I upgraded my cell phone (ATT) and now people can't leave me voicemails.

April 25, 2009 9:22 PM

I'm an ATT Wireless customer and I just upgraded my phone (to Samsung Eternity). Everything works fine, except that people can't leave me voicemails.

If my number is called and not answered, the caller just gets a recorded voice saying that "the customer is unavailable" or words to that effect, and no voicemail. However, if I press down 1 on my new phone, I can get into my voicemail system just fine and access my old saved voicemails. The ATT website says to access voicemail and follow the prompts to set up the voicemail, but I don't get any prompts to set up voicemail - just my old messages - so I can only imagine my voicemail is already set up from the last phone. I know this is an ATT customer service issue, but it's Saturday evening here and customer service is closed until Monday morning, and I want to receive voicemails now! Anyone out there have any idea how to get this working, or will I just have to wait it out until Monday?

posted by mahamandarava to Technology (8 answers total)

ATT Wireless customer service is really closed until Monday morning? Try dialing 611 on your cell phone. Also perhaps you could try going to an ATT Wireless store tomorrow as they are certainly open and may be able to help if people here cannot.
posted by zachlipton at 9:33 PM on April 25, 2009

Response by poster: Yeah, 611 says to call back Mon. morning if I want to speak to a live person. But maybe I'll go to an ATT Wireless store tomorrow as suggested. Or maybe I'll just do without voicemail till Monday -- I'll survive of course -- I guess I'm just really annoyed that such a simple thing isn't working!!
posted by mahamandarava at 9:49 PM on April 25, 2009

I can't believe that any wireless carrier would not provide technical services 24/7 for issues like this (I know my company does). Usually when you call in you'll get an automated menu and it routes based on your responses. Try calling from a land line and select the menu options as if you phone was not working at all. Most likely there is a provisioning issue between their billing and voicemail systems and it will take all of 30 seconds for a tech support rep to fix.

I am not sure how helpful a retail store will be with this. You could also see if their online service options allow for adding/removing packages. If it does try submitting a request to remove your voicemail and then another request to add it back again. The downside here is that any stored message may be deleted depending on their voicemail platform.
posted by Octoparrot at 10:05 PM on April 25, 2009

Response by poster: You know, I suppose this is really an issue for another thread, but I'm finding 24/7 customer service increasingly rare these days. This seems to be true even at giant international corporations, in all sorts of industries, such as banking, communications, insurance... Unless I'm imagining things, I suspect it's yet another effect of the global economic downturn.
posted by mahamandarava at 10:32 PM on April 25, 2009

Your phone is not set up for "call forward if busy," "call forward if no answer" and "call forward if unavailable." These are settings on the handset but they can be deleted by the user or not ever present if the phone wasn't properly set up from the beginning. A visit to an AT&T store in the morning will get them reset for you. (I would provide instructions but the destination number for the roll to your voicemail is location-dependent so they'd be rather useless..)

Oh, and AT&T does have 24/7 customer service, but, sadly, it's sort of hidden. Try calling 1-866-801-3600 for after-hours technical support. Business and certain other customer types receive overnight support through the regular IVR, but anyone can use the number I posted above. It should be on a recording if you call in but sometimes it's a bit challenging to get to said recording.
posted by fireoyster at 1:39 AM on April 26, 2009 [1 favorite]

I've called AT&T's 611 number at all sorts of hours (like, 4 am on a weekend night), and they've always been great.

In fact, I called just now to check if I can speak to a person, and I got a representative right away (it was a brief conversation, with me saying "oh, nevermind"). Are you sure you are choosing the right options?
posted by halogen at 8:15 AM on April 26, 2009

Oh, I'm sorry, I take that back--turns out that I am a business customer since the account is in Mother's name.
posted by halogen at 8:17 AM on April 26, 2009

Have you tried setting up al your call forwarding to a third-party (yet oh so wonderful) service like YouMail? That should work without the help of AT&T, as call forwarding can typically be activated from your own phone. It only takes a minute to set up your phone.
posted by halogen at 8:21 AM on April 26, 2009