Usage Controls cause service outage 6/7/2009

[MillenniumKnigh]

Just a heads up for anyone experiencing a similar problem.  I have 4 cell phones on my Verizon Wireless family plan.  2 of the phones lost service today.  When I called Verizon they said that if Parental Controls were set up for the phones that there was a service problem and it was unintentionally blocking ALL services, texting, voice calling, inbound, outbound, etc. for those phones.  I did, in fact have Parental Controls configured for those two phones, so Verizon told me that they would turn off that feature for the two phones and that should restore service.  An hour after the support call, there was still NO services available on the two phones.  I went online and looked around to see if I could figure out what was going on.  I noticed that in addition to the parental controls, those two phones also had USAGE CONTROLS in place.  This is a $4.99 additional service per phone line that enables you to do usage control, scheduled usage times, etc.  I unsubscribed the two phones from this additional service.  Within 5 minutes full service was restored to both phones and they are up and running again.

I take it that I must be one of the ten users of the service, so nobody else was affected.  

[chelspie09]

How did you turn off your usage controls.. I can't send any of my pictures to my pix place or email anymore. I have been trying for hours to turn it off, but I can't figure it out. I hope you can help me lol.

[Brothergrim]

pix and email could be due to something called a national block. Or as a certain somone one here likes to say Could be the data network.

Step 1: Remove the battery from the phone while the phone is on.
Step 2: Wait 20 seconds and turn phone back on.
Step 3. Dial *228 option 1 on the phone
Step 4: Test see if work.
Step 5: If still not working call customer care at 1-800-922-0204

Call customer care to see if you have the block on there.