Texting on Family Locator

[tpurdie]

I would like to know if there is a way to turn off the automatic text message my son receives when i locate him on Family Locator.  He is 16 and just got his license and I like to know where he is sometimes, but don't want him to know that I have this ability.

[CJSmooth]

Good question I am looking for the same thing.

[vzw_customer_support]

Hi tpurdie,

That is an excellent question. I understand your concern about keeping your family safe. To protect our customers privacy we have implemented two options to make sure your privacy is protected. If the privacy setting is to "Always Ask" the Participant device is prompted to accept or provide consent for each location or Arrival and Departure Update creation request. If the privacy setting is set to "Always Allow" the Participant device is not required to accept or provide consent for each location or Arrival and Departure Update creation request. When the Always Allow setting is selected, the Participant device receives SMS notification of each location transmission. For more information on Family Locator check out this link. http://bit.ly/A44i1X.

NidiaA_VZW Support

Please follow us on Twitter @vzwsupport

[audrocks]

I have attempted to change this option to prevent the "you are being located" message from being sent to the 3 iPhones on my account without success. I spent an hour talking to a verizon technical support representative to to avail.  I can see all the devices on the locator page and it can successfully locate them however they all receive the message.  The representative and instructions indicate there should be an "edit profile" option beneath each (above the "send text message") but I do not see this - just 'send message'.  The representative deleted my entire profile and then added each line back and re-added the Family Locator feature but I still do not see the ability to change the profiles.

The rep's best guess was that the option did not appear for iPhones but the documentation only makes reference to the iPhones lack of proximity accuracy - nothing about features being entirely unavailable. 

Has anyone been able to successfully disable these messages?

[vzw_customer_support]

Hello audrocks,

Thank you for your response message today. I understand how important it is to have the ability to track desired parties. Unfortunately, due to local privacy laws there is not a way to eliminate the notification that your son will receive when you are tracking him. The only difference between "Always Ask" & "Always Allow" is that with "Always Ask" your son will need to give his consent. With both options he will be notified of your locating intentions. Please keep us posted if you require any additional assistance, thanks!

MatthewS_VZW
VZW Support
Follow us on Twitter @VZWSUPPORT

[audrocks]

Regarding the response from Verizon.  "due to local privacy laws there is not a way to eliminate the notification that your son will receive when you are tracking him - See more at: https://community.verizonwireless.com/message/941432#941432"

I would tend to disagree with his assertion given that his exact same topic exists with my AT&T wireless and their FamilyMap  service. I have been using it for years without this constraint. Either AT&T or Verizon has their facts wrong, but, regardless, the Verizon product is worthless to me.

[MZW]

I was very disappointed to learn, from my children, after ordering and setting up the family locator service, at the advice of Verizon Technical support, that everytime I used it, they were getting text messages.   "Daddy, why am I getting all these text messages saying that you are asking for my location?"

It would have been nice to know this would happen so I could have had a discussion with them beforehand to explain why I signed up for the service...  And honestly, I may have looked into other options had Verizon been clear about how this service works... You can locate your children, but they WILL be informed everytime you do. But, then I guess it probably wouldn't sell as well.

Does anyone have any advice about other apps or services which provide the locator feature without the notification.  Also, does anyone know of a locator service that can get more precise than the "within a 1 mile range of this location" -- that's not so helpful either.

Just asking!

[JDMarine]

Unfortunatly unless you purchase a seperate GPS device and activate it and can hide it in a back pack or something every system device on the phones will notify.  The phone companies are hiding behind privacy acts.  Privacy?  Who pays the bills, who owns the phone?  Whos privacy are they protecting, what child or teenager are they protection from making bad decisions in this world?  The best fix is to get the phone from your child for some reasan and add a contact with the number that verizon uses to contact for me it is 326-459, once added to contacts and you block the contact they will not receive notifications any longer. I know it works on I-phone and motarola smart phone. This fix was alos mentioned in a previous reply,  It is a great fix!!!!!!!

Hope this helps

[JDMarine]

NidiaA_VZW Support mentions that in order to protect the customer the phone must be notified that it is being located.  Lets see, the customer would be me the parent, the bill payer, the wage earner.....in order for the phone to be located by family locator you must have service and be paying a bill....in order to have a phone to locate you much purchase one....so when I call customer support and they want to verify customer information i think next time I will give my childs name and ss number to verify....do you think that will work?  or do you think they will tell me they have no such customer?  Really NidiaA / Verizon this is for customer protection....I the parent am the customer not my 17yo whom i provide the phone for and sometimes need to see where she is to make sure she is not being influenced by the wrong crowd, without her knnowing.......when we were younger we did not have cell phones, they not here yet....our parents just called down the block and if we were not where we said we were they found us and dragged us out by one of our ear lobes, today you would get arrested for that...and the world wonders why our teenagers are having so many trooubles today....Because parents are not allowed to be Parents!  I hope if you ever have or do have children NidiaA that you get a better answer to a question than you gave...remember we the parents are the customers!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[ToughMama7]

You said everything I was thinking...Thank you for the warning, I see no point in purchasing this app, it is pointless and Verizon needs to get with the game. My son would switch phones with  friend or leave it where he was suppose if he knew he was being tracked! I pay way to much with verizon to have my right as a parent, taken away.

