Resolved Are you paying for visual voice mail? (Verizon only)

GoCubsGo

GoCubsGo

macrumors Nehalem
When I switched to Verizon and bought an Android phone I found out real quickly that visual voice mail was not a standard feature. Coming from years of owning an iPhone I was spoiled so Verizon sold me on paying an additional charge ($2.00 I think per month) to use visual voice mail. Now that I've returned to the iPhone and I continue to pay. I called VZW about it and they said I have to pay it if I want to use it. My question is whether I'm being BS'd. I could call back and ask another rep (no two reps are the same) but I figured I'd ask here.

I know visual voice mail is supported, this is not my question; I question whether I should be paying for it.
 
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If you sign up as a new iPhone customer on Verizon Visual Voicemail is free, so I'd assume that it should be for you.
 
I just went through Verizon's website as if ordering a phone, and it appears as though you would not pay for visual voicemail on a new account set up today. However if you're on a grandfathered account of a type not offered now (e.g. unlimited data), the "rules" may be different.
 

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Maybe that's the issue. I'm grandfathered into unlimited data but I do pay $2.99 (I was wrong about the $2.00) a month for the "feature". I also cannot remove it anywhere on their site. I think I'll call again because unless they can point me to a location where existing customers will continue to pay for a service that they now offer for free is disclosed, I don't think I want to pay it any longer. :)
 
Maybe at the time you bought your old plan, Visual Voicemail was an add-on feature. The new plans include it. I am certainly not paying anything extra for my visual voicemail (I signed up with Verizon in July).

Maybe this is their ploy to get you to pony up more money for your data. Basically, keep the plan as is and pay extra for visual voicemail or change your plan (and lose unlimited data) to get visual voicemail free. I wouldn't be surprised if they did this.

On that note, I wouldn't be surprised for carriers to not include 4G/LTE data on their current "unlimited plans" when that whole thing rolls out. So people who will have "unlimited" data will be limited to 3G speeds unless they give up unlimited. I predict this will be a big problem when the 4G/LTE iPhone comes out eventually.
 
^ I couldn't agree more.

I called again, got another rep and had my issue resolved right away. The call made prior to me starting a thread was a unique experience. Usually my calls with Verizon are very nice.

The charge will no longer appear as of my next billing cycle, which starts very soon. I'll be credited for the days from 10/14 onward but they're not offering a credit that predates my iPhone activation. I find it's fair, I only wanted to stop paying for it on a go forward. You don't know how useful the feature is until you have it. I don't answer my phone enough to not warrant the effectiveness of the feature. :)
Thanks for the responses all.
 
For those whose mobile provider doesn't support Visual Voicemail (in the UK: Orange and Vodafone to name two), there is a free 3rd party app that is great.

It's called HulloMail. Is the same as Apple's visual voicemail, but better in some sense. You can actually assign specific voicemail greetings to different contacts (i.e. if it was someone from work, the voicemail could give different directions).
 
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