Question about getting into voicemails

[Ear Poison]

Ok hi ect ect. im a new member here but i have been flossing over the forums for some time since ppww went away. Now something ive been doing for some time is getting into peoples voice mails cellphones landline answering machines and business answering machines.

As most of us know hitting # or * at the voice greeting/outgoing message ( depending on service ) it will ask you to enter your pin/password.  And by default most of the time it is "0000" or the last 4 digits of the number called. So heres my question.

If i get in and erase all messages, change the pass code, set menu lang to spanish, and tamper with the notification settings should i be worried about legal ramifications?

Im a sick kid and that stuff puts a smile on my face. Anyone ever get boned doing this?

[rbcp]

Yes it's illegal and you should worry about getting into trouble for it.  Even if they haven't set up their voicemail and you set it up for them, that's still illegal.  A good way to not get arrested for it is to apply all the rules of pranking you can to it.  Mostly don't do it locally and never call them more than once.  But no matter what you do, it's illegal and you shouldn't be doing it.

One incident that I heard about from an online friend, which I can't verify, but his story seemed real, is this:  He was contacted by the FBI for computer hacking.  It had nothing to do with voicemails or answering machines, just actual computer hacking.  In the end, they didn't have enough to charge him with, but during their investigation they discovered his YouTube videos where he was calling into Wal-Mart portrait studios and changing the greetings on their machines and probably getting customer info off of them.  He left info in the video which let them track it to the Wal-Mart(s) he did it to.  The FBI tried their best to get Wal-Mart to press charges against him, but Wal-Mart wasn't interested in pursuing it, so they had to give up.