Forum Discussion

otronics's avatar
otronics
On our wavelength
2 years ago

Blueyonder Email Addresses to be deactivated?

I was on the 'phone with Virgin a few days back discussing several things and the call handler said "by the way, in about 18 months we are discontinuing blueyonder email addresses. You'll have to create a Gmail account". 

She couldn't give an exact date of the cut-off or any more details.

Having used my blueyonder email for almost 25 years, I can't tell you how much of a pain this will be.

Has anyone else heard anything?

15 Replies

  • Hi otronics 👋.

    Thanks for reaching out to us regarding Blueyonder email addresses. As long as you retain our services with us, your Blueyonder account will remain active. In the event you choose to leave us, your account will carry a notice period in which to arrange an alternative email address and carry over any data to your new address. 

    Should you have any more concerns please feel free to ask away.

    Sabrina

    • yonder's avatar
      yonder
      On our wavelength

      Do you have a link to an article that tells you have to "carry over data" from a Virgin email account (I'm blueyonder) to a new non-Virgin email account-address. This is obviously a major problem - old customers like myself have years of valuable emails we would wish to retain. Is there an app for this as there is for changing over smartphones?

      • VMCopperUser's avatar
        VMCopperUser
        Wise owl

        If your using a computer then you can set up a mail app with two IMAP clients you can just copy&paste the emails from one account to another.  You can also usually download/export/save your mail from email clients locally.  I know Thunderbird works - Some others too but I don't have a list.

  • otronics's avatar
    otronics
    On our wavelength

    I'm a little nervous though as the agent I called said otherwise...

    • coenoby's avatar
      coenoby
      Very Insightful Person

      otronics wrote:

      I'm a little nervous though as the agent I called said otherwise...


      The thing is that Virgin Media stopped issuing new VM email accounts over a year ago. Since then, new VM broadband customers have to use a third party (non VM) email accounts and existing VM customers such as yourself can no longer create additional secondary VM email accounts.

      Clearly, the provision of an email service is no longer part of their business plan going forward and the long term future of the VM email service, not just Blueyonder email accounts, is unclear.

      However, that does not necessarily mean that VM will simply close down all VM email accounts.

      Sky stopped issuing sky.com email accounts in 2018 but Sky customers with existing sky.com email accounts can still use them.  However, Sky email is now provided by Yahoo Mail not Sky.   VM could do something similar, who knows?

      The person you spoke to may have given that advice in good faith but no doubt rumours are circulating around the VM Customer Services teams as to the future of the VM email service. In reality I suspect that they probably know little more about VM's plans for the VM email service than VM's customers do.

      Coenoby

    • Robert_P's avatar
      Robert_P
      Icon for Forum Team rankForum Team

      As advised by Sabrina, as long as you have active services the email address will remain active. Any changes to this and we will notify you prior to the change to allow alternative arrangements to be made, but, at this time we aren't aware of any changes impending.

       

      Rob

  • Reece_MH's avatar
    Reece_MH
    Forum Team (Retired)

    Hi yonder 👋

    I'm sorry to hear you're concerned about your Virgin Media emails. As mentioned by members of our team, there are currently no changes upcoming to your Email services and as long as you have an active Virgin Media service, these emails will remain active.

    We don't have any official articles (such as VM Community posts and VM Blog posts) in relation to a requirement to carry over data, as this is not correct.

    Thanks,

  • I received exactly the same info from a call handler in Sep '23.  However, he advised that it would be happening around the end of this year, beg of next, and that I should look at creating a gmail e-mail account.

     

  • jpeg1's avatar
    jpeg1
    Alessandro Volta

    The call handlers will tell you anything, so don't believe what they say. But there is no doubt VM is not interested in maintaining email and will drop it one day.

    So set up an alternative email account now and start moving your contacts across while you still have plenty of time.

    For anyone who has many years of emails in your account, you MUST make a copy offline. An email account is a postal system, not a secure data store. 

  • otronics's avatar
    otronics
    On our wavelength

    So that's myself and someone else who has been told that blueyonder emails will be discontinued despite Virgin claiming above that nothing will change.

    • Matthew_ML's avatar
      Matthew_ML
      Icon for Forum Team rankForum Team

      Hey otronics, thank you for reaching out and I am sorry to hear this.

      Right now we have no current plans to remove these emails if you leave us this will be deactivated within 90 days.

      I would also always recommend having two emails address one as a back up defiantly with Gmail account either way. 

  • jpeg1's avatar
    jpeg1
    Alessandro Volta

    Let's be clear. VM support staff on the phones and on here are not going to be told anything about future plans by management. When a decision has been made, they will be told what to say.

    Until then, they should be following the party line that email is continuing. But in view of the continuing problems that so many people are experiencing with their VM email it is only sensible to move over to a different service. 

  • Garry-A1

    I contacted vm when the server couldn't process my emails and even before my issue was resolved i was advised to set up a third party account, as the blue yonder, ntlworld and virgin media email platforms were being withdrawn. However, there was no time scale mentioned.  

    I have now set up a gmail account and have found it far easier to use than my current one and there is a feature where you can retrieve your vm emails and run the accounts in tandem and i will run this up until my contacts have been notified of the change. It was also meant to retrieve these, but failed, so i'm having to transfer them manually.

    Finally, i must declare that trying to get to an advisor is like pulling teeth!

  • joshtheskipper's avatar
    joshtheskipper
    On our wavelength

    “If never had a Virgin Media account, then the email will be removed as per the T&C - virg.in/legals It needs to be on an active cable account (broadband/TV/Home Phone). I'd therefore advise to move everything over to a new email account asap”that is todays advice from Virgin