Are you currently a VM broadband customer?

No im not. Its an old virgin.net email. it was all working then it logged me out. i went through the process for non VM email recovery and changed login to a non virgin email and now i can not get back in with either the virgin email nor the non virgin email.

Unfortunately, if you are not a VM broadband customer, VM will be deleting your mailbox in all likelihood.

VM has been clearing out legacy email addresses which are not associated with an active VM broadband subscription.

You should get a reply from the VM forum team here, usually within a few days.

They may offer to see if the mailbox can be temporarily reactivated so you can rescue your data.

Despite the help from Molly, VM are instant that they will not/cannot re-instate my email, not even temporarily. Even despite the harm and disruption that the instant loss of a 30+yr old email address has caused. Personally this has meant significant distress as I was in the middle of a number of issues with several official bodies such as the DWP and NHS. Along also with a couple of job applications and communications with a group that help people with dyslexia. The loss of many official documents, loss all email contact addresses and finally making changing/updating contact/log in emails impossible with some and very difficult with others due to the inability to access verification emails.

I want people to understand that having worked in IT I know full well that this is a policy decision by VM, not a technical issue. The Virgin.net domain and servers still exist as does the ability to manage virgin.net profiles. Profiles and mail boxes are regularly back up and if action is taken quickly enough, then mail boxes could be retrieved and profiles reactivated. At a minimum a profile can, be recreated and linked even if backups of the mailboxes have been deleted. Typically, a profile will be deactivated/deleted then an automatic process will delete any data associated with that profile, as in the mail box. How often that process runs will depend on the business needs and how often space on the server farm needs to be kept free.

Don’t get me wrong, I full accept that VM do not offer free email hosting, even though they used to. And I full accept responsibility for me stopping using a mail client so that emails can be stored and saved independently off webmail.

The issue for me is the complete lack of understanding by VM just how imbedded into everyday life our email address now are, and the complete lack of care and understanding this policy of deleting ‘orphaned’ email accounts without any notification is. For a company these days to display such a lack of ‘Duty of care’ is just unacceptable. If this was to happen to someone with mental health issues it just not bare thinking about what the consequences could be.

Personally I will never buy into and VM product, nor recommend them as a company to use or work for or use