Disable Voicemail on Landline

[mrj_et]

Like many others it seems, I am trying to disable voicemail for my elderly mother.  It causes serious problems when people assume that because they left a message it will be listened too. 

I am guessing that the people who create these systems don't have elderly relatives. If they did then they would get it.

It should be a simple and reasonable request to be able to do this. But remarkably it is not. The best answer I get is that I can increase the number of rings to 10.

Has anyone cracked this and will EE listen to their customers?  

Need the option to turn voicemail off.

[mrjrhughes23]

It sounds like @Hazban has had the same conversations as I have had. 

see above comments - if you find the right person, you can get the 1571 answerphone service removed - on health/vulnerability grounds by the technical team (Sadly customer services can’t do it directly but they should be able to put in a request to get it done)

good luck

[JimM11]

@mrjrhughes23 The problem may be, but as yet unknown, the Two Systems may be completely different, BT run A, and EE run B, what can be done on one, may not be included on the other. Disabled means just stop the voicemail and anything that is associated to not function, Removed it will never work no matter what!

No one seems to know, and the Forum is not the place to get it all sorted out, only to report what is happening and to gather customers experience of as you say how difficult it was to get the request actioned. 

[MJM39]

Thanks for the info @mrjrhughes23 , much appreciated. I'm so pleased to hear you finally managed to get the Voicemail removed after several attempts. I shall continue to do the same, thank you. 👍

[JohnM22]

Got answer service removed. My elderly mother moved from BT to EE in Sept 24, had same issue about getting answer service turned off, plus other issues with account login. Could not change the ringing time length or turn off voicemail callback alerts. I've had approx 17 phone calls with Customer services most for over hour at a time, some said answer service could be removed some said it couldn't. Was passed to managers and techs. They tried all sorts, some even argued there was no answer service on the account til I told them to ring it. Finally got a person who said the answer service was linked to around 7 different platforms, and was only active on one, all the other reps were looking at the wrong ones. Said the way to remove it was to go in and add the answer service then remove it. It worked. Hopefully I'll get the other issues resolved now as I still have an open complaint. Hope this helps. 

[JimM11]

@JohnM22 Thank you for the useful reply to the voicemail and at least there is hope for others that require to get the service removed/disabled what ever they want to call it, as long as VM on DV does NOT CUT IN and pick up the call....

Noted in the old brain, hope at the end off the tunnel.

[BeccaD]

Just adding an update to anyone out there having the same issue with disabling voicemail as mrj_et.  My elderly mother wouldn't know what voicemail was if it hit her in the face.  I assumed that it would be easy to switch off voice messaging (as it is with other phone services).  However, after 6 days and way too much of my time I have come to accept that EE really haven't considered the needs of their elderly vulnerable customers and have imposed voicemail on all customers whether they want it or not.  They do enable you to increase the number of rings until voicemail kicks in but for someone with mobility issues who might need at least 30 rings to answer the phone this is not very helpful.  Then there's the added complication for someone who doesn't understand how to access 1571 actually finding out who called them.  I thought the equality Act meant we started caring more for marginalised groups of people - it seems not.

[BeccaD]

Hi. I've spoken to probably 10 people at EE now.  It's not even possible to have voicemail removed altogether it's an integral part of the contract apparently.  

[JimM11]

@BeccaD The following is the quote from the EE DV Team.

"Hi mate, apologies for the delay. I've been told no it's not possible to turn off voicemail at the moment you can only have it removed. I've heard this is potentially going to change, but no time scale yet unfortunately. "

But the latest posting that referenced the request was EE are playing hardball with any assistance in doing so, whether it is getting more complicated to do is the question and may be too time consuming to go un weave all the parts that are required to get it REMOVED completely as it also effects other parts. EE are/where reviewing the VULNERABLE status request about a month ago, and would be surprised if this did not hit one off the TOP on the list request's.

Raise a formal complaint, link below just fill in the FORM details and send it off.....

Fill out our complaints form | Help | EE

[vacuumuser]

I feel its going to have to be a very wet day before I tackle EE on this one.  Voicemail is a nuisance to medical people who may phone, they think they have actioned a matter, yet made the situation/updates to patients worse !  Confusion is being caused by this facility, let's campaign for easy removal/disablement/abandonment of Voicemail.  Otherwise, I am very happy with my EE Broadband and Landline package.  

[L1ll1364]

I fully agree with this and would be happy to sign any petition relating to this. I also think issue should be flagged to Ofcom as an issue on the accessibility front, as people with mobility issues would struggle to get to the phone to answer it within 10  rings.