Google Voice- PLEASE NO!

I’ve been getting a lot of Google Voice messages lately. Including several GRMers. 

This program takes communication back to the Stone Age. Neanderthals were better at communicating with grunts and beating on tree trunks with rocks. 

I know. It’s hard to turn down free.  But good grief- does anybody proofread the crap before they send it??

First off, the voice recognition is poor. I have NEVER received a GV message that wasn’t garbled so badly it was unrecognizable. 

Secondly... folks, it doesn’t use your phone number. It generates a random Google number that I don’t have in my contacts. That means YOU have to TELL ME WHO THE HECK YOU ARE!!  If you don’t, I assume you are one of the other 40 or so spam messages I get daily. 

Third... You understand that it converts your voice message to an email, right?  And since we all ignore emails, you can’t leave me an urgent message and hope I see it in a timely manner. Pick up the phone and CALL ME if it’s important!  Don’t be a lazy cheapazz!

I get about 100 emails a day. Anonymous, unintelligible, lazy emails from an unidentifiable source rank pretty low in my priority list. 

Rant off. 

I suddenly started getting google voicemails that are obviously targeted at people who speak Chinese. They are recorded messages that sound like a sales pitch for time shares (just my impression as I don't actually speak Chinese), and come complete with background music. I don't think I have ever gotten such strange messages before, these started up in the past two weeks.

I only have the google number so I can give it out to questionable entities, ones I suspect may sell my info, such as raffles or some magazines (not GRM obviously). I don't think the dialer has any indication that they are calling a google voice number, so if they are a legit person they may not know that you can't see their number or caller ID. That said, people in general need to spit out the marbles when they leave a damn message. Drives me nuts.

I havent had this pleasure. Wait, is that why Google wanted my phone number a couple days ago? Glad I said no.

I haven't used google voice since my flip phone days when it was easier to see who called in an email then to check it by actually dialing the voice mail box. I would have hoped their speech-to-text was better by now. I remember some of the transcriptions were so bad that they actually funny.  

I didn't know people used Google Voice for anything but the throwaway phone number. Looks like they shouldn't.

I use it as a way of holding a number that I want to have in the future. 

It also helped route calls and txt messages to my new number without needing to alert everyone to the change.