new voice mail annoyance

Archived from groups: alt.cellular.verizon (More info?)

Verizon recently "upgraded" the voice mail system in my area (Sioux Falls, SD)
and now when the caller hears my greeting, not only do they hear my personalized
greeting, but the god-awful pre recorded messages that says, "to leave your call
back number press 5, at the tone please record your message..." etc.. I
personally can't stand that, because it takes longer to go through the whole
spiel than just my greeting alone.

I tried calling Verizon to see if there was a way to remove the prompts, or
perhaps if there was any added pay feature that would enable me to not have the
recording after the greeting, but the rep didn't seem to have a clue what I was
talking about.

I understand people can just press "1" to bypass it all, but to me, this is a
big time annoyance, and it feels like Verizon is butting in on my personalization.

So after all my griping, is there any way at all to have Verizon remove those
prompts? Or is there a wireless carrier that doesn't have them so maybe I can
switch?

Thanks,
Chris