me. And with the uselessness of it, I'm tempted simply to forward all calls to my 2talk number just so I can get voicemail with notifications that work.

(Also, does any telco actually treat voicemail as a real service? Telecom's is dodgy, 2degrees deletes your mailbox every 60 days, and lord only knows that Vodafone does).

gajan

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#1011561 24-Mar-2014 06:36

Text off to 178 -

http://help.telecom.co.nz/app/answers/detail/a_id/20459/~/voicemail-viewer

My comments and remarks are not necessarily of my employer.

richms

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#1012070 24-Mar-2014 21:16

Do telecom support an announce only mailbox yet, which will not record messages from people?

Richard rich.ms

hamdunc45

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#1636968 21-Sep-2016 01:13

A few months ago I noticed Dad's Telecom branded Nokia flip-phone having the voicemail viewer feature turned on. It had been off for years as it was easier for him to have the voicemail notifications showing on the screen and pressing call voicemail instead of going through text messages with his other text messages & getting confused. I tried texting Off to 178 but it didn't work. Thought it could be because it was an old style flip-phone & just left it. This week however, my Nokia Lumia's done the same thing. Voicemail viewer has turned itself On and texting Off to 178 doesn't work. Rang Spark, the Rep said I was on their old voicemail system and resetting my voicemail to the new system would fix it. He said the ability to turn voicemail viewer On or Off was still a feature & there was no changes he could see. The reset didn't work and the Spark Rep has logged a case to their escalating team. Has anyone else on geekzone noticed this issue with Voicemail Viewer, recently on their Spark phones?

dejadeadnz

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#1638715 22-Sep-2016 12:27

hamdunc45:

A few months ago I noticed Dad's Telecom branded Nokia flip-phone having the voicemail viewer feature turned on. It had been off for years as it was easier for him to have the voicemail notifications showing on the screen and pressing call voicemail instead of going through text messages with his other text messages & getting confused. I tried texting Off to 178 but it didn't work. Thought it could be because it was an old style flip-phone & just left it. This week however, my Nokia Lumia's done the same thing. Voicemail viewer has turned itself On and texting Off to 178 doesn't work. Rang Spark, the Rep said I was on their old voicemail system and resetting my voicemail to the new system would fix it. He said the ability to turn voicemail viewer On or Off was still a feature & there was no changes he could see. The reset didn't work and the Spark Rep has logged a case to their escalating team. Has anyone else on geekzone noticed this issue with Voicemail Viewer, recently on their Spark phones?

I am having this exact problem and the CSR I am speaking with (I have asked her to escalate my concerns to their complaints team) has reported that the Voicemail Viewer feature cannot be turned off. The option is either that I lose my voicemail or accept text-based notifications instead of the previous "red dot" notification on my Iphone. IF the CSR is correct, this is the most ridiculous and retrograde change imaginable.

@JasonParis can you please advise if the CSR is in fact correct? If so, I find this particularly galling given that I had to go through hell a couple of years ago (i.e. hours of phone calls, e-mails, speaking with complaints people etc) just to get the Voicemail Viewer feature turned off.

Sigh. This is just ridiculous.

hamdunc45

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#1638781 22-Sep-2016 14:43

I agree, it must be a lot easier & cheaper to let the phone show/do the notifications instead of producing & sending texts. What do Vodafone & 2 Degrees do with their voicemail notifications?

dejadeadnz

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#1639220 23-Sep-2016 09:47

Sigh.

Will anyone from Spark comment on the recent issues raised at all?

richms

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#1639370 23-Sep-2016 12:54

hamdunc45:

I agree, it must be a lot easier & cheaper to let the phone show/do the notifications instead of producing & sending texts. What do Vodafone & 2 Degrees do with their voicemail notifications?

It's turned off and on with a special SMS, so I dont think there would be any difference between the 2 as far as cost to them.

I would rather that telcos put some more effort into screening options pre-leaving a message and allow for better incoming call control than worry about how they notify you of messages.

But having to explain to old people that the SMS is not the voicemail and deleting one is not the other does get tiring.

Richard rich.ms

MikeAqua

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#1663299 3-Nov-2016 13:02

hamdunc45:

A few months ago I noticed Dad's Telecom branded Nokia flip-phone having the voicemail viewer feature turned on. It had been off for years as it was easier for him to have the voicemail notifications showing on the screen and pressing call voicemail instead of going through text messages with his other text messages & getting confused. I tried texting Off to 178 but it didn't work. Thought it could be because it was an old style flip-phone & just left it. This week however, my Nokia Lumia's done the same thing. Voicemail viewer has turned itself On and texting Off to 178 doesn't work. Rang Spark, the Rep said I was on their old voicemail system and resetting my voicemail to the new system would fix it. He said the ability to turn voicemail viewer On or Off was still a feature & there was no changes he could see. The reset didn't work and the Spark Rep has logged a case to their escalating team. Has anyone else on geekzone noticed this issue with Voicemail Viewer, recently on their Spark phones?

I'm having this issue (post-paid S4 running Lollipop).

My account was spontaneously switched to voice mail viewer about 6 weeks ago.

I hate it.

Mike