Visual Voicemail SPAM & 202 not working

[guybrush]

Hello, was after some help if possible. First up, I've tried 202 at least 7 times today and I cannot get through. As others have found, I get the "press 1 if you're reporting a fraud, otherwise - bye" message and it hangs up. This happens even when I try the "silence" then 2, 5 and 7 workaround.

I've tried "live chat", they didn't really understand my problem and said they had solved it but they haven't. I'm not sure I can face another live chat, it really doesn't work well for me.

The issue I'm trying to solve is that I am getting an SMS about Visual Voicemail every time I turn on my phone (Xperia 5). They started on 28th Feb and I've been getting them every day (as I turn my phone off at night) - although if I restart my phone during the day I get another one.

I recently had an OTA update to Android 11 and I understand that o2 have recently been rolling out Visual Voicemail to Sony phones. I have no issue with it, but I need to stop getting these SMS messages - which say:

"Thanks for activating Visual Voicemail. Note: if you have data turned off, or can't get data coverage, you'll need to dial 901 to check for messages"

Live chat didn't help, Aurora is.... well, the less said the better, and my only option to talk to someone won't let me talk to someone.

I'm hoping someone here can help, otherwise the only next step I can see is emailing complaintreviewservice@o2.com (no idea how useful that will be either).

Any help would be much appreciated!

[MI5]

@guybrush 

Have you tried turning off voicemail, rebooting and then activating it again?

Guide: All you need to know about O2 Voicemail 901 

The other option is to turn off VVM in your call settings.

[guybrush]

@MI5 

Thank you for the idea, I should have said that I read that elsewhere and tried it but it didn't help.

I just tried again - disabled via 1760 and rebooted, and got the SMS. Would you expect disabling voicemail to stop the message?

[MI5 · Accepted solution]

@guybrush 

If you turn off visual voicemail do you still get the text?

Sounds like it will need O2 to reset your voicemail account, but you'll need to speak to them to get that done.

[guybrush]

@MI5 

Ah, thank you, that actually helps. I'd read on the o2 help site that it wasn't currently possible to disable Visual Voicemail so I'd never tried, but found the toggle in settings. After rebooting then re-enabling voicemail and rebooting again, I haven't got the text.

Visual Voicemail sounds pretty useful, but I'd rather not bother with it if it means SMS spam!

Thank you for your help - I guess that is a solution, ideally I'd leave Visual Voicemail on and stop the texts but I'm happy 🙂

[MI5]

@guybrush 

See if you can get through to O2 early morning, around 8.00am when it's less busy and ask them to reset your voicemail account, if not, as you say, it's a trade off.

[guybrush]

Thanks @MI5 , will give that a try! Should I accept the disabling of VVM as a solution for this thread do you think? Or update when (if?) I make progress with o2?

[MI5]

@guybrush 

It's more of a wrokaround than a solution so update us when you make some progress with O2 please.

[guybrush]

Thanks again for the help @MI5 

I managed to get through this morning, the message had changed from "if you need to report fraud press 1" to "if your query is urgent or complicated press 1", so I thought my query counted now. Still don't like how they try their best to bin you off when calling customer service personally (I'd only call them if I've tried everything else anyway), but there you go.... at least the hold music was good 🙂

So, the person I spoke to said that VVM has only recently been implemented on Android and that improvements are still being made. Apparently it is expected that an SMS is sent to confirm when you switch it on, and it seems that (on my Xperia 5 at least) this is triggered when you turn the phone on too.

They said that o2 would always listen to customer feedback when rolling out new features like this, so passed on my feedback (either to find a way to differentiate between toggling VVM and turning on the phone or to allow the alerts to be switched off/on) and advised me to see if there is any change in the coming weeks.

I think for now I'll leave VVM off and try again every now and then. It sounds like a nice feature, but the SMS spam makes it a bit too annoying for me, particularly when I don't get many voicemails! I might be in a minority who switches their phone off at night though, so maybe nothing will change anyway...

Thanks for your help, at least now I know how to control it from my end!