No Verizon visual voicemail on unlocked Motorola One Ace

[EYASTA]

After 13+ years of Verizon and Verizon provided Androids, I just purchased an unlocked Motorola One Ace from Best Buy.  Now my visual voicemail service is gone.  It can't be activated on my new phone & the visual voicemail add-on has vanished from my My Verizon account.

While I appreciate not being charged for an add-on my new phone can't activate, I had no idea that an unlocked phone would lose this feature. I find it essential to weed through VM messages.  I wish I had known this.  I even paid the extra fee to get my phone info transferred over in the store just to avoid surprises like this.

After getting confused looks and no direction from serval in-store employees, I was finally directed to contact Verizon tech support to see if there's a work around for this. Otherwise, I'll have to use a 3rd party app and the ones I've seen seem pretty invasive. (porting numbers over, etc)

I thought I'd ask here before calling tech support:

QUESTIONS:

IS there a work-around to get Verizon visual VM back for my new phone?

If there isn't--and that's disappointing--can anyone recommend a 3rd party app or some other solution? 

(I've heard of people returning their new unlocked phone for a Verizon phone of the same make but that would be a pain--wiping clean/returning the new phone & paying more for the same one from Verizon. Not to mention the lost fee I paid to activate it in-store, etc. I bought it elsewhere to save money so then I would be out both time and money.)

I wish Verizon staff would have known about losing visual voicemail when I spoke with them about the possibility of buying an unlocked Motorola. I thought I had covered all my bases.

Thank you for any advice.

[vzw_customer_support]

Hello EYASTA! Thank you for reaching out. We're sorry to read about the experience you had with your new phone. Unfortunately, when you buy unlocked devices, we can't guarantee that all service will work. Visual Voicemail won't work on non-Verizon devices. The good news is that the Visual Voicemail is included in your plan, so you're not paying anything extra for this service. You will need to call *86 to listen to your messages. If you need this service, you will need to return your current phone, and get a Verizon device. I hope this clarifies your question. We'll be here if you need us. ~Aaron

[EYASTA]

Thank you for that prompt reply, Aaron. 

I DO wish this were made clearer beforehand, especially since I spoke with multiple Verizon employees in advance about any differences an unlocked phone would entail & no one mentioned losing visual voicemail. Especially since I paid extra for the new phone to be set-up in the store.

[vzw_customer_support]

You are very welcome, EYASTA. We're very sorry to hear about the unexpected troubles that have come up with using visual voicemail while having an unlocked device as opposed to a Verizon Wireless device. Since the Motorola One Ace device that you have is not a Verizon Wireless device, we are unable to guarantee that all of our features from Verizon Wireless will operate correctly on it. Are you able to use basic voicemail on your device by dialing *86 as an alternative?   -Brett

[EYASTA]

Hello, Brett.

I should clarify since I've learned I wasn't using the correct terms. 

Yes, I CAN receive voicemail recordings on my new Motorola. 

But what I USED to have was PREMIUM VISUAL VOICEMAIL (which included Voicemail to Text) and that's what I'm looking to get back. I paid Verizon $3/mon extra for the service.  Being able to quickly see the text of VMs is incredibly helpful.

My new Motorola One Ace has a button that allows you to turn on Visual Voicemail--although, after the initial activation, I'm not sure I was getting ANY visual voicemail, even with the button on.  It was only after I called Verizon's loyalty desk who connected me to tech support that I started getting BASIC Visual Voicemail (giving the time, caller, duration of VMs, play/pause buttons).  But the TRANSCRIPTION part was missing.  This is why I was confused when Verizon kept saying that "Visual Voicemail" is included in my coverage.  Yes but "Basic Visual Voicemail" DOESN'T include "Voicemail to Text" transcription, which is what I want.  For Androids, that requires "PREMIUM Visual Voicemail".   

The phone tech got stuck when we couldn't find a voicemail app on my phone (a red logo with "voicemail" in the middle, no brand name available). She said that without that app on my phone or showing up in my Play store, she didn't know how I could get premium visual voicemail.  That didn't sound right to me but then, I'm not a tech.  She even concluded that perhaps no Motorola One Ace (128 gb) can get VM to Text with Verizon. That definitely doesn't sound right to me.  How can a 5G phone not have VM to Text capabilities? 

She created a ticket for me with a promise of a response in 3 - 5 days.  Yikes. But an update yesterday said I'll get a response within 24 hours.  

I also called Motorola's tech support which said that voicemail is all about the carrier and that their phones aren't limited in any way.

If you can shed any light on this, please let me know.  I really don't want to return this phone just because I can't get VM to Text.  I can only buy a more expensive version from Verizon and only see a 64 gb available (not 128).

Thank you.   Elaine

[Ann154]

The Motorola phone you have sounds like it might be using the Visual Voicemail option also found in the Google Pixel phones. I don't know if Google voicemail feature has a transcription option or not. If this is same voicemail feature as the Google Pixel phones, you should have your voicemail setting in your MyVerizon account online the same way as it works for the Pixel phones. I can't remember if you need to have the voicemail set to the basic non-visual voicemail feature or the basic visual voicemail feature for your line to get it to work. 

[Ann154]

The premium Visual Voicemail feature requires a Verizon Wireless branded phone with the Verizon Visual Voicemail application pre-installed. If you absolutely need the premium version with the transcription option, you will need a different phone. 

[vzw_customer_support]

We understand the importance of having access to your Visual Voice Mail and features. To better assist you, please send us a Private Note.

~Maria

[EYASTA]

Hello, all.

Well, I'm happy to report that my unlocked Motoroal One Ace 2021 128 GB phone from Best Buy IS finally getting voice-to-text voicemail.  And it's from Verizon.  THANK YOU, JUSTINE, my heroine from Tech Support!  😇 😀   

It turns out that some unlocked phones ARE capable of Premium Visual Voicemail/voice-to-text.

I called tech support today because I wasn't seeing a 5G icon on my screen even though I upgraded to a 5G plan last week. (That's another story...  😫 )

Justine was puzzled about my voicemail-to-text woes since she saw that my account WAS offering me the option for premium voicemail (e.g. necessary for voicemail-to-text which is what I've had all these years).  She said that wouldn't happen if my new phone couldn't accomodate it.  Then she checked my phone's specs on her device spreadsheet using its IMEI # and it showed that the phone itself WAS compatible with voicemail-to-text.  She said I just needed to add the $2.99 Premium Voicemail back to my account like before.  She sent me the link to do that, I rebooted my phone while she hit some keys and, voila, I started getting voicemail-to-text messages again for $2.99/mon.  Just like before.

Justine explained that this isn't true for all unlocked phones but it is for some of them.  She said I should check Verizon's Bring Your Own Device page to see if a specific unlocked device will work.  (I did that after the call but it didn't specify Premium Voicemail. Justine talked about a device resource only for techs and I bet that's where she found the information based on my phone's IMEI.)  

I do wish that Verizon would have everyone on the same page when it comes to technical support and plan information.  I hope that my experience here might help others with the same issue.   

[vzw_customer_support]

EYASTA, thanks for the feedback and we're glad Visual Voicemail is working on your unlocked Motorola Once Ace. Thanks for taking the time to share your experience with our community forums.

- Alan