Well, i know i’m a huge fan of accessing my account info via my phone and at times get a bit sick of entering my account info each time i dial an automated system. lets make it easier and setup speed dials for this! WARNING, if you do decide to do this i would recommend setting up security on your phone so that a pin is required to access your phone book incase your phone is lost or stolen and your info will not be in harms way!
This is quickie recipe on how to setup speed dial numbers or contacts in your phone book to access your account info via an automated phone number w/o having to enter in your prompts each time you dial. Again, if you do decide to do this i would recommend setting up security on your phone so that a pin is required to access your phone book incase your phone is lost or stolen and your info will not be in harms way! the last thing you want to do is compromise your personal data by not securing it.
1. Call the automated phone system on your phone. Keep a piece of paper handy so that you can write down the exact numbers you need to enter. Also, make note of times when you have to wait for a message to play before you can enter in your account or pin, etc.
So for example, lets say i want to be able to call my banks automated phone system to get my account balance. I usually will call the number, write down the numbers i have to enter to get to my account info and also will write down if i need to wait a few seconds or not for a message to play before i can enter my info or not
2. After you have the info from above. Lets setup the speed dial/contact on your phone. Trial and error is sometimes the best way to get it nailed down.
So, lets say my bank’s number is 555-5555. There is an initial message that plays for 3 seconds which i cannot bypass, then i must enter 1 to get to my account balance, and then i must enter my account of 1235678 and hit pound. and finally i must enter my PIN of 00000 and then hit pound to confirm.
I would setup a contact as such:
5555555***11235678#000000#
* = a 1 second pause
so when i now call my contact/speed dial on my phone for my bank, it will go right to my account balance w/o me having to enter any of my info!
AGAIN, if you do setup such contacts in your phone be sure to setup a pin to access your phone or your sim card or contacts since by making your life easier by doing this you are also making it that much easier for a thief/lost phone to become easy target for identity theft/lost of personal info.
also, if you get this working fine but later are not able to get it working; the automated system may have changed the order of prompts or the menus. just do step 1 again and resetup the number and you should be back on track again.