[MathewR09]

I think i have found one way to get around this issue.  On my phone I have an app called "Extreme Call Blocker (Stealth) " , it is mostly used to block people that you dont want to call you anymore or block unwanted test messages.  It works really wellfor blocking phone numbers that you dont want to call you, you simply add the number you want to block to a "blacklist". when that numbe calls your phone it follows the setup information you assign when you added the number.  This is not a free software but it is rather inexpensive, at 5.99 per install, for what you can do with it.  You would have to download it in the phone you want to block messages.  Example :  I want to block number 504-123-456 you click on "black list" , then click at the top right of the screen. This brings up "add new" and a few other options. Pick add new and then search after you have the number that Verizon sends the message about the location from.  PIck or add that number then you will see a "message" option that gives you the options you want to happen when a message from the number comes in.  I select "Erase" because it will not show up anywhere and the program erases the message sent from your provider. 

  I do not work for the company that runs this app but I have had it for a few years and have never had problems.  Please if you buy this app read the full instructions becaue there are so many other options that you can do like monitoring information and setting up timers so that calls can not be made within certain time frames. It also have a password protect so that your kids cannot delete the app.  Check in to it, I rate it at 9 out of 10 because the instructions could be better explained!

[Me5555555]

Hi All,

I know this won't help everyone, but I did find a way around this on my son's iPhone 5. I just created a new contact named "Verizon Messages" while I had his phone in my possession (he is 15...not an easy task) and used the notification message number as the phone number for the contact. In my case, it was 326-459. After saving the contact, I chose to "Block this Caller" and I have tested it a few times and every single time I locate the phone the message doesn't come through.

He won't even notice the new contact, but if I does I will just say it is blocking Verizon notifications...which is true. He can't stand receiving the data limit messages, so he will think I am doing him a favor, anyway.

Hope this helps!

[sharonmshepard]

Great fix.  Thanks.

[sharonmshepard]

Thanks Verizon, you guys are awesome as usual.  She said with extreme sarcasm. 

[RSX515]

What's the point of tracking if your kids know about it. Who pays the bills, the phone are registered to me so privacy shouldn't matter

[scoob8]

Come on Verizon. We are the parents paying for a minor child's phone. You must be able to do something allow us to track our phone without alerting the minor ?  Hurry up we are waiting and have been for a long time. These kids need to be monitored and you know it.  Get on it please! We are counting on you and paying good money for these services.

[vzw_customer_support]

scoob8 as a parent I definitely understand the need to keep a close eye on your child! Although the notification is currently sent, I want to reassure you that we're continously working to make improvements. For all the latest info, please visit http://vz.to/1hnolGj

AshleyS_VZW
Follow us on Twitter @VZWSupport

[WirelessSteve]

What a joke. I just switched to Verizon after using AT&T for years. On AT&T we used their Family Map and it worked great with all phones and ran silently without ever disturbing my kids when I tracked this. This was especially important when I wanted to make sure they were at school (useless now because the Verizon alert will get them into trouble with teachers) or checking to see where they were after dark (now their friends harass them when dad tracks their location). This notion that you're doing us all a favor by notifying minor children when tracked is misplaced. I'm canceling the family locator service and considering going back to AT&T.

[ezgrider]

       MistyBalinsat     Aug 3, 2012 6:26 AM    (in response to brriverrat)    

Hi There!

You simply need to log into Family Locator and edit the alerts that are set up.  Uncheck your telephone number under who to notify and you won't be sent the text message alerts any longer.  The User Guide can be found here: http://support.verizonwireless.com/pdf/FamilyLocator_UserGuide.pdf

[Koros]

this is ridiculous beyond belief, then to lie to us about why you do it makes it even worse.

There are ZERO laws requiring you to text message my children when I am locating them.  How do I know?  I have used Sprints Family locator service, it never once messaged them while I was tracking them.  Second, ATT also offers the same exact service without the need to inform my CHILDREN that I am checking on them.

I moved service this month because of supposed better connectivity, usage of the family location service, and unfortunately for me I am finding that the 500 dollars we spent to setup everything is going to waste, we still have constant buffering on youtube over 4g only now we get a data limit and charges for going over a service that rarely works, we still have bad call reception and texts gone missing, and now anytime I want to check up on my 16 year old I have to hear about how his privacy is being invaded...

what a mistake this was changing service providers, too bad it took me a month to figure it out.  40 more a month then my sprint bill with less options and less service.  Get your act together VZW, you won't be the biggest kid on the block forever... remember Cingular/ATT used to think that too.. now, not so much.