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PBONO99's profile

Contributor

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1 Message

Friday, July 18th, 2014 7:54 PM

DOES ATT&T KEEP TEXT CONTENT AT ALL?

I am going through a divorce and want to get access of text content between my soon to be ex and his lover. I got a supoena and sent it to AT&T, but havent heard back yet.

 

Someone just told me that AT&T does not keep the actual messages on file and they can only give me date, time and number. (Which I already have).

 

The texts were sent from last summer till up until february 2014.

 

Can anyone advise?

 

Thanks!

 

Master

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5.9K Messages

10 years ago


@PBONO99 wrote:

I am going through a divorce and want to get access of text content between my soon to be ex and his lover. I got a supoena and sent it to AT&T, but havent heard back yet.

 

Someone just told me that AT&T does not keep the actual messages on file and they can only give me date, time and number. (Which I already have).

 

The texts were sent from last summer till up until february 2014.

 

Can anyone advise?

 

Thanks!

 


 _________________________________________________________________

 

 

 I don't think that you mailing them a subpoena is gonna cut it. A subpoena has to be "served" by a process server or court officer.

 

I'll repost what I found for another person a few days ago.

 

It might be possible in real-time to capture and retain the message content (with a "tap", legal or not) and there's always the phone itself, if your ex was not smart enough to erase them from the phones memory, but from what I've read (which I'll admit is a few years old), Virgin Mobile is the only company that retains text message content for longer than a few days.

 

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2393887,00.asp

http://www.pcmag.com/image_popup/0,1740,iid=313504,00.asp

 

 

 

Master

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4.1K Messages

10 years ago


@PBONO99 wrote:

I am going through a divorce and want to get access of text content between my soon to be ex and his lover. I got a supoena and sent it to AT&T, but havent heard back yet.

 

Someone just told me that AT&T does not keep the actual messages on file and they can only give me date, time and number. (Which I already have).

 

The texts were sent from last summer till up until february 2014.

 

Can anyone advise?

 

Thanks!

 


If your spouse is using an iPhone and using the Apple iMessage service, there is an outside chance, that the Apple servers may have the informaiton you want.  I can not guarantee it, but since their system allows you to sign in on a new device and download past conversation history, they must have some level of what you seek, but then again, this would assume that your spouse has an iPhone and was using iMessage to communicate to another iPhone.

ACE - Sage

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116.6K Messages

10 years ago

I celebrated the first anniversary of my divorce in March. So here is the scoop.

Cheating, proof of cheating won't help you in the divorce. All it does is prove the relationship was in bad shape. As they say, you can't steal a happy customer.

If you need to do something constructive,
I suggest you gather all financial documents to ensure an equitable distribution of marital assets.
Sell the house! I got the house, and the market dropped since it was valued, so I will loose $40,000 or more if I sell now. The taxes are high, so I am really trying to sell.

And, no. Anymore than the content of your text messages, if deleted, are available to you or anyone else. That is private and not saved by the cell carrier.

Contributor

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3 Messages

8 years ago

I was trying to get the actual text off my own phone after I deleted them and AT & T has told me the same thing.  They do not keep the actual content of text messages.

New Member

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1 Message

2 years ago

Well, while this may have been true back then, it clearly is not anymore. Between Edward Snowden and all the January 6th Committee subpoenas, it’s obvious that AT&T keeps not only the metadata of the text messages and calls sent and received, but the CONTENT of said text messages. Unacceptable, imho…

Also, @formerlyknownas that is bad advice. Cheating may not matter in whatever state you’re in, but it does in many states. Heck, in a couple of states, the spouse that has been cheated on is even able to sue their spouse’s affair partner. If @PBONO99 lives in one of those states, or in a state that still has at fault divorce (instead of the no fault divorce laws that your state has @formerlyknownas), then AT&T can, and should, absolutely turn over those records if so ordered by the court. @formerlyknownas, next time, you should probably leave your legal advice out of your answer. I hope that the OP retained an actual lawyer, and that he or she didn’t just blindly follow your advice that was clearly only based of your own personal anecdotal experience. 

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