Wow.. Must be a slow news day at the consumerist desk. Thanks for the conspiracy theory, Ben.

I don't really mind when checking my messages. I'm more annoyed when trying to leave a message for somebody and you get something like:

"Hey, this is ******, I can't answer the phone right now, leave a message." followed by 30 seconds of "to page this person now, press 5. To leave a callback number, press 1. Now wait an extra 5 seconds before we play the tone for you to actually leave a message"

"When you are finished recording you may hang up, or press 1 for more options. To choose a short message to be displayed on the cellular phone of the person you are calling, press 6 now."

This has driven me crazy for years. My voicemail lady used to literally say "one new message. first voice message. message marked urgent. this is a new message."

Checking voicemail is the worst. Unless somebody has something really important and pressing to say, I prefer just to have the missed call. I'll see that someone called, and probably call them back right away.

we would have an equally gripey (is gripey even a word) article if the VM systems were too basic with not enough features.

For every different person that uses a voicemail system there is a different way in which that person would "design" the system to fit them exactly.

seriously. it is the worst.

@Jeff -- Press #. It skips that message and goes straight to the beep.

Sounds like the Dethphone plan. Brutal.

Or with Verizon users, you can press 1 to bypass the message.

I don't think this is an evil cellphone thing, my office voicemail is just as annoying.

@PhilWeinstein: "Slow news day" = default critical commentary for people with nothing actual to say.

@gibsonic: Being warned three times about an upcoming message is a feature that most people, with the exception of those with no short-term memory, would gladly do without.

Jeff and Deejay beat me to it.

I too am more annoyed with trying to leave a message. I have gone into the options for voicemail to turn off the 'expanded' menus for when I am checking it.

I never go over my minutes either, so it's more just an annoyance thing than a money thing.

iPhone skips it all. You tap the screen where it says voicemail, and you can see a list of each voicemail you have. If you have three messages, one from mom, one from joe, and one from sally, you click directly on the one you want to hear and the message immediately plays. It's the most convenient voicemail system I've ever used and I can only wonder when everyone else will catch up.

Ah, visual voicemail, one more reason to love my iphone.

However visual voicemail doesn't fix when you call people, but with cingular you can press 1 or # to go straigt to their voicemail account to record.

isn't the topic of this thread a bad Seinfeld joke?

What annoys me is that sometimes I hear a message, then hang up and decide I want to listen to it again, but newest messages play LAST on Cingular voicement, so you have to skip through ALL your other messages to hear it. UGH.

I have Alltel and don't have this problem. I dial my voicemail, interrupt the lady by punching in my security code and then interrupt her again by pushing "1" immediately afterward to hear my messages. Time spent getting to my new message? Probably 15 seconds.

This ranks up there with the 10 minute tutorial I get from T-mobile when using voicemail for the first time. Explain how it works, speak my name, verify my name, speak my message, verify my message, pick my pin, verify my pin... ugh...

first off, the slow news comment is pretty acurate...this is acient news, back to the old 900 help desk number days were there would be constant warnings to add up minutes.

now...

first of I have att, all in-network calling, including checking voice mail, is free, as it is with most of the networks these days.

second off, most cell phone planes have free nights and weekends, so if you check your voice mail at night you can get around this

third, I don't know about you, but I am on the AT&T w/rollover plan...I currently have like 9999 minutes racked up (the max alloted) so even if they charged me minutes, for me at least...who the heck cares.

Lastly...who the hell still leaves voice mail? If someone doesn't pick up Drop them a text. Maybe your consipracy should be

"CELL PHONE COMPAINES MAKE ANNOYING VOICE MAIL SYSTEMS TO INCREASE THE AMOUNT OF TEXT MESSAGES SENT"

that would make a hell of a lot more sense.

:)

Oh, sweet Jeebus, I hate being told, paraphrased in three ways, that I have a message. Slooowly. Especially since my personal messages are usually very brief, of the "hey, I'm back, call me when you get in" variety.

My voicemail for verizon: "Hi this is allan. To leave a message, press star."

Pressing * on a verizon voicemail bypasses that stupid announcement and immediately plays the beep to the caller.

This post made me review my voicemail options. Suprisingly, i had an option for rapid prompt. Now, instead of hearing "To listen to your voicemail, press 1...to send a message, press2 etc/", it has now changed to "listen - press1, send - press2". Much simpler.

Also, I never understood why my phone does this. I delete voicemails but next time I check voicemails, i get a prompt saying I "have 3 messages marked for deletion" and then plays them again. Wasn't that the point of pressing delete? If i wanted to hear them again, i would have saved them.

@Jeff: That is the absolute worst right there.

People still use voicemail?

I've had Sprint for many years. I remember when I first got them, the voicemail system used to be streamlined... you could hit the play button as soon as you connected and it would play. They've since blocked that ability and added a longer greeting, which (a) pisses me off and (b) is solely for the purpose of burning through more minutes.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it...

maybe you all can compile a quick guide... for instance, hitting 1 when you dial into VZW's system will play the first message.

My time calling voicemail does not count into my phone minutes, as it is a service provided by my provider.

I was just thinking about that yesterday when I had 10 VM in a few hours.

It took forever for the voice recording to introduce each message. I got very annoyed and wondered why their system has not really improved/changed in over 4 years I had a cell phone.

@textilesdiva:
Yes everyone uses VM.

Textilesdiva, do you have a better alternative???

