Hi,

Some time ago, in a post, I was looking for information
about deleting voicemail messages without hearing them.

Note: I did NOT want voicemail on a new Samsung Gallaxy A11
Tracfone I bought last September, but a Tracfone support person
mis-led me into setting up voicemail. He said, "I can not make telephone
calls unless I set up voicemail".

Recently, I decided to change my voicemail greeting message. After I
entered the password (after holding "1" in the telephone app), an announcement
said there were 9 messages.

However, to delete a message, I just had to press "7". In
fact, I did NOT have to listen to the message. I deleted every
message.

FYI:

My updated greeting, "The owner of this telephone is not available.
Do not leave your name, telephone number, and a message. The
voicemail program is turned off."

John

On 8/21/2022 11:02 AM, jaugustine@verizon.net wrote:

> My updated [voicemail] greeting, "The owner of this telephone is not
> available. Do not leave your name, telephone number, and a message.
> The voicemail program is turned off."

That may work for humans but I suspect spam machines will take no notice...

AJL <noemail@none.com> wrote:

> On 8/21/2022 11:02 AM, jaugustine@verizon.net wrote:
>
>> My updated [voicemail] greeting, "The owner of this telephone is not
>> available. Do not leave your name, telephone number, and a message.
>> The voicemail program is turned off."
>
> That may work for humans but I suspect spam machines will take no notice...

Some robodialers will detect the OGM tone (the beep after your OutGoing
Message) when your voicemail picks up a call. The robodialer will
terminate the call, but you might still a 6-second blank recording in
your voicemail (when it detects there is no incoming audio). While the
robodialer may terminate the call, you stay on their dialing list to get
called again later.

Some robodialers will recognize the Out-Of-Service SIT (Service
Information Tone). If you don't want them leaving even a message if
they don't detect the OGM tone, start your OGM with the SIT tone. Find
out how long can be your OGM. Then start your OGM with the SIT tone, a
message saying they have reaced an inactive and unmonitored phone
number, and no voicemails will be reviewed, followed by repetitive SIT
tones until the end of whatever is the maximum length of your OGM. A
robodialer, wrong number caller, or anyone calling your phone that gets
routed to voicemail will not wait the full term of the OGM, the SIT
tones saying your number is out of service, leave a message after the
OGM's beep. You might accept incoming calls at that phone, but you
don't accept voicemail.

Yeah, Tracfone fucks up the setup. Voicemail is setup at whomever is
the carrier to which you get assigned. You are a Tracfone customer, so
the carrier provides no support, like disabling voicemail. When you
contact the carrier, they'll ask for your account info. You don't have
any, so they won't support you. Tracfone says they cannot disable
voicemail, because they aren't the carrier, so they have no access to
your account settings at the carrier. If using Tracfone, and after
getting misled into enabling voicemail, the only way to get rid of
voicemail is the create a new Tracfone account, even if for the same
phone (which means you have to kill the old Tracfone account), and NEVER
go through the setup for voicemail (at the carrier). Else, you have to
play with the OGM trying out live how long robodialers will wait (they
don't, and why you get truncated messages in voicemail), and use both
the SIT tones in the OGM and the beep after the OGM trying to get
robodialers to abort, and the max length OGM with a SIT tone, OGM saying
the account is unmonitored and voicemail will be ignored, and even more
SIT tones will likely push off any human callers.

On 8/21/2022 6:00 PM, VanguardLH wrote:
> AJL <noemail@none.com> wrote:
>> On 8/21/2022 11:02 AM, jaugustine@verizon.net wrote:

>>> My updated [voicemail] greeting, "The owner of this telephone is
>>> not available. Do not leave your name, telephone number, and a
>>> message. The voicemail program is turned off."

>> That may work for humans but I suspect spam machines will take no
>> notice...

> Some robodialers will detect the OGM tone (the beep after your
> OutGoing Message) when your voicemail picks up a call. The
> robodialer will terminate the call, but you might still a 6-second
> blank recording in your voicemail (when it detects there is no
> incoming audio). While the robodialer may terminate the call, you
> stay on their dialing list to get called again later.

I may just be lucky but I get very few spam calls that go to voicemail.
Maybe one or two a month. Actually I get very few spam calls period.
Perhaps it's because I subscribe to my carrier's spam filter.

Also I set my phone up for 24 hour do-not-disturb (no ring) with the
exception of my contact list. That way family and important folks on the
list can still get through but any spam that sneaks through the filter
doesn't. I can check later to see if any wanted calls were blocked
and if so I can get back to them.

Course I realize my system is a YMMV thing that may not work for some
(many, most?)...

