Expert: DebiN - 8/13/2009

Question
My ex wife has left some very bad messages on my voicemail. I have been saving all of them for court, four days ago she continued to call over and over.  Later that night I went to check my messages again, where I had already saved 3 from her previous calls that night.  That is when my voicemail had been set to Spanish, my wife tried to fix it and said it was not done through the phone it's self, that it was still set on English.  The next morning I called a friend who spoke Spanish, to get into my voicemail and change it back to english, but my password was now valid.  I called Verizon, they had to reset from Spanish to English, reset my password that had been changed and then realized all my messages had been deleted.  This is where she has went to far and crossed the line.  First, is there any laws against hacking into someone's voicemail?  Second, can verizon go in and find out how long she was in my voicemail, what she did, and retrieve my message?  My attorney is out of town until the 25th, the Legal Department at Verizon said they will only speak to my attorney. I'm worried that if they can retrieve any of this, they may have 24 hour window.  Last question, what is the best way to record conversations, is there a company I can hire to do this?  Thanks so much for your time and answers!  Have a great day!

Answer
Unfortunately, your wife hacked into your voice mail and made all these changes. The messages are now deleted. Since this is your account, you are entitled to know when the password was changed, so I'm not sure why they said that they have to talk to your attorney. It's your account. They can't tell you the other things you are asking even with an attorney because they only have the record of when the voice mail was changed and you should have been notified when it was changed. If you have your email associated with your account, they send you a notification when changes occur. There is no official law against your wife hacking your voice mail, but I'm sure that your attorney can use this information to help your caes, but those messages are deleted now. They possibly could have undeleted them within a 24 hour window, but I believe that is actually done through the voice mail itself, not from Verizon. Do you not have an option to undelete a message? There is no legal way to record conversations. It is not legal to record a conversation without the person's knowledge or subpoena. I am very, very sorry that this happened to you, but I feel confident that there will be other means by which you can get what you need without the record of those voice mail messages. Remember that people have been getting divorced for many decades and only recently have we had voice mail and texts, etc. It's not critical to the process. I know it may have helped, of course, but hopefully your attorney can work his magic without it. I hope this helps. Thanks. DebiN