Erased texts

[carlosv]

Hi Slag, Verizon used to do it but people abused the system.

Your problem has 3 solutions:

1. if you are a father who don't trust in your daugther and you are sniffing in her life, Verizon won't solve you problem, sorry. Your daugther will leave your house to go living with her coach before you get a Court Order.

2. if do you come with a teenager story but do you really want to check are your wife texts, why you pay her cell service? ask her lover to paid for it!!

well... sorry for been funny. i heard many stories about that.

now seriously,

3. if do you really suspect something between your teenager and a adult, you don't need a Court Order. Just go to your local Police and ask for a Detective in change of Minors Affairs. They are fast and effectives.

Since you are at at the police station, ask for Crime Prevention Specialist. They can open your eyes about what is going on on the streets.

[slagenthor]

That's unfortunate but understandable.  Despite popular misconception, Verizon and other providers do archive indefinitely their SMS texts.  They may not be on "ready servers" but they are archived.  If I am not mistaken, they are required by law to do so (thanks Patriot Act). Normally law enforcement gets a subpoena and/or pays Verizon a research fee depending on the effort to fulfill the subpoena.

It's understandable and legally corrrect for Verizon to not release this information to a third party (like law enforcement) without a subpoena but Verizon's requirement for a subpoena to release it to the subscribers who are paying for it is corporate policy.   Abused or not, the opened information should be available to the parties that are paying for it. It's hard to see how the person paying for the service is abusing their rights by asking for the information.

In your third case, I don't think its proper at all for Verizon to refuse to provide the information to the subscriber, but then to provide it to law enforcement without a subpoena.

There is a fourth case, which is to file suit against Verizon, possibly a class-action suit, to release the information, and/or have them update their customer agreement to explictly state to subscribers (the ones that actually keep the lights on at Verizon) that SMS messages are being indefinitely stored and provide a means for authorized users to obtain their information.  If everybody clearly understood that when they are using someone else's account they could and would know that if they wanted assured privacy, it takes them getting their own account. 

Sure Verizon isn't responsible for "fixing peoples lives" and no one expects them to; but it is a reasonable expectation for them to remain Neutral...abetting those using other people's accounts inappropriately isn't really neutral.  Kids and spouses who want a privacy shield for bad behavior should get their own accounts, not be able to hide behind Verizon's skirts while someone else is footing the bill.

[But-theycango2themoon]

In short: If the texts were deleted from your phone, yes. If you logged in to your Verizon account online and deleted them from "web messaging" then "no".

The only reason I know this is because I delete my messages from my phone all the time. However, if I need to go back and read one text or a conversation I've deleted off my phone, I am able to retrieve it from my web messages. I love this feature.  Now, if I delete messages from within the "web messaging' feature online from my PC then they are gone & cannot be retrieved without the assistance of a court order.

I will never switch cell providers due to this feature, to be able to access past messages and even download conversations is priceless. Verizon is genius for adding this feature, I'm actually surprised they don't use this feature as a  marketing tool since no one else has it that I know of...then again if they DO announce it all over the media then all the other companies will soon follow

[But-theycango2themoon]

Love this.