Injected Voicemail?

[Dulanic]

So I use Google voice for my voicemail with my line on T-Mobile. Has always worked no problem. Suddenly today I get a prompt saying I have a new voicemail but this time it's with tmobile.

I click and it's a political spam call. So my question is how this could happen... Is T-Mobile giving direct access to leave voicemail without calling? My phone never rang and if it had it would had routed to Google voice.

 

[Adam595]

MB they used something like slydial. Apparently it allows messages to go straight to voicemail, I've never used it. https://www.slydial.com/

 

[Dulanic]

Wonder how that even works... I can so see that becoming a new spam tool.

 

[sswingle]

There is probably a way. I had something similar happen with Verizon, left voicemail for someone else, and apparently it gave them the option to reply with a voicemail and it went to my Verizon box bypassing my Google Voice.

 

[darkswordsman17]

I'm guessing this has to do with blocked numbers (when I block a number, I still will get voicemails from them, but I don't get anything when the call actually occurred), but I wouldn't be surprised if some PACs are resorting to nefarious things to bypass blocks.

You have Voice using your T-Mobile number I'm assuming?

 

[Mike64]

There is probably a way. I had something similar happen with Verizon, left voicemail for someone else, and apparently it gave them the option to reply with a voicemail and it went to my Verizon box bypassing my Google Voice.

At least with VZW, yes, you can always "reply" to voicemail left/sent by another VZW customer with a "direct voicemail" of your own. But what's more, while I won't swear to it, I'm pretty sure you can even send (an original) voicemail directly, to another VZW customer that is, from within VZW's voicemail system. (I think I have in fact done it myself, though it's been so long, I have no recollection of where exactly among all the VM system prompts it's buried...) I have no idea if/how someone could use that to send bulk-voicemail-spam, but it suggests there are "hooks" in the system that allow voicemail-without-a-"phone call"...