# telcel voice mail



## eastwind (Jun 18, 2016)

I've had to give out my Mexican telephone number to various things, and so I get sales calls. If its a number not in my contacts I dont answer, but then they leave a voicemail message. I can access voicemail with *86. But the plan I buy, Amigo Sin Limit 200, apparently does not include voicemail access. For the *86 to do anything but hang up, I have to have an Amigo balance of at least 5 pesos. (This I discovered through trial and error). When I go into voice mail, work through the messages and delete them, then hangup, my Amigo balance gets dinged a few pesos. This is all rather annoying. Not that it's a lot of money, but the notion of having to actually spend money just to delete sales call voice messages grinds my cookies. If I just ignore them, there's always an alert showing on my phone that I can't get rid of that says I have voicemail.

Searches on the internet seem to indicate there's a way to close the in-box so that no one can leave a message. That's what I'd like to do. The info (which might have been out of date, said that it's a function of the smart mailbox. You have to turn that on, then there's supposed to be an option to turn off the collection of voicemail. Supposedly you have too do this on the miTelcel web site, not via the app or the phone.

I've tried (both ways) but no luck. I can turn on and off the smart voicemail, but it doesn't make a difference, I still get voicemail. And I can't see any option to just disable the whole darn thing.

Do all you fluent speakers that actually use voicemail have to pay for it apart from your monthly fee? Anybody know if it can (still) be completely disabled and how to do it? It seems really strange to me that voicemail would incur a separate usage charge when I'm on a sin-limits voice plan...


----------



## Penny8002 (10 mo ago)

I have a similar question! Except that I actually do want to be able to use voicemail since I have been giving out this number for deliveries. 

I also have an Amigo Sin Limite plan & a Telcel representative via chat told me that you do have to pay extra per voicemail call with such a plan. Do you or anyone else know when and how is the best way to pay for voicemail? Do I just follow the prompts of the recording when I try to call my voicemail? I ask because we have run into problems following Telcel prompts in the past & ended up purchasing basically duplicate plans by accident. 

As far as I know, I don't yet have voicemail set up, but, perhaps I do and I just haven't been able to listen to the calls because I don't have the extra money in my Telcel account.

Thanks!


----------



## eastwind (Jun 18, 2016)

I have the miTelcel app on my phone connected to my account, and my debit card associated with the account. Then I can add to my balance through the app and the money comes out of my bank account and sits on my telcel balance. As I wrote before, if my telcel balance is over about 5 pesos, then *86 works, first to set up the mailbox, then to retrieve messages, and it gets immediately reduced by a few pesos. 

The miTelcel app has a limited menu of recharge amounts. One is 200, which is what I use for filling that balance so I can renew my monthly SL200, and another is 20, which is what I used to have a little extra for the voice messages (which I've now used up and need to refil). My bank doesn't seem to be bothered by using the credit card to debit such a small 20 peso amount. 

Don't put a lot extra into your telcel account because the amounts do expire after a while. 
It's one month, but as long as you are regularly adding 200 and charging 200 once each month the small amounts will get renewed and last beyond a month.

I got help from a friend to set up the mailbox (because my spanish isn't good enough to understand the voice prompts in real time). Telcel picked a pin for me, apparently 1234 wouldn't do, but I don't have to use it if I call from my phone. But my friend doesn't know about blocking message collection.


----------



## citlali (Mar 4, 2013)

I have yet to have a Mexican leave a message on voice mail.. They send whatsapp messages but do not leave messages on voice mail Every message I check on voice mail is blank


----------



## Penny8002 (10 mo ago)

Thanks, eastwind -- I followed your advice & set it up! And, yes, citlali -- the messages were blank, after all! I just arrived about a month ago to Mexico, so I appreciate both of your input & advice!


----------



## eastwind (Jun 18, 2016)

Once I forgot to pay a bill and I got an automated reminder. The rest are all sales calls. I'm willing to do without the automated reminders in order to not have to pay to delete the sales calls.


----------



## Bobbyb (Mar 9, 2014)

I am having another Telcel sin limite problem. I cannot send mms messages with photos.. I went to my favorite telcel store and he tried a few things. Finally said that mms phots is not included in those plans. When I tried I get the mesaage that the app istrying to convert the MMS???. Mexicans all use Whatsap. He tried to explain how I can purchase 10 pesos of air time and then I could send photos. Strange. I could swear that last year I was able to send photo attachments.


----------



## eastwind (Jun 18, 2016)

Pity no one seems to have an answer to my question.

Yes, use whatsapp to send photos. It's free. I used it all the time when I was renting an apartment. Any time something went wrong the apartment manager wanted a picture. Which she would send on to the owners to explain why she was spending the rent on repairs. And she'd send it on to her pet repairman to get a quote. Then he'd send her a picture when the work was done - or else if he didn't I'd have to. It's like, _evidence, _you know? Better than a deposition or sworn testimony in a court of law.  Often no caption needed. 

If your kid needs to clean his room, you just take a picture and send it to him with whatsapp. If dogs did whatsapp it could be used for housebreaking them, too. Your puddle fido! Clean up on aisle 3!!

Never once did anyone mess with pictures sent any other way. Video works too.


----------



## eastwind (Jun 18, 2016)

Another good outcome would be if I could just disable the 'you have voicemail' notifications. There is a setting for that in my android, deep in the menus somewhere (I just search for voicemail). But the slider for 'show notifications' is slid to 'on' _and _sort of greyed out so I can't slide it to off. I can make the notifications silent, and 'minimized', but I can't get rid of it completely, it's always showing on my list of notifications if I swipe down from the main screen.

I found a couple places that say you can dial ##002#, for any phone from any provider, but it doesn't work. When I tried it I got an error message (in English, so it was coming from my phone not telcel).

The instructions I was trying to follow are here: 





How to deactivate the Telcel voicemail? – - La Cultura de los Mayas


ContenidosHow to deactivate Telcel’s voicemail?How to change the voicemail greeting?How to know who sent me an SMS?How to remove voicemail notification on Samsung? How to deactivate Telcel’s voicemail? Deactivate the Telcel mailbox by following these steps: Enter My Telcel. Select the services...




culturalmaya.com





That works to either turn on intelligent voicemail or to turn it off. But it doesn't solve the problem. Because either way voicemail messages are accumulated and the notification is shown if there are any. The difference is, if it's set to off, you can't dial *86 and delete them. If it's on, then you can. Telcel says the service is free, which is true in that they don't charge you to turn it on, but actually false/deceptive because they do charge you when you use it (when you dial *86).


----------



## citlali (Mar 4, 2013)

It is not very practical to use whatsapp is court, actually it is not accepted unless they can use your phone.. This is what a notario told me.. I went to court in Chiapas many years ago and emails were not accepted in court.. This is not the US do not assume you can use any of these in court.


----------



## citlali (Mar 4, 2013)

I do not use voice mail, I have it but do not even bother to check it, it is a total waste of time in Mexico.I would think Telcel could tell you how to disconnect it. I have never bothered to ask because I have yet to receive a message on it.


----------

