Phantom Visual Voicemail on factory-unlocked iPhone on T-Mobile

[beverson]

My wife has a factory unlocked 3GS with a T-Mobile SIM in it. It has worked so-so for a year, and then in the last couple of months things had improved — she can occasionally pick up 3G and MMS is finally working correctly. Just today, though, she noticed that she didn't see the new voicemail indicator even though she knew someone had left her a message. Which lead her to discover that Visual Voicemail now shows up when she taps the Voicemail icon in the phone app. Previously, that button just called into her VM, exactly the same as pressing and holding "1" on the dialer. But, Visual Voicemail doesn't actually work.

In testing tonight, I was able to get the old behavior back briefly after restarting the phone — the Voicemail button called voicemail rather than showing VVM, and when I left a test message she momentarily got the new message badge. But within a second or two the badge disappeared and phantom VVM was back.

This seemed to happen spontaneously, sometime in the last week. My assumption is it has something to do with T-Mobile refarming or changes to the carrier settings, but I don't know how I can fix it for her. The phantom VVM itself is annoying but not a huge deal; losing new-VM badging is a big problem, though.

 

[Applejuiced]

What's a phantom VVM?
Is that a different app you installed or is it the native visual voicemail that people get on official iphone supported carriers?
That would have to be enabled on the carriers end.

 

[beverson]

What's a phantom VVM?
Is that a different app you installed or is it the native visual voicemail that people get on official iphone supported carriers?
That would have to be enabled on the carriers end.

I have a normal AT&T iPhone, so I always use Visual Voicemail. My wife has never had AT&T, so until recently when she tapped the voicemail button in the native phone app, it called into old-school press-seven-to-delete voicemail —*the same kind of thing you get if you call into your voicemail from another phone or press and hold "1" on the dialer. But now she sees Visual Voicemail when she taps that button, but it doesn't do anything and doesn't appear to be properly hooked up. Like I said, the biggest problem is that the VM notifications/badges now don't appear, so she doesn't know that she has a voicemail waiting.

I just dubbed it "phantom Visual Voicemail."

 

[Applejuiced]

I have a normal AT&T iPhone, so I always use Visual Voicemail. My wife has never had AT&T, so until recently when she tapped the voicemail button in the native phone app, it called into old-school press-seven-to-delete voicemail —*the same kind of thing you get if you call into your voicemail from another phone or press and hold "1" on the dialer. But now she sees Visual Voicemail when she taps that button, but it doesn't do anything and doesn't appear to be properly hooked up. Like I said, the biggest problem is that the VM notifications/badges now don't appear, so she doesn't know that she has a voicemail waiting.

I just dubbed it "phantom Visual Voicemail."

Oh I see.
Yes, I had a friend that used an iphone on tmobile and was only getting the regural dial in old school voicemail style. That sucked
Sounds like Tmobile is doing some testing with their system since within a month or so they would be an official iphone carrier.
I dont think there's anything you can do on your end. Hope they figure it out quick. I'd give them a call also to see what they say.