topic Re: disable call forwarding in Get Support

disable call forwarding

won27 — Wed, 05 Jan 2022 07:58:45 GMT

I am on the $10 50min plan. Each time someone call and if i am busy or did up pickup, call will be forwarded to the voice mail. Each call forward will also cost 1 minute from the 50min regardless of the caller leaving a message. Is there a way I can turn off this call forward function. I tried to turn it off with my android phone setting, but it said "your operator doesnt support disabling call forwarding when your phone is busy". Please help.

Re: disable call forwarding

Bcde4321 — Sat, 05 Jan 2019 20:59:42 GMT

change the forwarded number to +13 then it will work

Re: disable call forwarding

popping — Sat, 05 Jan 2019 21:01:31 GMT

@Bcde4321 wrote:
change the forwarded number to +13 then it will work

What is +13?

Re: disable call forwarding

Bcde4321 — Sat, 05 Jan 2019 21:04:39 GMT

it won't forward to voicemail as it's invalid number. the line will just disconnect so no need to deal with voicemail. I wish PM would allow disabling voicemail. Who uses VM these days anyway? 2010 is calling

Re: disable call forwarding

srlawren — Mon, 07 Jan 2019 06:37:45 GMT

@won27 my understanding is that the forwarded calls to your voicemail do not count against your 50 mins. Calling into your voicemail from your phone to check any messages left counts, but not the calls where people call you and end up in your voicemail box.

Re: disable call forwarding

Anonymous — Mon, 07 Jan 2019 06:51:10 GMT

Hey @srlawren - the original announcement was updated at some point to clarify/specify that forwarding and voicemail (leaving or getting) all count towards minutes 😞

Re: disable call forwarding

srlawren — Mon, 07 Jan 2019 07:01:52 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Hey @srlawren - the original announcement was updated at some point to clarify/specify that forwarding and voicemail (leaving or getting) all count towards minutes 😞

@Anonymous are you sure? this is so confusing, I kept telling people that and people kept correcting me saying they had this plan and they were absolutely not being charged for calls that were forwarded to their voicemail. I wish I could remember who said this...maybe @Anonymous?

Re: disable call forwarding

Anonymous — Mon, 07 Jan 2019 07:02:51 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
Hey @srlawren - the original announcement was updated at some point to clarify/specify that forwarding and voicemail (leaving or getting) all count towards minutes 😞

Officially

Re: disable call forwarding

srlawren — Mon, 07 Jan 2019 07:12:08 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
Hey @srlawren - the original announcement was updated at some point to clarify/specify that forwarding and voicemail (leaving or getting) all count towards minutes 😞

Officially

@Anonymous was it you that was saying you're on this plan and that calls forwarded to your voicemail absolutely didn't count toward your 50?

Re: disable call forwarding

Anonymous — Mon, 07 Jan 2019 07:19:22 GMT

@srlawren wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
Hey @srlawren - the original announcement was updated at some point to clarify/specify that forwarding and voicemail (leaving or getting) all count towards minutes 😞

Officially
@Anonymous was it you that was saying you're on this plan and that calls forwarded to your voicemail absolutely didn't count toward your 50?

I'm on this plan and that has been my experience. @pm-smayer97 has also talked about it at length.

But I'm aware of official policy.

Re: disable call forwarding

CalgaryBen — Mon, 07 Jan 2019 15:14:59 GMT

@won27 wrote:
I am on the $10 50min plan. Each time someone call and if i am busy or did up pickup, call will be forwarded to the voice mail. Each call forward will also cost 1 minute from the 50min regardless of the caller leaving a message.

Calls going to VM should not consume your minutes, and I conducted a test to confirm this.

My son is on this $10 50/50 plan, and his plan just renewed, so he has used 0/50 minutes. Both yesterday, as well as this morning, I made calls to his number, and all 3 of these went to VM. These are the 0:09 calls:
3 calls went to VM

As you know, if these actually consumed minutes, they would be rounded up to the nearest minute, and we should see 3 minutes consumed. However, after making the calls to VM, he still has 50 minutes available:No minutes consumed from callers going to VM

Is that inconsistent with your experience/observations?

Re: disable call forwarding

stonechucker — Mon, 07 Jan 2019 16:04:58 GMT

@CalgaryBen, I see what you're saying, but wondering how quick the update of the count on the overview page is applied. Honestly, as I'm not on a metered plan other than add-on LD, I have no clue what happens.

Re: disable call forwarding

CalgaryBen — Mon, 07 Jan 2019 16:18:50 GMT

@stonechucker wrote:
@CalgaryBen, I see what you're saying, but wondering how quick the update of the count on the overview page is applied. Honestly, as I'm not on a metered plan other than add-on LD, I have no clue what happens.

