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disable voice mail

bsrdhr7
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

Please let me know how I can disable my voice mail service? I don't need at all. Whoever is calling, if they are not able to reach, the call should not go to voice mail. Please advise me.

33 REPLIES 33

@rudolphpaul2000 

Dial this to prevent calls from going to voicemail at all.

 

*004*8080000000#

 

Callers will get either a fast busy or endless ring after the maximum ring time. Long distance callers will never be charged because the call is never "answered."

 

The maximum time a call can ring is configurable in 5 second increments from 5 to 30 seconds. Set it to 30 seconds by dialing this:

 

*61*8080000000**30#

 

To restore conditional forwarding back to the regular Public Mobile voicemail number, dial:

 

##004#

Anonymous
Not applicable

 @rudolphpaul2000 

There's no option to do that. There's an Extended Absence option that has an option to block recordings.

rudolphpaul2000
Great Neighbour / Super Voisin

Please disable my voice mail service

sinan
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

@srlawren, thank you, yes I've been using that. That solves part of the problem but still people get billed to hear that. Anyway I accept it for now.

srlawren
Retired Oracle / Oracle Retraité

@sinan there's a really easy workaround for this already mentioned earlier in this thread:

 

johnjolowe wrote:

Enabled extended abscence greeting with the message: "thanks for calling. Please send me a text message" and it works very well.

 

(EDIT: credit to @johnjolowe)

 

Once you've recorded and enabled your extended absence greeting as your active greeting, people can't leave you any new messages.  They hear your extended absence greeting and then the call is done.


>>> ALERT: I am not a moderator. For account or activation assistance, please click here.

sinan
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

In all other countries I lived in (Europe and Asia), nearly everyone has voicemail disabled. When A calls B and is not answered, most likely B will call back with a single touch through the missed calls list (taking 1 second). Some people may not, but if the call is important A can call 1-2 more times to signal it's important. Or A can send a text to let B know what it is about and if a callback is expected (or no longer needed). In any case, it takes no more than 10 seconds to check and one touch to call back.

But in this Public Mobile system, I'm forced to call back to a computer system to get rid of the very annoying ongoing notification, and spend 30+ seconds to listen and navigate through voice prompts, and delete the message. I haven't had even one occasion where there was any meaningful content in the message. Still I need to go and waste my time deleting it. Even if it was something important, often I'm outside or walking and need to record the caller's number on a piece of paper (which of course I don't have). So I dial and listen, find out it's empty as always, still wonder who called, try to keep half of the number in mind, switch to dialer and key it, then press again to listen the message again just to get the second half of the number, then switch back to dialer and key it, then switch back to call app and delete it. In normal networks, even if my phone was unreachable, I'd get a text from the network listing the numbers and times they called, so I can read and call back in one second. Even the worst network Freedom Mobile does it, like every network I've seen in my life in other countries. I believe PM is doing this to annoy people and push to more expensive networks on purpose, just like how they don't allow international calling, roaming, VoLTE, etc.

I can relate in the sense that I usually dislike it when people leave me messages, especially when it's just a freind calling and leaves a message that says "call me back".  Well, if I know who are isn't it already common courtesy to call back when i know you've called? 

 

Unfortunately, I also believe that it is unacceptable for someone is this day and age not have voicemail on his or her cell phone.  If you at all use it for conducting any type of business, whether its dealings with a store you've purchased from, your bank trying to contact you, or for anything even remotely work related, it's pretty much expected that people should be able to leave you a voice message.  Not having voicemail would lead to situations where either one of 2 things often happens.  The person who was calling you will call you back multiple times in an attempt to reach you, or the person won't bother trying again, which would be very bad in the the case of a job search.

 

As for people calling you being charged because your voicemail answers, people have been dealing with that for years, even if the call isn't long distance.  Many people do not have unlimited voice minutes and when your voicemail picks up, they automatically get billed for a full minute or have a minute used up out of the daytime minute bucket.  Because of that, people have become good at hanging up before vociemail picks up.  This can often be judged by the number or rings or the amount of time the call is taking to connect.  I know with an overseas calls, that might be more difficult to do, but it surelly isn't impossible.

sinan
Good Citizen / Bon Citoyen

This is really getting on my nerves. I receive a lot of international calls and people are billed at expensive international rates just to hear a useless voicemail message (no place for this in 21st century) that cannot be disabled. If voicemail could be disabled, they would hear a ringing tone, and then another sound like hangup, which is free. Now they are billed to hear voicemail as if I answered. This makes PM an undesirable network. Is it done on purpose to discourage too many people from using it?

