I'm already at my wits end with Verizon and the ridiculous prices they are charging, but today drove home to me why I need to cut the cord, which won't free me entirely from either Verizon or Optimum since I still need internet and my wife still wants a landline, but maybe it will sooth my pain a little and I will have less interaction with this inept company.
We had a problem today with an important voice mail message that disappeared from the system. We didn't delete it but it is gone. So the natural thing to do is contact support and see if there is any way they can help retrieve the message. I suspect the answer is no but figured I would try. When you go to the website, apparently for any issue, your support options are forums and automated chat. Yes, even on a weekday in the middle of the day you can't get an option to interact with a human. No phone number, no live chat.
OK, so I go through the automated chat and keep asking for a live agent, which eventually I get an option to choose to connect to a live agent. About 10 minutes of waiting, then an agent comes on. I explain my problem, and then ... crickets. He says I understand your problem, and then after 2-3 minutes I get a chat disconnected message. Try the chat route again and I'm now about 40 minutes holding as all agents are busy - probably busy disconnecting other folks as well from whatever country they are outsourced from.
Although there is no number on the website to call, I try the standard 800-Verizon, and get an automated system. I answer no to all the questions they ask in follow up to my brief statement that I need help with voicemail, and then the system tells me it will run a check on my line. A check for what? I haven't actually explained the problem and the automated system has misinterpreted what I said and they have no idea why I'm actually calling. It tells me if the problem persists to call them back. And what would I get by calling back? So I try again and just keep saying representative and finally get a human who speaks English. They still were unable to retrieve the message for me, but at least this part of the process was not as painful once I got through to someone.
Here is a solution.
you can get a VoIP service like MagicJack or even voipo which is really cheap.
google both sites. You port out to them. They have voicemail which stays until you delete them, they also send email and text alerts for calls and other functions.
i use voipo which has over 40 features as well as an app to tie your service to your cell phone. MagicJack is more limited but it’s $35 for the device with a year of service and it is way cheaper than any telephone service. Voipo is also way cheaper it comes out to $6 a month. They charge $184 total for two years.
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