Forum Discussion

ChrisU's avatar
ChrisU
Just joined
19 hours ago

Emails blocked

Hi,

(I am a newby to this forum and, while I used to be chartered electronic engineer in my working life please assume I know nothing about the email system and you wan't be far wrong.)  

I discovered today that Virginmedia.com emails to all devices of mine and my wife (a mixture of Apple and Android) have been blocked since yesterday.  I had an alert (which has since vanished) on my Android phone along the lines that the email account has been temporarily blacklisted.  My Android phone has actually delivered 8 emails today, but the other devices have not delivered any.  My Apple desktop will not allow me to log into my email account, citing "Unable to verify account name or password", my wife's iPhone says it's a "Temporarily blacklisted IP address - try again later".

I can view my email online via mail.virginmedia.com so at least the mail server is working.  I haven't figured out how to do the same for my wife yet (we share a Virginmedia account with independent email addresses). 

I've tried ringing 150, but the robot at the end of that is clearly psychotic and I've given up trying to make it understand the term "email".

(1) Is it actually possible to talk (or chat) with a real, live person at Virgin on this topic?  How?

(2) Is this likely to be a Virgin problem that will mysteriously go away of its own accord (hence "try again later"), or have I done something (or failed to do something) to provoke this?   

(3) According to Google "Blacklisting" appears to imply some sort of email account compromise has occurred.  Can I verify that in some way?  (Brings me back to point 1).

Hoping for some help.

Chris

    

5 Replies

  • Adduxi's avatar
    Adduxi
    Very Insightful Person
    19 hours ago

    Both you and your wife will need to create VMO2ID’s as mailboxes are now separate, there are no longer primary and secondary accounts.

    • ChrisU's avatar
      ChrisU
      Just joined
      9 hours ago

      Thank you for the reply, but it doesn't seem to be totally correct.  After Googling some more I created a VMO2ID for me (only), and within a couple of hours all our mobile devices (including my wife's) had successfully logged in to mail with the existing (i.e. unchanged) mail passwords.  My desktop PC took a little longer, but this morning it's also working, again with the existing mail password.

      I've come to learn over the years that Virgin have created something that no-one quite understands fully, least of all them.

      I'm now mulling over the contents of an email just received (yay!) from Virgin about the VMO2ID, particularly the bit that I've bolded:

      To help keep your account secure (and make sure you don’t get locked out), it’s a good idea to add a few extra ways to sign in – just in case.  You’ve already set up a main and backup method, but we recommend adding more recovery options for peace of mind. A quick reminder: your Virgin Media O2 ID can only be managed online. If you lose access, we won’t be able to help recover your ID, mailbox, or its contents – so it’s worth taking a minute now.

      I don't understand - Virgin (or is it O2 ?) host the ID server, the mail server and the password server, and they are the ones that have created the "need" for a new VMO2ID.  They ought to at least share some responsibility when it goes wrong.  (Note, I didn't say "if").

      Chris

          

      • jpeg1's avatar
        jpeg1
        Alessandro Volta
        9 hours ago

        The only safe solution is to create new email accounts with a dedicated provider, as many others have already done.

        VM stopped issuing new email addresses a few years ago, and as you have discovered they are not concerned with the customer experience of the remaining users. 

  • Adduxi's avatar
    Adduxi
    Very Insightful Person
    6 hours ago

    +1 for jpeg1​  suggestion.  It may be a pain, but will be worth it.  Going on what’s presently happening with VM email, it’s only going one way.