Has your cell phone rang from an unknown number and when you answer no one is there yet a few minutes later you’ve got a voicemail?
Welcome to the fun new technique of “ringless” voicemail.
The concept here is that instead of bothering you with a voice conversation and ringing your line they will just drop a voicemail in your inbox. Sounds like a great thing, right? Then why did my flippin’ phone ring?!
There are companies that provide services to businesses that wish to include “ringless” voicemail in their marketing quiver. A provider of true ringless voicemail will have contracts with the large cellular companies to access your voice mail box directly. These are actually voicemails that you receive that have no ring. These types of calls may be more legit since the service requires contract negotiations with the big providers to ensure a “legal” service is being provided.
THEN WHY DID MY PHONE RING?!
Well as with almost anything these days buzz words in business drive competition that tends to be less than legit. The smaller companies that are trying to cash in on the “ringless” voicemail craze do not have negotiating power with the large providers. They lack the capital required to access their voicemail systems directly so they employ a trick that simulates the true ringless voicemail.
If I call your cellphone and we’re in a conversation about really exciting stuff and someone else calls you at the same time you get a call waiting alert and you have the option to put me on hold and take the second call or you can send the second call to voicemail directly. The trick is that if I ring your cell phone with two calls at the exact same time one of them is going to be sent directly to voicemail while the other rings through.
The companies that provide “ringless” voicemail on the cheap tell you they have contracts and everything is 100% legit and legal and good to go as long as you maintain a positive balance on your account. The truth is many of these companies are just making duplicate calls and when the second call is answered in less than 1 second they assume it to be your voicemail box. They then hang up the first call as quickly as possible. However, this call generally rings in to the consumer and you answer and no one is there. Cool trick, eh?