I have a Samsung Galaxy phone and use GeezerNet (aka Consumer Cellular).
It frequently happens that I get an alert on my phone that informs me I have a voicemail message, but when I check Recent Calls I have no missed calls. There is a new voicemail message, so it’s not a false alert,
On my phone, it seems that the two things are separate. If someone leaves a voice mail, I don’t get a “missed call” notification, even though I had to have missed the call for them to get to my voice mail.
My mobile phone, an old ATT un-smart pre-paid thing, has its own weirdness. I often get a notification about having voice mail, and when I try to listen to it, it tells me there are no messages.
Doesn’t matter. With limited known exceptions, anyone who calls me on my cell phone isn’t someone I want to speak with or listen to anyway.
This happens to me all the time. My best semi-educated guess is the cell system tried to ring your phone, your phone didn’t get the signal at all, so the network assumed it was off or out of range. The call went to voicemail. Then the signal the network sends to alert that you’ve got voicemail went through normally.
There’s no record of a missed call on your phone because your phone never got the incoming call signal.
There are two possibilities I can think of which have happened to me.
Phone was not in range to receive a call. A voicemail connection does not go to your phone, it goes to the switch, so you can get a voicemail if you are out of range or your phone is turned off. The next time you connect to the network you get the voicemail notification.
Some carriers (mine is Verizon) allow you to directly leave someone a voicemail without actually calling them. I haven’t checked this out for a while so not sure what today’s support is. Are your voicemail messages from known contacts, or are they spam?
Maybe your phone was…off.
Not “asleep” which many people confuse with it actually being powered-down.
If the battery dies, for instance. In that case, you will get a voicemail indicator when you turn the phone on, but no indication of a missed call, since the phone never received the call.
If I’m understanding your problem correctly, your phone doesn’t ring but you get a voicemail anyway?
We have a Moto e5 that uses Verizon that we use as a land line, as in it never leaves the house. I’ve discovered that if you block a number they can still leave a message, even tho the phone never rings. We have been getting a ton of these lately to chose a Medicare plan, even tho neither of us is close to the minimum age to apply. Most are 1-877-*xxx-xxxx numbers. I block them but for some reason they can still leave a automated message.
I have very occasionally noticed weirdness that doesn’t seem to fall into any of the above categories.
I have a basic flip phone, and my carrier does not allow me to block numbers. So that doesn’t apply.
The phone has been (1) on; (2) not on vibrate; (3) flip phones don’t have any sort of “sleep” or “hibernation” modes; (4) in the same physical spot where it was when calls have come in before, so being out of range or out of network is physically impossible; and yet I will get a voicemail notification without the phone ever ringing, and there is no “missed call” notification.
Mind you, this happens vary rarely; perhaps once every 4 years or so.