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How to retrieve deleted messages from digital answering machines

I have 2 different landlines both with their own digital answering machines. I noticed today that all my saved messages are gone/deleted. I know that neither one of us in my household deleted all the messages from BOTH machines. On one answering machine I had saved two past recordings of my (now deceased) mother singing Happy Birthday to me. Now it is gone. I am very saddened by this. Is there any way or anything I can do to get them back? A few weeks ago I had been told Verizon was moving excess DSL landlines from one switch to another in the area due to an overload on the switch. Could this have caused the messages on both digital answering machines to be deleted? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Comments

gs0b

Welcome to the forums. You're talking to other customers here.

Verizon has no control over answering machines. There is no way for Verizon to delete messages or exert any control over answering machines.

Most, if not all, answering machines have a remote access feature that allows messages to be accessed and deleted. There is specific touch-tone code that needs to be entered while the outgoing message is being played back to allow access. Depending on the machine, this code could be as simple as two key presses. Some machines will have longer sequences with a customer selected access code. Do you know if your machines have such a feature and if they do, did you change the default access code? If not, someone may have entered the default code and deleted the messages. It may even have been a mistake.

If the answering machines are relatively new, you might want to try using Google to see if there is a way to un-delete messages. Be sure to use the model number when searching. You could also check the manufacture's web site to see if they have any FAQs, forums or other technical help.

I have to say, though, I doubt you'll be able to recover the messages. Digital answering machines typically don't have an un-delete.

Good Luck.

madscanner

i know that a power outage can delete messages from our digital answering machine.....definitely try previous poster's suggestion BEFORE you try mine as mine won't get your messages back , it'll only tell you if your machine acts like mine and may result in permanent erasure of your messages that may other wise have been recoverable.if you wanna see if power outage erases your messages, test yours by calling your landline and leaving a message, confirm that the message is playable, then unplug power to that machine for just a second or 2, and after you plug power back in, can you still play message? how about if you unplug power for 5 minutes? if you lose your messages when power goes out, you can look into buying a digital answering machine with battery back-up....but that won't get you back the messages you've lost now. best of luck to you.

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