Voicemail charges 'excessive'

Ed Logue | 3rd July 2009

iStockphoto.com/© Rich Seymour

NEARLY four out of five Australians would use the voicemail on their mobile phones more regularly if the service was free, a survey says.

Virgin Mobile chief executive Peter Bithos said it was excessive to levy customers who retrieved their voicemails on their mobile phones.

"I can't speak for competitors, but what we cannot get our heads around why you get charged to call yourself on your cap plan," Mr Bithos said.

"After all, it is your plan and it should be free to call yourself."

The study conducted for Virgin Mobile by Galaxy Research said 79 per cent of respondents would use their voicemail more if it was free.

"We provide all of our customers with free voicemail," Mr Bithos said.

"Virgin Mobile customers can check their voicemail anywhere, anytime, without worrying about the cost."

Three out of four respondents were unaware of the costs to access their voicemail messages, the research found.

Mr Bithos said the pricing for telecommunication products was complex enough without unnecessary charges.

"You don't need to make them more complicated by charging to call yourself or putting restrictions in like time and day," he said.

Just one of every three voicemail messages was worth listening to and paying for, the research found. This equated to Australians paying an average of $46 a year for messages they deemed not important.

Voicemails that annoyed respondents the most were blank calls (66 per cent), long and boring messages (37 per cent) and those saying they have called (23 per cent).

"Not only are you charged to call yourself, a lot of the messages are five seconds long, "hi, it's me, please call me back"," Mr Bithos said.

"Charging for that five second message is strange."

The survey of 1,311 respondents was conducted in early May.