$15 plan minute allotment and incoming calls to my voicemail

[HALIMACS]

Does someone else calling my voicemail count against my outgoing minute allotment of 100 minutes?  It seems my available outgoing minutes are being impacted just by receiving a voicemail as my usage screen shows it as an "Outgoing Call". 

[Anonymous]

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@HALIMACS wrote:

Appreciate your reply, @popping.  What was especially confusing me, was that calls to my voicemail from others were displaying under my usage as Outgoing Calls.   I can't figure out why PM would display it that way when it's an Incoming Call.  

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Because it makes use of the call forwarding mechanism. Call comes in, ring ring, nobody home, system sees the forwarded number set up and calls it. That number answers and the original caller does whatever they want to do. You could actually set up that forwarding to another number. Although officially this would consume minutes when not forwarded to the voicemail number but others have found different results. This behaviour could change without notice at any time.

[HALIMACS]

Appreciate your reply, @popping.  What was especially confusing me, was that calls to my voicemail from others were displaying under my usage as Outgoing Calls.   I can't figure out why PM would display it that way when it's an Incoming Call.  

[popping · Accepted solution]

@HALIMACS 

When you do not answer your incoming calls, your call will be forwarded to you voicemail to allow caller to leave a message.  Those minutes does not count against your plan as you have unlimited incoming minutes.  Even you have the old version of $15 plan with limited minutes.

When you call from your phone to get your voicemail, those minutes will count against your outgoing minutes.  When you use another phone to get your voicemail, those minutes will not count against your 100 outgoing minutes.

I usually enable airplane mode on my PM phone.  Call my PM phone number from another phone with unlimited minutes.  Since my PM phone is in airplane mode, it will forward to my voicemail.  As soon as the voicemail answer my call, I press * and my voicemail password.  I am in my voicemail system to get my messages.

[HALIMACS]

@AE_Collector yes it should show under usage, but what seemed odd is that an incoming call to voicemail shows as an outgoing call in usage history.  That caused me to wonder if it was somehow being 'recorded' as an outgoing call towards minutes.

[Anonymous]

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@HALIMACS wrote:

@AE_Collector just in 2 weeks ago on plan.  What really confuses me is that the usage history shows INCOMING calls to my voicemail (i.e. others leaving me messages, not me calling into my voicemail) as outgoing calls.    

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It's the overview page counter that matters. It should not be adding up when a caller drops to voicemail.

[AE_Collector]

Minutes will be shown in the activity log as it IS activity. But that doesn’t mean that those minutes are added to your 100 minutes of outgoing. Your calls to collect voice messages will usually be a number ending in 4001.

AE_Collector

[HALIMACS]

@AE_Collector just in 2 weeks ago on plan.  What really confuses me is that the usage history shows INCOMING calls to my voicemail (i.e. others leaving me messages, not me calling into my voicemail) as outgoing calls.    

[AE_Collector]

How long have you been on the $15 plan? When first launched around May-June 2019 it had 100 minutes total in and out minutes. If you are on that old plan you need to switch to the new one. But leaving. Message for you doesn’t consume minutes though you retrieving messages DOES consume your outgoing minutes unless you retrieve messages on something other than your PM Cell Phone, a landline for example.

AE_Collector

[kselmak]

It does only when you call in from your phone to check VM

To avoid it call yourself, miss that call and during greeting press *

You will need your password to hear it

Another truck i use is to forward to my fongo instead of voicemail

I can check VM for free on fongo and I can also receive it by email

Don't forget to set fongo to 1 or 2 dials, gives you extra chance to answer the call but if it's too long people give up

Also Manning a call by fongo uses only 0.07 megabits if your data and they transfer the calls for free. So you can call your cell, answer the call then transfer it to destination, fongo will disconnect itself from the call only your cell and the destination number are in the call, this way you can wait for hours for government or customer service