Why is basic visual voice mail free on the Note 3 and 2.99 a month for the S4 ?
Jhahn01We definitely want you to have the correct features and charges on your account! Basic Visual Voicemail is free on all compatible devices. The Premium Visual Voicemail feature is $2.99/month! The added features are double the storage capacity, creating personal greetings for callers or a group of callers, and reading voicemails with Voice to Text. I recommend checking if these extra features are on your S4. If they are, this device is signed up for Premium instead of Basic! This is something that can definitely be changed for you by Customer Service if you'd like.RuthW_VZWFollow us on twitter @VZWSupport
I'm trying to reach these issues myself. There are a few different flavors of voicemail:
The mystery is number 2, what you are asking about. Though it is mentioned on a verizon comparison chart, 'basic visual voicemail' is not discussed in any verizon literature and I suspect most techs don't know about it yet. It seems to have been enabled with a kitkat update (version 4.4.4 of Android) that has been released on some, but not all phones. I think the way it worked is that users were given a free trial of the pay version of voicemail, but at the end of the trial were able to 'downgrade' to basic voicemail and keep that without paying.
I also have an S4, and basic /no cost visual voice mail does not seem to be possible, though I have heard there may be some ways to make it work with technical workarounds. I have not confirmed any of these methods but they almost certainly would not be recommended by Verizon staff.
To get back to your question, basic visual voicemail and what Verizon calls regular 'visual voicemail' are different products. The basic seems to be a recent product only available on some phones. The regular 'visual voicemail' is the pay service available on all phones.
