A few years back I saw a man walking in NYC wearing a t-shirt with the saying, “No, I won’t fix your computer.” I was amused by the shirt and while I haven’t been the go-to person for fixing people’s computers, I’ve been known to tinker with a few people’s iPhones, iPads and pesky problems that can arise sometimes with apps and other what-have-you’s.
The truth of the matter is that I like doing these things. I like knowing that I can trust myself and that in turn, others have confidence in me. I instinctively know the terrain above and beyond my skills-set. After all, that’s what the Apple Genius Bar is for (wizards, every one of them).
But some times we don’t learn new things until we have to. After a question is posed to us we turn to the Internet like a sleuth trying to find any clues we can. And, every now and again, we come upon the solution to the problem that is deeply gratifying for the person who has come to us and in turn, makes us feel like we’ve truly been of help.
Recently my friend’s partner passed-away and she asked if I could help her save the voicemail greeting from her iPhone along with messages that her partner had left for her on her phone. I hadn’t any experience with this issue before and wanted very much to be able to help. But I also knew the stakes were quite high and that the last thing I wanted to do was to mess-up. After some contemplation I thought about offering to drive my friend to the Apple Store and be her buddy at the Genius Bar. But as often happens when the challenges are ramped-up a little, I started searching the Internet, long tail searches, keyword searches. Anything, everything.
First I came upon the application, DiskAid that offers iPhone phone transfers. And while it does a great job transferring all kinds of files it wasn’t until emailing support that I learned that voicemail messages aren’t stored on the phone, they’re stored on the phone carrier’s server.
At this point I contacted Verizon who had to transfer my call around to several departments and finally a helpful young woman rep told me, “Yes, I can help you! I actually haven’t had one of these requests in a long time.” The rep went on to tell me that Verizon outsources the support to a company, CBW Productions and provided the number.
You can either make the request via telephone customer service, 1-800-770-8046 or from their website. They will save greetings plus messages from a phone and send them to you either on cd, mp3 or usb. The price varies according to number of messages. All you need to provide is the phone number and password to enter the account. They would then take care of the recording.
And for people who are grieving it’s especially nice to know that you can do this from your computer, and not speak to anyone to make the request.
Deb Hemley | Multimedia Artist 