6 Feb 2016

Check your Vodacom voicemail from a land line (or Skype out)

I recently traveled abroad and switched my Vodacom number over to SMS roaming (by texting 'roamon' to 123 before I left SA). SMS roaming is a handy way to maintain some contact with South Africa without the risks of roaming charges (though it does still cost R2.75 per SMS you send). So you can receive and send SMS, but it means that when anyone phones your SA number they inevitably don't get through to you and leave a voice message, which you get notified about by SMS.

Vodacom repeatedly let me know by promotional SMS that all I needed to do was phone  +27 82 121 0000 from a land line and then follow the prompts to retrieve my voicemail. However, I found that this number does not work at all, from either a UK land line or using Skype out... Fail.

I contacted Vodacom customer care via email who were very helpful and talked me through the first option, but they also let me have another number that I could try: +27 82 14 (followed by the last 9 digits of your cell phone number). But, alas, this number didn't work from a UK land line or using Skype out either (I mention both because strangely, I had different results on Skype versus the landline?!). Fail.

I abandoned those ideas, played about a bit and discovered that there is actually a way to get your Vodacom voicemail while you are overseas (or from any phone that is not your own cellular phone).


Here's how to do it...

1. Dial your own Vodacom Number (including country code) from any phone that can make international calls ie. +27 82 XXXXXXX
2. Press 1 while your voicemail 'leave a message after the beep' greeting is playing
3. Enter your 4 digit voicemail password (1111 by default or as set by you)
4. Listen to and manage all your voicemail messages as usual

You are welcome!