AJL <noemail@none.com> wrote:

> On 8/21/2022 6:00 PM, VanguardLH wrote:
>> AJL <noemail@none.com> wrote:
>>> On 8/21/2022 11:02 AM, jaugustine@verizon.net wrote:
>
>>>> My updated [voicemail] greeting, "The owner of this telephone is
>>>> not available. Do not leave your name, telephone number, and a
>>>> message. The voicemail program is turned off."
>
>>> That may work for humans but I suspect spam machines will take no
>>> notice...
>
>> Some robodialers will detect the OGM tone (the beep after your
>> OutGoing Message) when your voicemail picks up a call. The
>> robodialer will terminate the call, but you might still a 6-second
>> blank recording in your voicemail (when it detects there is no
>> incoming audio). While the robodialer may terminate the call, you
>> stay on their dialing list to get called again later.
>
> I may just be lucky but I get very few spam calls that go to voicemail.
> Maybe one or two a month. Actually I get very few spam calls period.
> Perhaps it's because I subscribe to my carrier's spam filter.
>
> Also I set my phone up for 24 hour do-not-disturb (no ring) with the
> exception of my contact list. That way family and important folks on the
> list can still get through but any spam that sneaks through the filter
> doesn't. I can check later to see if any wanted calls were blocked
> and if so I can get back to them.
>
> Course I realize my system is a YMMV thing that may not work for some
> (many, most?)...

Alas, the OP, and I, are using Tracfone which is an MVNO.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_virtual_network_operator

MVNOs don't offer any extra features. They buy bulk time with the major
carriers, and you usually get the minimal set of features from whichever
major carrier to which your Tracfone is assigned. You get lots more
features if you subscribe to a major carrier than when you subscribe to
an MVNO who has to keep their costs at a minimum. Tracfone doesn't have
voicemail service. You get whatever the actual carrier provides in the
bulk quota they sell to the MVNO. Tracfone has no access to the actual
carrier's features, so they cannot disable voicemail. You aren't
actually a member of the actual carrier, so you don't get support from
them. Once you activate voicemail at the actual carrier, Tracfone
cannot turn it off and points to the actual carrier, and the actual
carrier says you are not their customer and they point to Tracfone.
Since you don't have an account at the actual carrier, whether you have
access to a DND feature depends on what basic features the actual
carrier includes in the basic accounts established for MVNOs.

There are advantages to using an MVNO: cheaper cost, and with Tracfone
you get to rollover your unused quota. There are advantages to using an
actual carrier but cost isn't one of them: more features, better
support, more customer-configurable options.

I don't want any incoming calls to my Tracfone number. The only calls I
want it to receive is from my Google Voice account which acts as a PBX
to call all my phones. Someone calls my GV number, and all my phones
ring. I've only published my GV number, so calls directly to my
Tracfone number are spam or wrong dials.

Besides GV's spam filtering, I also enabled call screening. When
callers get prompted to leave the name, and then GV will contact me,
that is often enough to kill off robodialers, human spammers, or wrong
dialers. Contacts (in my GV account) do not get screened. Only
non-contact callers get screened. However, the feature only works for
callers using my GV number, not when they directly call my actual
carrier phone number.

GV has its spam filtering, too, and it works quite well. Spammers are
adaptive, so it can take awhile before the anti-spam filtering catches
up.

Because I cannot turn off voicemail, but robodialers often abort when
they hear the beep at the end of the OGM, I don't get that spam.
However, that the robodialer aborted doesn't mean the call gets
disconnected immediately. Seems when the robodialer aborts after
hearing the OGM beep, it takes 3 to 6 seconds for the robodialer end to
terminate the call. The short 3 to 6-second voicemails that I do get
are just blank (no audio) spam calls.

With GV, the CallerID gets sent to the phones it rings. That lets me
see who called (if they aren't unknown callers which I've pestered
Google to add an option to filter out those callers). It might be
possible (if the feature were available in the actual carrier's basic
account assigned to Tracfone) to reject all calls other than those from
GV. However, that means I would have to configure GV to send my GV
number as the CallerID, and that means I would see all non-rejected
calls as coming from my GV number instead of the originator's CallerID.
As I recall, when I went into the admin options at the actual carrier
for my Tracfone account with them, there was no option to filter out all
but specific callers. No whitelist of callers to allow, and no option
to bypass callers in a contacts list. In fact, I have no contacts list
at the actual carrier. I can't even use the actual carrier's account
web app to look at my account with them, because I don't have one with
them, so no using a web UI to maintain a contacts list.

The only problem with configuring a smartphone app or an endpoint phone
to always enable DND means all calls go direct to voicemail other than
callers in a whitelist. The doctor, vet, bank, pharmacy, car shop, gun
shop, or anyone else that I don't add to my contacts (I don't whitelist
everyone with whom I may call or get calls, else my whitelist would be
huge and I'd be wasting tons of time to maintain it) would go straight
to voicemail. Just because a caller isn't in a whitelist doesn't
condemn them to being a spammer.

