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How to setup voice mail on 3g iPhone

This morning I called my local AT&T store and told them I needed help setting up my voice mail (got my phone 3 days ago). They gave me the AT&T Customer Service number (1-800-331-0500). Called them. Waited for about 5 minutes listening to AT&T commercials, nice. Finally got someone who told me that they don't handle this, I need to talk to Apple. They transferred me to Apple. Waited for about 5 minutes listening to some pretty good music. Not bad. Got an Apple person. Very helpful. She told me that AT&T is supposed to do this. She transferred me to back to AT&T and told me she would stay on the line with me and tell them how to fix the problem. Nice. Finally got back to AT&T. Another person who didn't know what to do. Finally the Apple person asked them to connect us to Technical Support. Finally, someone who knows what's going on. They gave me this number to call from my iPhone (317-664-9940) (no leading 1). I called it and got the voice mail setup. Followed instructions and got my voice mail set up.

I don't know if this number works for every iPhone, but it didn't sound like it was specific to mine. AT&T Customer service doesn't know their a** from a hole in the ground. Sorry to say. This is the 3rd time I talked to them since I got my phone and they are sorely in need of iPhone training. If you get one of them, and need technical help, ask if they can transfer you to "Technical Support". Save yourself, and them some time.

When it was all over, I told the Technical Support guy that the Customer Service group doesn't know whats going on. He said he was very sorry and that this is a new device and they are not familiar with it. For all the money AT&T is making on the iPhone (service contract) they should take it serious enough to train their first line support people.

Oh well. I got my voice mail working now. Cool.

20" iMac G5 (iSight), Mac OS X (10.4.11), - 17" iMac G4 FP - 2 iPods - iPhone 3g 16GB (black)

Posted on Aug 7, 2008 10:56 AM

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14 replies

Aug 11, 2008 2:28 PM in response to Alfredo Jahn

You shouldn't have to dial in to access your voicemail. That's one of the great features of the iPhone...Visual Voicemail. If you're having to dial in then they haven't provision your phone for VV and ATT should be able to correct that. You can tell if you're on VV if you are taken to what looks like an Inbox upon tapping the voicemail icon.

Aug 11, 2008 4:17 PM in response to Alfredo Jahn

I went through a similar hassle with AT&T with the 1st gen iPhone -- AT&T kept trying to tell me it was an Apple issue & that they couldn't do anything, even though I knew it was an AT&T problem. I feel your pain... it was incredibly frustrating.

For AT&T iPhone customers who may experience this in the future, here's the rule of thumb regarding voicemail:

Call AT&T for these issues -
If you have trouble calling into your voicemailbox, that's an AT&T issue.
If you call into your voicemailbox from your iPhone and get a voice prompt stating something like "please enter your 10 digit phone number", that means your voicemailbox isn't set up properly... that's an AT&T issue. (Ask the rep to "reset your voicemailbox".

Call Apple for this issue -
If your *visual voicemail* isn't working, call AppleCare (1-800-my-iphone in the U.S.)

Aug 11, 2008 10:00 PM in response to Alfredo Jahn

Same issue here with voicemail.

When I first received my phone, I played around with it to make sure everything worked. Everything did work perfectly, indeed, minus the voicemail button in the Phone app. When I would press it, nothing would happen- the VM icon wouldn't even highlight.

I went to the Apple store (this was within three hours of having just received and setup my iPhone 3G at the ATT store) and had a rep check it out. He pulled out my SIM card and put his in, and VOILA, voicemail came up instantly when he pushed the icon. When he put my SIM card back in, the same issue came up. He told me that I had a possible registering issue with my SIM card. Apple could not do anything about it.

I went back to the ATT store and told the rep exactly the issue and what was figured out at the Apple store. He did not believe me and after consulting with other reps, came back to tell me that this was a common problem on the Apple phone (hardware- or software-related he meant). I told him no, that it was an ATT service issue, specifically with my SIM card.

Well, after an hour of him trying to doodle around with my phone and his computer, he reluctantly and finally came back with a different SIM card, set it up, and VOILA my voicemail button worked, and I was finally able to setup and use my visual voicemail.

I have had NOTHING BUT MAJOR ISSUES WITH ATT from the get-go. I would have never switched over to them from Sprint (with whom I had been with for 7 years with mainly no issues or complaints), but indeed I wanted the iPhone and didn't want to chance the whole flashing-an-iPhone business to get it compatible on a different carrier.

Aug 15, 2008 10:03 AM in response to Mucci

So - one way to do this is to call ATT customer svc on your phone by dialing 611 and then choosing the 'help setting up voicemail' option (#3 IIRC). Then choose the option for 'resetting your voicemail password' (again #3 IIRC). It will send you a text denoting that your VM PW has been reset. Now - go to Voicemail on your iPhone - it should now prompt you to begin setting up your VM.

HTH...

Aug 15, 2008 12:30 PM in response to Alfredo Jahn

I had the voicemail issues when I first got my 3G. You need to have AT&T or Apple (I used Apple for this) to re-set your password for voicemail. This fixed the problem for me. AT&T was WORTHLESS in their support after about 2 hours bouncing around person to person I finally called Apple and they had it fixed in about 15 minutes

--Brian

Aug 15, 2008 8:27 PM in response to Alfredo Jahn

This post was very helpful to me. I was having the same problem with the voicemail button not working on my new iPhone 3g. I called the 800 number, pressed the button for the voicemail option, then pressed the button to speak with someone. The number the tech support agent gave me to call to set up my voicemail was 317-664-9920. When I told him that I had tried 317-664-99 40, as listed in this post, but that it didn't work for me, he said that every phone has its own number. I guess mine ended in -20 instead of -40. So, call and talk to someone to find out what "your" number is.

Thanks for this post. It saved me a lot of time and frustration!

Aug 15, 2008 9:04 PM in response to Leeshelaine

From an earlier post on the same topic...
On a new phone, if upgrading, or when using an old one on a new number, you have to do a new set up of your voice mailbox. From my upgrade iPhone 3G, a window came up automatically. After setting the password and selecting a message, visual voice mail worked fine. My wife got my old phone, and I had to get a new sim card from the AT&T store. After connecting to iTunes and setting up the phone with her number, I went to visual voice mail. Touching the icon did nothing, and no dialog box appeared. So I dialed her number from the iPhone, and it went right to her voice mail for set up. After setting the password, and a message, than the visual voice mail worked fine.

Aug 17, 2008 10:06 AM in response to tcowin

tcowin:

My voicemail button was at first inoperative on my 3G. Your "call 611 & reset password" solution is the one that worked to enable the button and set up my voicemail. Thanks.

As most know already, any attempt to get an intelligent answer from any AT & T
phone rep is wasted time. AT & T does not solve problems, but creates them, and obfuscates everything in the cell phone universe.
Why, oh why, did Apple choose them as a partner for the IPhone?

Aug 21, 2008 6:36 PM in response to Alfredo Jahn

I just finished setting up my vm. it was easy. if you are a new customer to at&t, just hit the vm icon. if already a customer, call 611 from your iphone, and select option for vm. then select option to reset vm password. a text will be sent to you to confirm. then tap that vm icon again and voila! setup your vm will commence. hope this will help since pushing 1 to accesss vm isnt an option on the iphone.

How to setup voice mail on 3g iPhone

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