Sprint has a "simplified" option that you can turn on to cut down on the "helpful" instructions, and an option to turn off the stupid "received... Monday... at... seven... forty... two... pm...." It got a lot less aggravating to check my vm once I figured that out.

I use Sprint too. Just press 1 when you dial your voicemail, or if you're calling someone who uses Sprint, press 1 as soon as you hear the pre-recorded message, your friend's or the automated voice. That will take you straight to the beep so you can leave your message.

@B: FTW!

@ry81984:

Alternative? Yes.

Alternative that will work for very many people? Probably not so much.

Everyone who calls me - friends, coworkers, bosses - knows that I'll call them back, and if it's REALLY important, they text or email it, in case I don't call back.

Really simple.

This may be another one of those mostly generational things. I'm in college, and know precisely one person who checks their voicemail: one of the last people on earth to get a cell phone.

If you haven't figured this out on your own by now, you're not a sufficiently-paranoid consumer. Overages are a major profit center for carriers

Last I checked, Cingular/ATT doesn't charge you minutes for checking voicemail. They do try to annoy the piss out of you until you turn off expanded menus or if you don't know the # trick.

At least with AT&T, if you get the long prompt when trying to leave a voicemail, it means the person you are calling didn't take the time to set up their voicemail box. They left it at the default box, which gives all the prompts available.
If you get the long prompt when calling your voicemail, you can either use key shortcuts to bypass, or customize your mailbox to remove them.
Part of the thought behind the extended prompts is to give someone time to get pen and paper to write down phone numbers or other contact information, and to make sure the person is ready for the message. If, when you called your voicemail, it immediately started playing the first new messages, there's a good chance you'd miss a part of the first message and have to replay it, doubling the time it takes to check that message.
Another reason for this feature is that you may be calling to listen to an old message to get information. The prompt that you have new messages, along with the "first new message" gives you a chance to hit the keypad shortcut to skip to your saved messages.

first off, the slow news comment is pretty acurate...
@agent2600: It's still annoying. The only non-comments more annoying than the "gee, must be slow" ones are the "why is this funny post here" non-comments.

I also only wait until night to check my voice-mail. I don't have a lot of people leaving me messages anyway. I don't use text messages though. I'll probably just try to get people to stop leaving the "hey, just wanted to talk" messages all together when it becomes a problem. I can see missed calls on my phone so I don't really need a voicemail to tell me that person wanted to talk to me.

Alternative that will work for very many people? Probably not so much.

@textilesdiva: Then why'd you ask if people still use voicemail?

Education is key. Learn the prompts for you system. The menus can be interrupted if you know what you want to do. Most systems use '1' to listen to messages, for instance.

A quick google search came up with these links -

Cingular/AT&T Voicemail Quick Guide - Printable PDF
(direct link) [www.wireless.att.com]

Verizon Voicemail Quick Guide - Printable PDF
(direct link)
[www.infotech.siu.edu]

T-Mobile Voicemail Quick Guide - Printable PDF
(direct link) [support.t-mobile.com]

Sprint Voicemail Quick Guide - Printable PDF
(direct link) [www1.sprintpcs.com]

What I do is call my own cellphone number to check my voicemail so it count's as "in network calling" and it doesn't charge me minutes...

I also noticed that in NYC market, Verizon no longer kicks the caller straight to voicemail when yoru phone is not in service.... it just rings. Presumably because everyone uses cell phones in NYC and they are trying to squeeze a few more seconds out of consumers.

@textilesdiva: People still use email?

I just beam my thoughts to whoever I need to talk to and they call me right up. It's really easy, I'm surprised not everyone does it.

I always thought it didnt use airtime to access your voicemail with verizon?

Peeps...use Callwave (www.callwave.com) -- it takes the place of my Verizon voicemail. It does the following: 1) sends me an SMS with the text translation of the voicemail 2) sends me an e-mail with the same translation and a link to listen to the audio 3) It also kind of gives you the "Visual Voicemail" that iPhone junkies love by seeing all of your messages and choosing which to hear first. The best part is no STUPID voicemail menu's.

Note: the voice-to-text feature is not that accurate but sometimes gives you the gist of the message

@gibsonic: Thanks for the links!

And I keep hearing out of Cingular that getting your messages on your own phone doesn't use minutes. Not that my family would know, we still lose a bunch of minutes off our rollover every month because we just don't use that many minutes. And it gets problematic when the phone does go straight to voicemail for my wife and children, when instead of leaving a voicemail for them, I get stuck with my voicemail instead. I can't remember that happening lately though, so they may have that issue fixed (it was one of those maybe it happens, maybe it doesn't kind of things)

I put everybody on the family text plan now, so we can just text if we want/have to.

@PhilWeinstein: Uhm, this is a tip for how to save money and act in your own best interest.

It's funny how the response on the internet is to attack other people if you don't like them or what they have to say.

You could have just kept scrolling by.

@Mr. Gunn: How do you turn off the expanded menus? I thought I had but I don't think it took.

I don't have an iphone -- waiting for the 3G version with full IM in addition to SMS.

I hate this stuff. Even if it isn't a ploy to burn minutes (which it probably is), it's infuriatingly bad design. The outgoing instructions are just as bad. We've all been leaving messages for years; we don't need refresher instructions every time.

The MTA's Metrocard machines are similarly frustrating. The first thing you have to do upon approaching one is tap START on the touchscreen. Why in the world is that a necessary step? No one wants to do anything other than START.