Announcement 19 Call Restrictions - Solution

Posting this to hopefully save someone else another 11 hours of customer support...

I tried to have 2 lines moved from a postpaid to a prepaid account. Afterwards, both had data but no voice or texting service. When trying to make a call I would get the following voice message:

"welcome to verizon wireless, we're sorry, the number you have dialed has calling restrictions that have prevented the completion of your call, announcement 19"

We tried 500 things to fix this. Ultimately, what worked is what another post mentioned. The agent changed my number to a new number and then changed it back to the original number. Afterwards, everything worked flawlessly. Did the same process for both lines. We determined that the issue was an incomplete migration between accounts that left the lines in some kind of limbo. Resetting the numbers seemed to restart the migration process, which then completed successfully.

WARNING: I believe this happened to the other poster as well... I was working with an agent via chat for this process. When they changed the number for the line that was the account administrator, I was immediately logged out of my online account, including the online chat. My heart stopped for a moment because now my phone had a new number after using my old number for 15 years.

When I tried to log back in, my online account username and password didn't work anymore. When I tried to reset my password, it tried to verify my identity my sending a text to my original number. Since my number was changed, I couldn't verify the account.

Fortunately, the agent continued the process while I was doing this and changed my number back to the original number. Afterward my number was changed back to the original one, I was able to log back into my account. When I pulled up chat, I actually still had the same agent connected.

If you attempt this process as well, let your agent know that you may get disconnected from chat. In that case, they should continue with the process:

1. Change to new number

2. Change back to original number

Once your number is returned to the original, you will be able to log into your online account again and probably get back into the same chat session. You may want to ask them beforehand how to get in touch with them in case you are disconnected and can't get back to them again.

So happy to have service back again. Hopefully this saves you a painful 11 hours.

Accepted answers

doejohn123

Thank you for posting this!

I ran into the same issue and inspired by the parent post, have documented details of my experience in case it is of any additional help to someone.

Details about the problem:
Attempted to move 1 line (iPhone 14 Pro) from postpaid to prepaid via online chat.
Chatted with one "digital assistant" (presumably a bot) and was then transferred thrice between what I presumed were humans before I was connected to the person who could make the change.
The process, via chat took two hours.
Close to the end of the process, my phone asked me to Activate the new esim.
Upon accepting, I lost connectivity with the CS rep I was chatting with (and was not able to connect back to them thereafter).

After that, nothing worked.
I noticed that two eims were active in Settings > Cellular.
After disabling one of the two, some things started to work again.

- I only had access to data.
- I was not able to make or receive phone calls.
- I was not able to send any text messages.
- I started to, once again, receive text messages but only from Verizon. I could not receive messages sent from any other phone. The messages from Verizon were notifications suggesting that the process was complete and final messages from the CS rep.

The error message when placing a call was the same as the one noted in the original post, ending in "... announcement 19".

Solution:
The next day, I took the phone to the Verizon store. I also took a printout of the solution noted in the original post.
When I described the problem, the agent thought about it for a second and noted that it was likely he would have to call CS.
When I showed him the printout, he read it and noted that it was even more likely he would have to call CS since he could not perform the steps described in the solution (change phone to another number and change it back).
He called CS, identified himself as a Verizon agent and described the problem. He did not share the solution described in the printout and it never came up thereafter.

The CS rep on the other end was placed on speakerphone by the agent, so I could hear the rest of the conversation.
The CS rep asked the agent to try a couple of things on my phone such as doing a network reset, deleting the two esims, enabling a new one (each followed by a restart).
These attempts did not work.
Finally, the CS rep tried something else and asked the agent to restart the phone. After that it started to work. The CS rep did not describe what they had done but their voice seemed to suggest that they were surprised when the agent at the store reported that it had started to work and my phone was able to receive a call from his phone.
The process at the Verizon store took between 20 to 30 mins and the staff were polite and professional.

Additional details:

After that,
- I continued to be able to use data as before
- I was now able to make and receive calls.
- I was now able receive text messages.
- However, I was initially unable to send text messages right away. The Messages app on the iPhone appeared to be attempting send the message via Apple iMessage and was not successful immediately after the activation. My plan was to sign out of my Apple ID once I got back home and sign back in to try and re-enable sending SMS, but even that functionality started to work without any additional change by the time I got back home (about 30 mins later).

All comments

SynthpopAddict

It's good to hear you got your service back, but that's sad it took 11 hours of wrangling. The prepaid accounts and postpaid accounts are stored in different places and the accounts have different nomenclature even, which is why migrating between postpaid and prepaid or vice versa is not the same as the usual "start a new account" or "transfer service".

When your number was temporarily changed, it will disconnect you from your account access because the system thinks you have removed (disconnected) the original number in question. Disconnecting or porting out your service revokes your My Verizon access.

A CS rep said in these forums that the best way to get this type of migration done is to call Inside Sales, so if you ever want to go back to postpaid, call them to switch back. The forum software removed the number I posted for some reason, but hopefully I can PM it to someone if they're curious?

doejohn123

Thank you for posting this!

I ran into the same issue and inspired by the parent post, have documented details of my experience in case it is of any additional help to someone.

After that, nothing worked.
I noticed that two eims were active in Settings > Cellular.
After disabling one of the two, some things started to work again.

The error message when placing a call was the same as the one noted in the original post, ending in "... announcement 19".

Additional details:

kc3333

I’ve also been having this issue with calling someone. I can’t text this person either as it says “message send failure” but I can call other people and text other people without any issues. What is going on here?

zztsoas

I had the same issue and the only solution that worked for me was to switch it to a new temporary number and switch it back. Luckily, I was able to do this without having to go to the Verizon store. I got on chat support and sent a link to this community post to the agent. They read through it and worked with me to do the temporary number shuffle. It took about 30 minutes but ultimately fixed the problem