Am I able to opt out on the Amber Alert that comes in on my cell phone? If not, why not?
Asked by
josie (
30934
)
May 9th, 2013
Sometimes that thing goes off in the middle of the night. Pretty annoying. Since I am sleeping, not much I can do about it at that moment anyway.
I heard I am not allowed to opt out. If so, why not?
Do land line phones ring with an Amber alert message?
If not, why not?
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6 Answers
You don’t turn your cell off/mute it when you go to bed?
I can’t imagine leaving the damn thing on when I’m trying to sleep.
Good point. But question still stands.
What kind of phone do you have, and from what service is the Amber Alert being issued? I do not get such alerts on my phone, so I am guessing that you opted-in to an alert service with your local authorities or similar service. Our township has an alert option, as does the local radio station and some news and information Apps. Once you figure out where the alert originates, you can modify the settings. Finding the source is the key.
Some alerts I’ve opted in for, I’ve set them to have no ringtone or vibrate, just a SMS popup. I have very few Notifications options active – I’ve disabled popups and sounds from nearly all Apps.
My iPhone 5 has a Do Not Disturb feature that I’ve programmed to be on from 10pm to 7am, so it does not play sounds or light up the screen, but the so the few alerts I do get are there when I wake up the phone. I sometimes manually activate it while I’m at work, too.
Did you sign up for other alerts at any time? I went to our local KSOK radio station on line and signed up for weather alerts and a couple of other things. I finally went back in and unselected one because it was non stop alerts.
Yes, you can opt out. If there isn’t a setting on your phone, you will have to contact your service provider. By law, wireless carriers may allow their subscribers to opt out of everything but Presidential Alerts (which are only sent in the case of imminent national disaster, such as incoming nuclear missiles). If your carrier does not offer you the ability to opt out, that is a matter of their own corporate policy. As AMBER Alerts are part of the Wireless Emergency Alert system, landlines do not receive them.
I have never received an Amber alert on my iPhone. I’m with AT&T so it sounds reasonable that it originates from your carrier. Time to have a little talk with them :)
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