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Voice mail lost

Verizon is telling us that the voicemails are lost. Where was the foresight to develop a backup system so that, if the sales people "forget" to inform of this deletion, customers are still able to recover their voicemails. It seems completely irresponsible to rely on human beings to ensure that customers are aware of this problem.

The engineers that manage the server that maintains the voice mails should be able to access and read the data contained at the address that was pointed at for our account. Verizon obviously does not care about their customers, otherwise they would have provisions in place to contact these engineers, or better yet provisions to prevent the "perceived loss" in the first place.

My wife lost the only voice recording of her father during this transfer and all we have gotten from the five or so people that we have talked to is "sorry". Sorry is not good enough. This might sound extreme, but if Verizon is unable to help us in this matter by recovering the "deleted" message from my father-in-law, then we will be canceling our family plan and moving our business to AT&T.

Comments

chrisstu

I am sorry for what happened to your wife, but the directions for setting up the iPhone--and getting prepared for its release stated that any old voicemails would be lost. We were instructed to get Visual Voicemail and transfer any important messages to an SD card.

I had two important voicemails from my children, and I did what was advised by Verizon. To place the blame on Verizon because your wife did not read up on what needed to be done is unfair.

Again, it is unfortunate what happened, and I hope someone from Verizon steps up to help you because it is the right thing to do. However, people are not taking responsibility for their actions (lack of actions) in this world, and that is why everything is so screwed up these days.

kaebfly

I know "sorry" isn't the answer anyone wants to hear in this situation but to be fair, "sorry" may be the only answer they can give. If they can't retrieve the voicemail then unfortunately, they can't. Maybe someone else can clear this up, but I'm not so sure that this whole voicemail debacle is solely a VZ choice...not the deletion...but the fact that for whatever reason switching to the iPhone made it necessary to close the voicemail service that customers already had to the "visual voicemail" that is with the iPhone. I thought it was odd when I received the email after ordering (also I read the info on the getting ready guide prior to ordering), but I knew that I also had a few voicemails from someone that passed away so I did what was advised. Of course, this isn't helpful to anyone that didn't happen to visit the site prior to official release and pre-order days....but it would have been nice for those that went to the store to purchase if they were told by the reps about this before activation so that the customer could opt to either do the backup instore prior to activating the phone or opt to take the iPhone home and activate it themselves after they retrieved their vm's on their old phone.

At any rate, I'm sorry that things happened this way. If going to AT&T is what you all want to do because of this then of course you both have the right to. Hopefully your service and experience with them will be more satisfactory for you. Good luck.

JoeVegasinPA

bnadeau73 wrote:
Verizon is telling us that the voicemails are lost. Where was the foresight

The forsight was posted EVERYWHERE !! Sorry for what happened to you, but you didn't do your due dilligence.

Seriously now - who is actually at fault here ????

maryeb33

I'm sorry for you and your wife..and sorry things had to come to this but..if it's something that important to her then why wasn't it backed up or moved somewhere else? than to rely on an electronic device? these things happens..it's upsetting when they do..but there were measures to take to prevent it from happening

omalleyll

@ Christystu

Prior to losing all saved voicemails, how is a Verizon customer to know that there is a system change and their messages will be lost? I fail to see how the responsibility falls on the back of the consumer.

I have been a Verizon customer for over a decade and have purchased many phones. Not once have I lost my voicemail or been offered to back them up through a separate service. I was not given the option to activate the phone at a later time and read my owner's manual. My messages are now gone. I received the same, "We are sorry".

Verizon is relying on their representatives to verbally disclose the information to their customers. That is irresponsible. I wonder if they will accept my verbal acceptance of their service contract. We all know better.

It is not the responsibility of the consumer to foresee a potential system change. Verizon is aware of the issue and has failed to properly notify its customers.

omalleyll

It was posted EVERYWHERE? May I ask where?

OSUguy81

The info was available on the website as soon as they announced the iPhone. All you had to do was do some online research on the phone - Verizon had a "before you switch to iPhone" guide on it's main iPhone page, and it is currently available now as well with a little searching. I know, because knowing that I can upgrade this monday, I have been doing all of the research I could possibly do.

I'm not saying that they shouldn't be able to do something (I think it is kind of messed up that we cannot retrieve vm's, when you have up to 30 days to retrieve your contacts, but I digress), nor that they shouldn't have included this info in an email if you signed up for info on the iPhone, etc; but the page where the info was listed was the same one to sign up for iPhone update info. I agree, they should have made a pamphlet and attached them to each iphone box, so everyone knows before they activate their phones, or something similar. But you cannot say they only rely on their retail reps, when they did make the info available online to anyone willing to look, and not just in a far corner of the internet.

I do honestly hope you can get your vm's back. I learned my lesson years ago never to fully trust a retail rep at any wireless company - you have to prepare yourself for what is on the market and what you are getting into because of it.

kaebfly

OSUguy81 wrote:
I'm not saying that they shouldn't be able to do something (I think it is kind of messed up that we cannot retrieve vm's, when you have up to 30 days to retrieve your contacts, but I digress), nor that they shouldn't have included this info in an email if you signed up for info on the iPhone, etc; but the page where the info was listed was the same one to sign up for iPhone update info. I agree, they should have made a pamphlet and attached them to each iphone box, so everyone knows before they activate their phones, or something similar. But you cannot say they only rely on their retail reps, when they did make the info available online to anyone willing to look, and not just in a far corner of the internet.

Speaking from my personal experience, aside from seeing the info clearly on the website, I also received an email after placing my order that included links for important information I needed to know before activating my iPhone. I also received a red folder with my order that included the getting ready guide....the first step instructed me to listen to and back up my voicemail and clearly stated that all messages would be erased and I would no longer have access to my exisiting voice mailbox. When I purchased the 2nd iPhone in-store for my mother we were also given a pamphlet that showed the same thing and had been told prior to the rep in-store activating the phone that if there were any vm's we wanted to keep we would need to back them up prior to the phone being activated. In the case of the phone we purchased in-store we may have been lucky with being told upfront. Just wanted to share my experience on this issue....this is in no way to imply that everyone had the same experience.

superlinman

If you changed phones within the last 7 days Verizon offers a phone number to call 951-990-9665 that allows you retrieve your voice messages. What I did was use a recording device from the speaker phone and recorded my messages which included personal messages I have saved from my children's first words etc..... This was a life saver.

Verizon is supposed to tell you that moving to a iPhone from a Droid uses a different voice mail system. I was able to call the technical support line which offered this number to me and from their I was able to get my voice messages.

Good luck

swientjes

Did this number really work for you? Did you already activate your iPhone when you called this number?

PDCute

doe anybody have the number to the "technical support Line"

verizonmoderator1

<MODERATOR COMMENT: Call 800-922-0204 from another device. This thread will now be locked<

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