losing AT&T minutes

[petiteambrosia]

Why is it with AT&T that if you have a contract, you are charged for incoming calls that you don't even answer and that don't go to your voicemail?

[hme83]

Are you rejecting the call from your phone? (hitting the "ignore" or "reject" key)

And do you not have voice mail set up? Or do you mean the caller hangs up before the call is transferred to voice mail?

As far as I know you should not be being charged minute usage for calls that you don't answer or for retrieving voice mail deposits so long as you do it from another phone (you will be charged for doing so from your own cell phone).

[petiteambrosia]

Originally Posted by hme83

Are you rejecting the call from your phone? (hitting the "ignore" or "reject" key)

And do you not have voice mail set up? Or do you mean the caller hangs up before the call is transferred to voice mail?

As far as I know you should not be being charged minute usage for calls that you don't answer or for retrieving voice mail deposits so long as you do it from another phone (you will be charged for doing so from your own cell phone).

I am not hitting reject. I do have voicemail set up. I am talking about calls that either the caller hangs up before it goes to voicemail, or they do go to voicemail and leave a message. AT&T told me that even if I don't answer the phone I am charged a minute, or if the caller leaves a message, I am charged against my minutes for that.

[TnA2xXtReM]

Originally Posted by petiteambrosia

I am not hitting reject. I do have voicemail set up. I am talking about calls that either the caller hangs up before it goes to voicemail, or they do go to voicemail and leave a message. AT&T told me that even if I don't answer the phone I am charged a minute, or if the caller leaves a message, I am charged against my minutes for that.

That is really weird, but I did a quick search and found nothing but one other discussion about your situation... The discussion was going great then it stopped abruptedly. Also, did you talk to AT&T about this issue yet?

[hme83]

Originally Posted by petiteambrosia

I am not hitting reject. I do have voicemail set up. I am talking about calls that either the caller hangs up before it goes to voicemail, or they do go to voicemail and leave a message. AT&T told me that even if I don't answer the phone I am charged a minute, or if the caller leaves a message, I am charged against my minutes for that.

As far as I know you should not be being charged for unanswered calls or calls that are redirected to voice mail. You will be charged for checking your voice mail messages if you don't do so by calling it from another phone.

I would use the following information re: the GSM ring time codes to make sure your phone is set to ring for only 25 seconds (or less) before transferring the call to voice mail.

Ring Time

You can also have customer care set the ring time for you, or your phone's menu may have an option for doing so (easier than using the above code if it has the menu functionality). To my knowledge, you aren't supposed to be charged for the call unless the call is redirected to voice mail *after* 30 seconds ring time, and supposedly 30 seconds is the longest allowable ring time before at&t will redirect; but I would set it at 25 seconds instead just to see if that makes a difference.

[cellwiz09]

I didn't know you could adjust the ring time....that's cool.

[TnA2xXtReM]

Never noticed the charged minute fee for voicemail when I was was Cingular. I did remember calling in CSR to change how many rings until voicemail will be played though. It was a huge fuss back then as for I had to call in from each cell phone and have to deal with a new CSR everytime who didn't know how to work it out.

[hf1khal]

f the phone does ring for more than 30 seconds we get charged. Also one needs to make sure that the caller did not actually hang up just when voice mail activated. We all know that we take the phone away to hang up so that extra second could be the cause and enough to activate voice mail.