Instead I use 2 different ring tones. One is assigned to my contacts,
and it is loud and hard to ignore. Another is the general one used for
all other callers, and it is soft and easy to ignore. If I'm expecting
or wanting a non-contact call, I will pending a soft ringtoned call. If
I'm busy or sleeping, tis very easy to not hear the non-contact call
using the soft ring tone. However, that doesn't eliminate getting
nuisanced with voicemails that should NOT be left at the actual
carrier's service. That would be for someone that directly called my
carrier phone number. The only number I dole out is my GV number, and
any voicemails should get deposited there.

The problem is the OP is using Tracfone. So do I. The OP already
activated voicemail with the actual carrier. So did I. Now there is no
way to disable voicemail, so any calls direct to my carrier number can
leave voicemail there, and I get nuisanced on my phone that there are
new voicemails (at my actual carrier rather than at GV).

At this point, the only solution for the OP and I is to kill the
existing Tracfone account (and lose any rollover minutes), create a new
Tracfone account, get the SIM assigned to use the new Tracfone account,
and NEVER setup voicemail (at the actual carrier since voicemail is not
a Tracfone service). Or switch from Tracfone (again losing any rollover
quota) and move to an actual carrier where you would have an account
which grants you web access to configure it how you want.

GV's spam filtering works very well. Call screening helps a lot, too.
However GV is not involved when someone directly calls my actual carrier
phone number. I'm not a customer of the actual carrier, so none of
those nice spam and filtering options are available from the carrier.
Even if I were a customer of the carrier, DND still directs incoming
calls to voicemail. The OP wants to eliminate the spam calls ending up
in voicemail. As a customer of the carrier, likely you have the option
to just disable voicemail. We Tracfone and other MVNO customers do not.
Going cheap has its price as in lack of features and configurability.

On 8/22/2022 2:37 AM, VanguardLH wrote:
> AJL <noemail@none.com> wrote:

>> I set my phone up for 24 hour do-not-disturb (no ring) with the
>> exception of my contact list. That way family and important folks
>> on the list can still get through but any spam that sneaks through
>> the filter doesn't. I can check later to see if any wanted calls
>> were blocked and if so I can get back to them.

> Alas, the OP, and I, are using Tracfone which is an MVNO. Tracfone
> has no access to the actual carrier's features, so they cannot
> disable voicemail.

Though I apparently can (but have never tried), disabling voicemail
would mess my system up. But I sympathize with folks who want to and can't.

> There are advantages to using an MVNO: cheaper cost, and with
> Tracfone you get to rollover your unused quota. There are
> advantages to using an actual carrier but cost isn't one of them:
> more features, better support, more customer-configurable options.

Having more phone options available to fit various folks needs and
circumstances is a good thing.

> I don't want any incoming calls to my Tracfone number. The only
> calls I want it to receive is from my Google Voice account which
> acts as a PBX to call all my phones. Someone calls my GV number, and
> all my phones ring. I've only published my GV number, so calls
> directly to my Tracfone number are spam or wrong dials.

Spam doesn't only rely on published numbers. It also serial dials. Not
much protection from that other than commercial spam filters. And
do-not-disturb filters...

> GV has its spam filtering, too, and it works quite well. Spammers
> are adaptive, so it can take awhile before the anti-spam filtering
> catches up.

If Google does as well with phone spam as it does with my email spam it
does an excellent job. Google hasn't let one through in months. Trouble
is I still have to inspect the spam folder list to see if any was caught
by mistake...

On 8/22/22 9:54 AM, AJL wrote:

> If Google does as well with phone spam as it does with my email spam it
> does an excellent job. Google hasn't let one through in months. Trouble
> is I still have to inspect the spam folder list to see if any was caught
> by mistake...

Yes, gmail does a really good job. BUT every once in a while it decides
that email from a long-term friend/correspondent is spam and throws it
in the junk file. It doesn't seem to understand that I LIKE the people
in my contact list...

--
Cheers, Bev
"The federal government has taken too much tax money from the
people, too much authority from the states, and too much liberty
with the Constitution." -- Ronald Reagan

On 8/22/2022 10:38 PM, The Real Bev wrote:
> On 8/22/22 9:54 AM, AJL wrote:

>> If Google does as well with phone spam as it does with my email
>> spam it does an excellent job. Google hasn't let one through in
>> months. Trouble is I still have to inspect the spam folder list to
>> see if any was caught by mistake...

> Yes, gmail does a really good job. BUT every once in a while it
> decides that email from a long-term friend/correspondent is spam and
> throws it in the junk file. It doesn't seem to understand that I LIKE
> the people in my contact list...

Yup, you gotta check that spam folder even though it's a PITA...

BTW a couple of months ago month I started getting over a 100 spam
emails a day on one of my addresses. Fortunately Google did a good job
and virtually all went to the spam folder. It stayed that way for a few
weeks, then slowly dropped off to where it was before (and is now) at
one or two a day. My other two addresses were untouched. I have no clue
what caused it. Weird, huh...