Q: I recently changed phone service providers from T-Mobile to Verizon. When I ported my home phone number, I realized that I no longer had access to voicemails that my wife was saving. T-Mobile tells me that they can no longer access them. There are several messages that have great sentimental value to my wife. Are these messages accessible through a different contact at T-Mobile, someone with more access than a customer service tech? ~ Carl Womble Westminster

Tech+ My first reaction was that Womble probably lost the messages forever. At least I don’t see why T-Mobile would want to help a customer who left it for a competitor.

But since my goal with this column is to help readers of The Denver Post get questions answered, I asked someone who would know: T-Mobile. I asked Joel Rushing, T-Mobile’s senior communications manager, whether it is even technically possible for T-Mobile to restore message from an ex customer?

Apparently, the answer is yes!

Rushing relayed Womble’s query to the company’s Care team. And a Mr. Ortega from T-Mobile was able to retrieve the sacred messages left by a Womble’s mother-in-law before she passed away. Womble expressed his thanks and said the restoration “had a great impact on my wife and have helped her healing process.”

For some behind the scenes of how T-Mobile was able to do this, Rushing shared that T-Mobile stores different data differently. Typically, when a customer leaves, the account is deactivated so chances of retrieving old data are nearly non-existent and the customer support staff is helpless.

But in Womble’s case, it was all in the timing. He had contacted me within days of switching to Verizon.

“In this case, we got lucky, as we were still relatively close to when the account was closed. The original Care rep the customer spoke with was generally right – we can’t usually get historical account data once an account is closed. Of course, we were happy to escalate the issue and resolve it for the customer and his family,” Rushing said.

So readers, if you find yourself in Womble’s shoes, get the company’s customer service staff to escalate the request before time runs out.

But speaking of running out, there’s a greater chance today that you will inadvertently leave old data behind because you switch to a competing service.

T-Mobile recommends that its users save voice messages as an MP3 file to their computer or forward the voice message to an email address. More specifics to saving T-Mobile messages:

Visual Voicemail , available to T-Mobile Android customers via app: Forward individual message to an email address, store them in a third-party cloud or save it to a memory card or to a PC from the company’s website.

, available to T-Mobile Android customers via app: Forward individual message to an email address, store them in a third-party cloud or save it to a memory card or to a PC from the company’s website. Regular voicemail : Log into T-Mobile online account, select PHONE, select “Check Voicemail,” select messages and then download to a computer. Select multiple messages and download as a .ZIP file.

: Log into T-Mobile online account, select PHONE, select “Check Voicemail,” select messages and then download to a computer. Select multiple messages and download as a .ZIP file. Android and iPhones have multiple ways to save messages separate from T-Mobile. But Windows Phone users can only backup voicemail by either playing the message on the phone’s speaker and recording it to a PC or log onto their T-Mobile account and save messages directly to a computer.

Before you switch from any mobile service, make sure your contacts and other data are intact so they can move with you. Some tips, shared by Rushing and collected by your’s truly:

Check with your mobile service, which likely offers a way to backup or restore your phone’s data. If this is news to you, visit these links for details on backing up your contacts, photos and other data: AT&T: att.com/esupport/article.html#!/wireless/KM1000462 Sprint: support.sprint.com/support/service/category/Sprint_Mobile_Sync-Sprint_Mobile_Sync T-Mobile: support.t-mobile.com/docs/DOC-9411 Verizon: verizonwireless.com/support/backup-assistant Consider this a starting point. Use a search engine like Google to find options for your own phone and service provider.

Use your smartphone’s software from Google Android or Apple iPhone. Contact numbers, photos and other data stored on the phone are automatically backed up to a Google or Apple account. Obviously this also helps a LOT if you lose the device too. More details on the how-to at Google (at support.google.com/drive/answer/6305834?hl) or Apple (at support.apple.com/en-us/HT203977).

Try an independent option, usually available through a smartphone app. There are several “Best of” round-ups including this one from Android Authority and Tom’s Guide. Before downloading, don’t forget to check customer reviews and the app’s privacy policies.

And since you’ve read this far, you should back up your data on a regular basis anyway regardless if you plan to switch mobile services. This will be a godsend if you lose your phone or it gets stolen.

Womble, meanwhile, said that while he greatly appreciated what T-Mobile did, he is sticking with Verizon because it gives him better wireless service at home and on his tool truck.

“Advice to your readers would be to record any messages that they may wish to retain, because it required a great deal of effort on T-Mobile’s part to recover these,” he said. “Mr. Ortega showed genuine concern and compassion.”

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