@stonechucker: the Overview page in the Self-Serve portal is actually very reliable and updated practically in real-time! The Usage History page, on the other hand, can have some latencies in updating (not huge, in my experience -- maybe 10-15 min for voice/SMS? It's greater for data, presumably because the calculator relies on some defined dwell/silent time).

To mitigate latency effects, I actually made the 2 phone calls (going to VM) before I left my house this morning, and then logged into the account to capture details when I got to work (about 45 min later). Plus, I have a call to VM in the history from yesterday, just further rule out any latency effects...

Re: disable call forwarding

CalgaryBen — Mon, 07 Jan 2019 16:33:47 GMT

@srlawren wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
Hey @srlawren - the original announcement was updated at some point to clarify/specify that forwarding and voicemail (leaving or getting) all count towards minutes 😞
@Anonymous are you sure? this is so confusing, I kept telling people that and people kept correcting me saying they had this plan and they were absolutely not being charged for calls that were forwarded to their voicemail. I wish I could remember who said this...maybe @Anonymous?

@srlawren, to jog your memory, jump to this post/thread.

However, in Brooke_C's original post, there's mention that "Update as of June 19, 2018: This post has been updated to provide additional clarity that leaving a voicemail message uses minutes."

I'm guessing that blurb is just a "CYA" (cover your -- um, accountabilities) statement due to some inconsistent observations/experiences. In practice, it doesn't seem to be the case.

Re: disable call forwarding

srlawren — Mon, 07 Jan 2019 18:23:24 GMT

Thanks @CalgaryBen! And yes, things on the overview page seem to be realtime, or very near to real-time, at least from past experience with plan data bucket and add-on LD mins.

Re: disable call forwarding

pm-smayer97 — Mon, 07 Jan 2019 20:04:17 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@srlawren wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
@Anonymous wrote:
Hey @srlawren - the original announcement was updated at some point to clarify/specify that forwarding and voicemail (leaving or getting) all count towards minutes 😞

Officially
@Anonymous was it you that was saying you're on this plan and that calls forwarded to your voicemail absolutely didn't count toward your 50?
I'm on this plan and that has been my experience. @pm-smayer97 has also talked about it at length.
But I'm aware of official policy.

Yes, I am the one that documented this extensively here in the forum (can't recall which thread). The policy wording is incorrect and misleading...

In summary, the only time minutes are used regarding voicemail is when a customer calls from their cell phone to retrieve messages. Any other means of access (landline, another cell) or anyone leaving messages does not use up minutes, even though they show up on the transaction history.

The only exception is if someone uses the true call-forwarding feature and directs calls to their voicemail. This has to be very deliberate, but there should never been a need to do this. Better way: if available use 'do not disturb' feature, turn off the phone or ringer, press off when call comes in, or simply do not answer the call.

And again to clarify, 'call-forwarding' is a very special feature and is not the same as a call "going to voicemail" because you did not answer the call, even though users tend to call this a call being "forwarded" to voicemail.

Re: disable call forwarding

stonechucker — Mon, 07 Jan 2019 20:31:59 GMT

@pm-smayer97, only because I'm not totally clear on what you mean by 'the true call forwarding feature' ... what is the non-true version??

Re: disable call forwarding

Anonymous — Mon, 07 Jan 2019 20:40:39 GMT

@stonechucker wrote:
@pm-smayer97, only because I'm not totally clear on what you mean by 'the true call forwarding feature' ... what is the non-true version??

I would say he means that calls dropping to voicemail, while being a form of call-forwarding, are differrent from call-forwarding to your cottage or something.

Re: disable call forwarding

CalgaryBen — Mon, 07 Jan 2019 22:20:44 GMT

@stonechucker wrote:
@pm-smayer97, only because I'm not totally clear on what you mean by 'the true call forwarding feature' ... what is the non-true version??

By using "true call-forwarding [to] direct calls to VM", I think pm-smayer97 means going into your smartphone, enabling call-forwarding, and specifying a phone number to forward all calls to (in this case, forwarding all calls to the local VM number). This is the equivalent of *72 back in the POTS and dumb-phone days. Nobody would/should actually do this, of course; without messing with call-forwarding, you'd simply turn off your phone or enable your "do not disturb" mode, and let the carrier/system redirect callers to your VM.

Re: disable call forwarding

pm-smayer97 — Mon, 07 Jan 2019 23:10:48 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@stonechucker wrote:
@pm-smayer97, only because I'm not totally clear on what you mean by 'the true call forwarding feature' ... what is the non-true version??
I would say he means that calls dropping to voicemail, while being a form of call-forwarding, are differrent from call-forwarding to your cottage or something.

Exactly. 😉