Forum Discussion

Mr_Crabbit's avatar
Mr_Crabbit
Dialled in
5 months ago

Email account closure

Same here, I am curious as to why my email account is being closed. I have had my virgin.net email address since January 1997, and still use it daily. It is tied to numerous online accounts. Every time there is a glitch with the email service and I try to get help, the party line seems to be that legacy email addresses such as virgin.net, blueyonder and ntlworld.com are being phased out and I should go away to another provider. I would much rather not.

To let you know how I got here:

In 1997, I was a dial-up internet user and Virgin.net was my ISP. I set up the five free email addresses that were allocated to me at the time to allow my wife & daughters to have their own addresses.
In 2000, we moved house and started using ntlworld for cable TV & telephone. A few months later, I was contacted my someone from ntlworld who noticed I was using my telephone line to access the internet & my email regularly. He suggested I use ntlworld as a faster cable ISP and I’d get new email addresses there. I declined his offer as my email address was very important to me after only three and a half years. He said I could keep using it as Virgin.net used ntlworld’s backbone and servers. Sold! I was allocated an ntlworld email address that is only really used to login to my account. When ntlworld and Virgin.net amalgamated to form Virgin Media, the Virgin.net account could not be used to pay for the service and if memory serves, the ntlworld account transitioned to my current Virgin Media one. I did not make any new virginmedia.com email addresses at the time. I still use my ntlworld email address to login to my account but I see I am being pushed to associate a third party email address with that account now. That is a subject for another thread I believe.

Bottom line for me is that I have been an uninterrupted Virgin.net / ntlworld / Virgin Media customer since 1997. Having a virgin.net email address is a big factor in my customer loyalty. If I am forced to go elsewhere for an email service, a considerable tie has been cast off and I'll be much more inclined to look at Virgin Media's competitors.

  • goslow's avatar
    goslow
    Alessandro Volta

    Mr_Crabbit wrote:

    <snip>Bottom line for me is that I have been an uninterrupted Virgin.net / ntlworld / Virgin Media customer since 1997. Having a virgin.net email address is a big factor in my customer loyalty. If I am forced to go elsewhere for an email service, a considerable tie has been cast off and I'll be much more inclined to look at Virgin Media's competitors.


    If you are still a VM broadband customer it seems there may be a possibility of help from VM to link your .net email to your VM broadband service.

    You may do best though to start your own topic as there are lots of people making tag-on posts to existing topics and your issue may get missed as the VM forum team try to deal with all the queries.

  • Thank you @goslow for your prompt reply. I'm afraid I don't hold out much hope of my virgin.net address being linked to my VM account. I have the Account and Area Reference numbers for both accounts to hand. Any time a link between the two has been suggested to telephone support, I've been told that a can keep one email address and the others will be deleted. One step forward and six steps back. ☹️ What irks me in particular is that I am not using my 25Gb of space on the mail server. I download my email to Outlook.

  • jpeg1's avatar
    jpeg1
    Alessandro Volta

    The telephone staff will say anything to close the call. Others in your position have been told on here that if the old email is in the same name as your current broadband account it can be attached to it.  You'll have to wait for VM to find your post here.

  • Thanks again, I reckon I'll need to start a new thread and ask what can be done.

    • goslow's avatar
      goslow
      Alessandro Volta

      The moderators have split your post so it is now a topic of its own.

  • Thank you moderators. I hope someone will be thoughtful enough to set up a procedure whereby my legacy account's details, with the more important email addresses, can be tied to my current one and not be considered an orphan. It seems a lot of customers are in the same boat so sometime within the next 29 days would be ideal!

    Thanks again.

  • jpeg1's avatar
    jpeg1
    Alessandro Volta

    Email is a nuisance to VM, and costs them a Iittle money. It's just a matter of time before they are ready to close it down.

    Every broadband customer now has a third party email account, so VM can still contact them - that was the critical first step.