Locked out of email - cannot change password or verify identity

[zofia]

I have seen some threads with similar problems, but where the problem is resolved it happens somehow privately so I could not learn from them.

The other day using webmail, which I rarely do, I discovered that :
"Your Virgin Media Mail account is currently unavailable".

Then I noticed my email client on the computer (Thunderbird) was also not working:
"Login to server imap.virginmedia.com with username <my mail account> @virginmedia.com failed."

So I tried to follow the instructions to unlock the account at the link: https://www.virginmedia.com/help/virgin-media-mail-unavailable .

On there I could not change my password (which they recommend) without a new email address. So I used a gmail account to change my login to the virgin media website. I verified the address and then changed the password.

I can log in to the virgin media website.  But, webmail is still not available. If I try to change the password again, or add a Virgin Media Mail App Password (to use the desktop client) I get the message:
We couldn’t verify your identity
Failed to create user in PingOne.

I would guess it is because the identity service at 'PingOne' cannot find me in the database as I have changed the email address for the virgin media website.

Also I noticed that to post here I had to verify my email address, so I used my gmail address.  So even here no-one knows who I am 😑.  It is really very frustrating.  If anyone can help I would be very grateful.

[Graham_A]

@zofia  As I understand it this error with the PingOne system is being investigated by Virgin Media.

@ModTeam 

[Ayisha_B]

Hi @zofia 

Welcome to our Community Forums and thanks for your post. 

I'd like to look into this further so will pop you a PM now to assist.

Thanks

[zofia]

Thank you for the two posts above.  I am in touch with Ayisha in the PM system.  In case anyone is interested I also tried the chat facility on the website, which I struggled with I'm afraid.  After giving identifying information, but also going around in circles, they provided me with a reference.  I was told that someone would then ring me, but so far this has not happened.  It is possible I misunderstood this and was supposed to ring myself and supply the reference.  I think in general if the email account is locked it might be better to write to the account address. Then you can verify someone's identity that way.  However for now I am hoping that this can be resolved with Ayisha.

[zofia]

So just an update if anyone is interested.  With help from Ayisha_B using PMs and some changes behind the scenes I can now access my webmail.  It has been about 13 days.

I had to verify my identity with information from my bills.  Some of this I could have got from my bank, but it was lucky I have paper bills as when I logged into the main virgin website (which I was always able to do) the bills were not available. 

The next step after a few days was that I was able to reset the app password.  This is generated by Virgin and it looks as though you can't change it(?).  I tried the webmail but the account was at first still locked, then after a few hours today I could finally access it. 

Before then I had to get a new email address as a new log-in for the main website and then generate a new password for that.  This worked straightaway as far as I remember.  But on the other hand I do wonder why everything has to be so complicated. 

As to why this has happened, it may because of some strange spam emails which came into my inbox just before the account was locked.  There have been a few since then as well.  Funnily enough there was also an email from virgin to tell me that my email account was locked.  Of course I couldn't read it until just now.  

I would like to thank Ayisha_B so much for her help as I had tried the chat service on the main website and that had petered out rather mysteriously.  So I would still be lost without her.

I really hope nothing like this happens again 😥 .

[Ayisha_B]

Thanks for your time via PM @zofia 

Glad the issue is now resolved. 

If you need anything else, let us know.

Thanks