On a Consumer Cellular phone, call forwarding is a Settings screen. The company's guides for the ZTE Avid 916 and the ZMAX 10 put it at Settings › Call settings › Call forwarding, and the Avid 916 guide names four options: Always forward, When busy, When unanswered and When unreachable. For a dial code, the one our setup page gives Consumer Cellular customers is **21*NUMBER#, and ##21# turns it off.
Consumer Cellular's help center lists no call forwarding article, and its guides for seven phones, from the Avid 916 to the IRIS Easy Flip, print no dial code. Its Home Phone Base guides do print dial codes, covered further down. This page also covers Straight Talk, TracFone and Net10, which publish different codes.
Where the setting lives on a Consumer Cellular phone
- ZTE Avid 916: Home Key, then Settings, Call settings, Call forwarding. Tap Always forward, When busy, When unanswered or When unreachable to turn that option on.
- ZMAX 10: Home Key, then Settings, Call settings, Call forwarding. Tap an option to turn it on or off.
- Link II: from the home screen, Menu, Settings, Call settings, Calls, Call forwarding, then pick an option to turn it on or off.
The menu names change from model to model, so check the guide for your phone. Consumer Cellular keeps its phone guides under Help, then Videos & Manuals, on consumercellular.com.
The dial code our setup page gives Consumer Cellular customers
Consumer Cellular publishes no dial code for its cell phones, so these two are the forward-everything code from our setup page and the code that undoes it. They are what to dial when your phone has no Call forwarding screen.
| What it does | Dial |
|---|---|
| Forward every call to another number (the code on our setup page). | **21*NUMBER# |
| Turn that forwarding off (the code on our setup page). | ##21# |
Put the number you're forwarding to where it says NUMBER, digits only, with no spaces or dashes. Dial it on the keypad, press call and wait for the short confirmation tone. To check that it took, call your Consumer Cellular number from another phone. If your own phone still rings, dial the code again and recheck each digit.
Using an iPhone on Consumer Cellular
The iPhone's switch is in the Settings app under Apps, then Phone, then Call Forwarding. Switch Call Forwarding on, pick a line if the phone has Dual SIM, tap Forward To, type the number and go Back. Apple puts a forwarding icon in the status bar while it's active, and it needs the phone to have cellular coverage at the moment you set it, or nothing gets forwarded.
Apple documents that switch for GSM service and sends CDMA customers to their carrier, without naming any carrier. If you don't see a Call Forwarding row, use the keypad code from the table instead, and type it by hand: iPhone blocks links that try to turn forwarding on.
Using a Samsung Galaxy or other Android phone
Samsung's US help page starts in the Phone app: tap the three dots (More options), then Settings, then Supplementary services, then Call forwarding. Pick one of the four choices, from Always forward to Forward when unreachable, enter the number you're forwarding to and tap Enable. What shows up there depends on the carrier and the phone model, Samsung says.
The phones Consumer Cellular writes guides for, such as the Avid 916, ZMAX 10 and Link II, use the routes listed above the table. On an Android phone with no forwarding screen, the keypad code in the table is what to try.
Home Phone Base: the dial codes in Consumer Cellular's guides
Consumer Cellular sells a Home Phone Base that a home phone connects to. Its guides for the base do print dial codes, and they are for that base, not for a cell phone. Two of them print different strings, so use the one that matches your base.
- ZTE Wireless Home Phone Base User Guide. To forward every call, press
**21*on the connected phone, dial the 10-digit number and press#, for example**21*1234567890#.##21#undoes it. The guide also lists**67*for busy calls (off with##67#),**61*for unanswered calls (off with##61#) and**62*for unreachable ones (off with##62#). Wait 3 seconds for the confirmation tone before you hang up. - Wireless Home Phone Base: A Guide to Your Service and Device. To forward every call, dial
*21*, the 10-digit number and#, for example*21*1234567890#.#21#undoes it. This guide adds that applicable wireless minute plan rates apply to forwarded calls.
Straight Talk, TracFone and Net10 use *72 and *73
These three brands each publish the same short instructions: dial *72 followed by the area code and phone number to forward calls, and *73 to turn forwarding off. Each says forwarding is available only in select areas and on select handsets.
Our setup page agrees for Straight Talk. It gives *72NUMBER and *73, with **21*NUMBER# and ##21# as the fallback if a Straight Talk SIM runs on AT&T or T-Mobile and *72 doesn't take.
Turning Consumer Cellular forwarding off
On a phone with a Call forwarding screen, go back to it and switch the option off. The ZMAX 10 and Link II guides describe the same screen as the place to turn each option on or off. If you set forwarding with the code in the table, dial ##21# and wait for the confirmation tone. On a Home Phone Base, use the off code from your base's guide above. For Straight Talk, TracFone and Net10, it's *73.
If it doesn't work
- Start with the basics. Consumer Cellular's checklist for a phone that can't place or receive calls: power on and battery charged, a network name showing with signal, and the area code dialed with the number. If that doesn't clear it, its help article points you to Customer Support by landline or online chat.
- No Call forwarding screen, or it won't save. Try the keypad code from the table; the Galaxy section above explains why the screen can be missing.
- A Home Phone Base that isn't behaving. Among its fixes, the base guide's troubleshooting table says the base's number may be set to call forward, and to dial
#21#to undo it. - Your plan may not allow forwarding. Forwarding isn't supported on some prepaid and MVNO plans, and our refund covers that case, as the next section says.
Forwarding a Consumer Cellular line to VettedCalls
Setup Step 4 has Consumer Cellular customers dial **21*NUMBER# from the phone's regular dialer, with NUMBER being their VettedCalls number, and ##21# to turn it off again. From then on every call reaches us before your cell does, and the cell shouldn't ring on its own. Callers who pass screening ring you in the Cloud Softphone app, and you see their number. If Consumer Cellular can't forward your calls, we refund everything you paid within your first 14 days. Start setup.