Retrieve Voicemails from Verizon For Wife's Ported Phone

[jec13]

Hello, I have been a Verizon customer for 20+ years, but recently had to cancel service for my wife's Pixel 7  android phone as Verizon cellular signal strength is less than 1 bar or SOS only at our home location -- she was unable to use her phone at home. I moved/ported her phone number to T-Mobile, which does provide adequate cellular coverage at our home. Now I need to retrieve the voicemails that Verizon had stored for her phone number. Our Verizon account remains active and paid, however her phone number is now listed as "suspended" at Verizon after porting it to T-Mobile, and I don't see a way to retrieve the voicemail she has stored at Verizon. One is a message from her Mom who recently died, and she is heartbroken to lose it. My question: How can we retrieve voicemail for my wife's phone, while our Verizon account remains active and paid, even though her phone number has now been ported to T-Mobile? Is there an online URL or phone number where we can access the voicemail system, using our Verizon account credentials? Or some other way? Thank you for your help.

[Wick23 · Accepted solution]

I worked for verizon as customer service representative a few months ago. 
When a line is ported out, to any company, automatically the status changes to "suspended", and it will continue as "suspended" untill the end of the bill cycle, when it will automatically change to "disconnected". Well the thing is that once a line is "disconnected", there is no possible way to retrieve the voicemails. If it is still suspended, you may try calling them and trying to reactivate the line, and maybe, just maybe, could work. I dont want to promise anything, because even if you want to reactivate the line (porting your number to verizon again), part of the process in the system is changing the status to "disconnected" so the number can be ported in again. And again, when it is "disconnected", there´s no way to retrieve the vm's. It comes to my mind to try to reactivate the line with another provisional number, so doesn't need to be changed to "disconnected". I think you don't lose anything by trying.

[jec13]

Thank you so much for taking the time to reply, Wick 23. I am grateful for your expertise. I will follow your advice, and ask to reactivate the line with a provisional number. If it works, hooray! If not, nothing more lost. I will report back. Thanks again!

[SynthpopAddict]

I left Verizon very briefly several months ago and one of the first things the Pink Logo Place salesperson asked me before doing the port was, "Do you have any voicemails which you really want to hang on to?"  He had used to work for Verizon before going to Pink Logo Place, but didn't elaborate on how to save the voicemails.  However, my port out lasted less than a week, and when I ported back into Verizon, my voicemail came back as if I'd never left, even had the same password and custom greeting message I'd had before.  Now, I'm a prepaid customer, but I'd have to think voicemail is all the same regardless?

But the caveat is, your line must still be in the "suspended" status, and you must port the number back to Verizon, which means you would have to pay for at least a month of service even if you immediately leave again.  And the other carrier is also going to charge for the month too from my experience.

[update] I did not have any saved voicemails when I ported out.  So I can't speak for whether or not all saved voicemails are deleted in the system due to the porting process.  But will say that your custom greeting and password to access the *86 system stays in place if you come back before the billing cycle ends.