And keep in mind that iPhone users don't have this extraneous crap. Apple forced AT&T's hand and got rid of it for all iPhone users.

@zigziggityzoo: LOL this feature threw all of my wife's callers out of kilter when she switched to an iPhone. She records her name and chooses the voice mail set-up option to use your recorded name with a default message.

So now it announces "{recorded name} is not available. {BEEP}".

Some of her friends didn't get that they didn't need instructions to "record your message after the beep," that they could just go ahead and leave their message after the beep.

They seem to have gotten over it now.

I already sent a msg to verizon (I used the non-customer profile so as to not have to enter all my personal information). And I just changed my greeting to tell callers to press the * key. One small step and all that.

Hey consumerist - any reason you're using redirect links? there's a legitimate reason to use them on twitter, or other places where there is a character maximum, but i like being able to hover on a link and see where it's going to take me before i click. HTML tags will let you beautify the link (Send a message to Verizon! instead of a full URL) Even the links that the comment system auto-shortens to ([www.verizonwireless.com]) would be preferable

thanks! i changed my sprint phone to not give the instructions

@gStein: My guess? Carey copy/pasted them from elsewhere, which is easier than formatting his post with the long urls.

How many times are they going post this story on Consumerist? It's a stupid non-issue story. I'm not going to write to my congressperson over an extra 15 seconds on the phone.

@outlulz: Seriously.

Just my opinion, but I agree. What is this all really worth?

Bye.

Sounds like a useful tip, but what about those of that aren't named "so-and-so"? What'll we say?

Anyone know the codes for Virgin mobile or any of the other, more esoteric carriers? I suppose I could call myself and just start hitting random numbers, but that would need to wait until I can find a land line somewhere.

"Gosh, this five second set of helpful instructions is so annoying. There ought to be a law!"

The issue of voice mail instructions drove me off AT&T voice mail to YouMail. Now people calling my cell and going to voice mail get a short message and a beep, the options are hang up, or leave a message and hang up. All the functions other than greeting bypass have been disabled. I fiddled with the settings until it operates exactly like an old-style answering machine. Although the old answering machines did not send me a note on my cell phone when I got a message.

On the other hand, some of my friends who like to fiddle with messages after recording them sometimes need several seconds to remember that pressing numbers after the message will not get them anything on my service.

Additional benefit: I can listen to messages through the internet, which is handy when I'm out of the country and checking to see if anyone left messages. I swap in a Canadian pre-paid SIM when in Canada for cost reasons, so calls to the US number head straight to voice mail and I check on the net now and then.

@outlulz: Maybe I'm just easily irritated, but those instruction annoy the hell out of me. We know what to do, get to the beep already!

I make my voicemail greeting absurdly long so people don't leave me voice messages. They are a waste of time. They waste minutes leaving a message, I waste minutes picking their message up and to finish it all out I STILL have to call the person back. How stupid is THAT?

I tell people in my absurdly long greeting I will call them back if I know their number or to try back later. If they wish to leave a voicemail they can wait another 30 seconds and it will take me 2-3 days to return their call. I get about 1 a month.

How about we try a little experiment. What happens if you record the DTMF signal that sends the caller to your mailbox at the end of your greeting. (If the pound "#" sign goes directly to your voice mail, record the # sign in your greeting.) I'm hoping this will send the caller directly to your mail box as if you were the one actually hitting # (or whatever)

I don't know if this will work with any of the carriers, but it'd be interesting to see if any do. I'm about to try T-Mobile, and I'll post back. I'm thinking I'll have to do it with a regular phone -- a cellphone may not work, because the signal gets digitized all the way back to the carrier. We'll see...

@jokono: Dangit! Maybe I should have tried this before posting. T-Mobile has you terminate your greeting with the #, so it's impossible to record a # in the greeting itself.

Anybody care to try this with another carrier?

@gStein:

There is a firefox plugin that will show the real link when you hover over a redirect link.

@outlulz: Exactly. Until a congressperson personally feels inconvenienced by this, what the hell do we expect them to do?

@MikeVx: I have youmail and LOVE it too.
I have mine set up for Smart Greeting, really freaks people out when the automated lady calls them by their name.
I also like that it shows me who called, somehow they can get the name on a persons actual cell account...
And ditchmail? Well it was the reason I started using youmail in the first place!

While you're all at it, ask that the insertion of 15 seconds of a song over a normal dial tone be banned too.

In desperate times, that's all that's needed for one to off themselves.

you want congress to legislate VOICEMAIL INSTRUCTIONS?!
what the fuck is wrong with you?

Do the country a favor and jump off a bridge or something

@outlulz: I think the bigger issue here is that the cell phone industry is essentially charging for time which THEY choose to use for you. If all carriers allowed you to disable these messages on your own line, or better yet... for you to choose to never hear the messages when calling someone else, then it would be a non-issue.

Frankly, I don't care if someone else wants to spend time listening to the messages. I don't like or need them. I really don't want my phone company charging me for listening to them. That said, I never run out of cell minutes on my current plan, but I still don't want to hear them.

@lordmorgul: Still, this is not something that congress should be involved in fixing. This is something that market pressure from consumers should be fixing.

@lordmorgul: I don't know about other carriers, but T-mobile doesn't charge minutes for listening to your own messages.

@outlulz: If you're going the "wh s ths n cnsmrst?" route, I'm obligated to give you the standard "Why did you choose to read/comment on it?"

@icantreplyright: Can't you just cancel your voicemail? Is it necessary to be such a dick about it?

@takes_so_little: Or just be honest and say, "Sorry, I don't check voicemail."

@MooseOfReason: I'm a registered democrat, so you know I luvs me some good gubmit regyoolashun, but it does seem like a somewhat hamfisted way to deal with the matter of 5 seconds worth of voicemail instructions.

@EdenBabararacucudada: +1