Abstract: A telephone answering machine includes at least two tapes, the first of which records a subscriber's outgoing universal message (OGM) to all callers. A second of the two tapes records incoming messages from callers. A control device detects a tone code defined by, and entered by, a caller in conjunction with recording one of the messages as a message from the caller. The second tape is rewound and plays back the recorded caller's message to the subscriber. The subscriber can then re-enter the same code and record a response to the recorded caller's message on the first tape. The control device detects the code being re-entered by the caller if the caller has called again, in search of the response recorded by the subscriber, which corresponds to the re-entered code. The control device further searches for the re-entered code on the first tape in conjunction with the response recorded by the subscriber in response to the caller having re-entered the code.