Voicemail is for my EARS, not my EYES

May 17, 2018 6:45 AM

I have a down-and-dirty basic Samsung smartphone; it's been working fine for my needs. My only problem is - EACH and EVERY TIME I get a voicemail, I also get an additional prompt to "tap here to change your visual voicemail password". How can I turn that prompt OFF?

I have never used the "visual voicemail" password, I never will. It appears to be wholly separate from actual voicemail, which I access by dialing a number on my phone and following the audible prompts there.

I don't even understand what purpose such a thing serves; I am never reqeusted for a password when I access voicemail. I even tried following the prompt to do something out of desperation to see if it would make things stop - but no.

I am slowly going mad. Please help me turn off this alert.

posted by EmpressCallipygos to Technology (5 answers total)

This might be a carrier thing rather than a Samsung thing - Verizon desperately wanted me to pay $2.99 a month or whatever extra for visual voicemail (which means your voicemails show up as texts) and I only got rid of their nagging by accepting the 30-day free trial and then explicitly refusing the service after that. Maybe log into your carrier account from your computer and see if you can explicitly refuse this add-on service there.
posted by soundguy99 at 6:54 AM on May 17, 2018

Maybe these steps will help you locate and disable the prompt:
-From any Home screen, tap Applications.
-Scroll to and tap Visual Voicemail.
-Tap the Greetings tab.
-Tap the Menu key.
-Tap Settings.
-Tap Enable Visual Voicemail to enable or disable Visual Voicemail.
It may be under a group of apps in the Samsung "collection."
posted by XtineHutch at 7:34 AM on May 17, 2018

Response by poster: XtineHutch: I tap "visual voicemail" and I get a screen ordering me to select a password. I don't WANT to do that because I am never going to use the blasted thing.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:46 AM on May 17, 2018

Typically, when you access voicemail from your own phone you don't need to enter a pin or password, so that may be why you're not prompted. If Samsung's is like Apple, visual voicemail is a feature to see and access your voicemail from your phone, pretty much like how you access emails, except it's still audio messages playing through your phone. If you don't want it, set a password and disable it.
posted by homesickness at 12:10 PM on May 17, 2018

Set the password once and you will never get asked again. In the simplest terms: Your phone thinks you haven't finished setting up your phone. You won't actually need the password (but you should still pick something you'll remember).
posted by AppleTurnover at 4:37 PM on May 17, 2018