Forum Discussion

Defcon1's avatar
Defcon1
Joining in
4 months ago

Email Password Changes - Multiple bugs and security issues

Hi everyone,

I have spent over 6 hours today trying to resolve password issues on my secondary email accounts including three phones calls to VM. My background is global IT services. 

I have now identified the system related issues and can reproduce the errors. It seems hundreds/thousands of people have these same issues with many similar postings on-line.

1.  The password reset feature for secondary accounts (when you enter your DOB and secret question) does not work. It says the information entered is incorrect which I know is incorrect.

2.  If you have created a 3rd party email address (which I did today) for the new log-in requirements of your VM account, you can not select the 'Password Reset' button if your new 3rd party email address contains a hyphen. My email address is 'firstname@my-company' but because there is hyphen in the domain name the website says I have entered an incorrect email address.

3. The only way to request a password reset is to call VM and I was given a new generic password (very simple with 123). I guess everyone who calls is given the same password, so from a security perspective this is very bad. 

4. I successfully logged in to the account (with the new generic password) and then changed the password in my account settings. I received an email (to my new 3rd party email) saying the password was changed successfully. I am now UNABLE to log-in to may VM account using the new password (or the old password).  Basically I have lost all access to my accounts. 

5. I called VM again for a second time requesting a password reset (assuming I had got the new password wrong).  I was able to reproduce the exact same error despite taking screenshots of my new password and entering it correctly after the change.  This means I can NEVER change the generic password given to me by customer services, otherwise I can never log-in.

I have suspicions that my last issue may be related to the hyphen in my email address but can't be sure.

What is concerning is that so many people have these same issues.  I would love the opportunity to jump on a train and demonstrate these errors to the CIO and leadership team by doing a live demo. I just need 20 minutes in the boardroom please and I wouldn't charge for my time (although I would appreciate the cost of the train fare). 

If all these issues could be resolved it could save the company a huge amount of money and reduce 100's of call to VM Customer Services every day. 

Any advice appreciated, and if anyone from VM is reading this, please give me a date and time so that I can visit your office and demonstrate the system issues.

Regards,

Tony

    • norskyorkie's avatar
      norskyorkie
      Superfast

      Same here, my wife's secondary email stopped sending a few weeks ago using Thunderbird, My main email is fine.

      Trying to recover her password, which was set so long ago, we have forgotten.is like pulling teeth.

  • Hi Defcon1 👋 Thank you for your post and welcome to the Virgin Media Community 😀

    We're sorry to hear about the poor experience you've had 😔

    Although we can't arrange an office visit for you, we always take on board feedback we receive and will certainly pass your post along to the relevant teams. 

    General advice on how to manage Virgin Media e-mail accounts can be found here

    Regards,
    Daniel

    • 007stuart's avatar
      007stuart
      Superfast

      The information in the link does not adress the issue of secondary and subsequent mailboxes linked to the primary account. I would be grateful if you can provide assistance to resolve this issue.

      • Gareth_L's avatar
        Gareth_L
        Forum Team

        Hello 007stuart.

        Thanks for replying.

        Regarding secondary email accounts, we do have a pinned post on our community which is right here 

        Hopefully, this will help you.

        Gareth_L

  • ALF28's avatar
    ALF28
    Super solver

    Interesting issue, I have some emails which use an Underscore which works fine. The dash is similar to a space which is not allowed by some providers, google/gmail do not like a space in an email address.

    The merits of using a dash are explained in this article-see link below-

    Hyphens (dashes) in Domain Name: Good or Bad? (wiserbrand.com)

    One solution may be to use a different email address to log into Virgin, creating a new one if needed and changing the VM account  third party email login/communications address.

    • Beth_G's avatar
      Beth_G
      Forum Team

      Hi Kabilhater,

      Thank you for your post, welcome to the Community Forums. I'm sorry to hear you're having trouble accessing your email account with us.

      I've sent you a private message so I can do my best to help you regain access.

  • alangigi's avatar
    alangigi
    On our wavelength

    Hi Defcon1. Similar problem. Locked out of secondary email account for 10 days. Two separate VM supports have failed to gain access. Official complaint raised. Call from VM today promising to get high level tech person to look into and resolve it. I am not holding my breath! I think there techies lack training in dealing with 2 or multi factor authentication issues. Also the VM process only allows 1 try to change the email address and password and if that fails you are locked in a death loop. Good luck to you.