To add to @Martin's post above, I want to remind anyone interested in setting up an extended absence greeting to also disable message deposit - that option is presented automatically as soon as you record and activate your extended absence greeting.

Martin
Legend
Legend
Hello @mrbottomwood,

Assuming that you want to be notified of VM, and your phone is working properly, all that you should have to do is press 1 on your phone. Then, enter your password to listen to your messages. Regardless of whether you delete or save any messages, the VM icon should then disappear.

On the other hand, if you don't want VM messages, enable your extended-absence greeting. There is no beep at the end, which means that no message can be left.

Cheers.

mrbottomwood
Great Neighbour / Super Voisin

Oh gosh Public mobile give us the option to REMOVE this stupid voicemail ALREADY!!!

 

It's  driving me nuts seeing this voicemail icon on my phone every few hours after someone leaves a VM.

 

I just might go back to wind!!!

 

johnjolowe
Great Neighbour / Super Voisin

Enabled extended abscence greeting with the message: "thanks for calling. Please send me a text message" and it works very well.

chukdefatey
Deputy Mayor / Adjoint au Maire

^I think I know what she means by callers having Problem. She Receives incoming calls from overseas or locally but she doesn't answer them because it is costing the person money to call her so she calls them back at her expense so what happens sometimes is the Voice Mail kicks in and the person calling her gets charged for the call. I am almost certain my guess is Right

Martin
Legend
Legend
Hello barbie,

Are your callers having technical problems with your voice mail? Is that why you said, "... callers have a problem too."?

barbie
Great Neighbour / Super Voisin

Even I want to disable.

 

This is too much disturbing and the callers have a problem too.

chukdefatey
Deputy Mayor / Adjoint au Maire
^This above happens very very rarely, in case you missed the call you look at the number and you call back. We just think we need voice mail now days because back in the day we were so use it but is no longer the case. Look how many times you and others call people and when there voice mail kicks in we mostly just hang up without leaving a message. Even let's just assume you left them a Voice Mail chances are they will call you back without even listening to the Voice Mail because your number is on there caller id

Martin
Legend
Legend
I see your logic regarding family and friends.

What about your doctor's office calling to schedule a medical test, or your bank calling because of unusual activity in your account?

chukdefatey
Deputy Mayor / Adjoint au Maire
^ When was the last time you left a Voice Mail for a Friend or Family member that you regularly stay in touch with?

Martin
Legend
Legend
BTW, if VM didn't exist, what would people use in lieu of it?

I'm curious to know your response.

Martin
Legend
Legend
If you keep posting about voice mail, people with start referring to you as VMchuk. 🙂

chukdefatey
Deputy Mayor / Adjoint au Maire
^I have such a Hatred for stupid Voice Mail. You know what I find funny is North Americans are so used to voice mail because most still think they need it.

benwarez
Model Citizen / Citoyen Modèle

U just said it my dear Chuk, "except PM/Koodo Prep". Benwarez has no solution for that, Mr. Koodo/PM should find one.

chukdefatey
Deputy Mayor / Adjoint au Maire
@benwarez, Every Prepaid Provider includes Voice Mail in this country and they all give you the option to exclude it execpt for Koodo Prepaid, PM Prepaid and Mobilicity

David
Model Citizen / Citoyen Modèle
@benwarez

PM creates those plans, they can do whatever the heck they want with them. They could remove Voicemail if they wanted to. It simply appears they don't.

benwarez
Model Citizen / Citoyen Modèle
It's part of Plan package, PM has no way to remove that service......

Griff
Town Hero / Héro de la Ville

Hi @Martin , I don't plan on personally doing that but yes in order to keep the mail box full the user would have to keep saving the messages.

benwarez
Model Citizen / Citoyen Modèle

chukdefatey
Deputy Mayor / Adjoint au Maire
@Griff, What you suggest is fine and dandy but OP and I are not looking for ways around Voice Mail. The options you suggested still make the Voice Mail Kick in.

@PM, Please give us the option to remove the stupid Voice Mail. Please

Martin
Legend
Legend
Hi Griff,

If you plan to leave blank messages for yourself, take into account that your VM box has a 10 message capacity, and that a new or saved message will be automatically deleted after 10 days. So, it would be best to resave all messages after 9 days.

Griff
Town Hero / Héro de la Ville

I did, but there is no way. So they could either do an extended absence, call forward, or leave a voicemail recording saying not to leave voicemails.

Or, but this one seems like a bit of a hassle, call your own voicemail from another number and leave blank messages until your mailbox is full so that when people call you they're unable to leave a voicemail.

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