Forum Discussion

AK222's avatar
AK222
On our wavelength
2 years ago

Is VM getting rid of emails?

When they had that issue with email a few months back, I logged a complaint (called ++). By the time they got back to me, everything was back up and running. I was not offered nor asked for, any sort of reduction in price etc. as I was just glad that things were working again. During the conversation, the complaints handler said that VM were going to stop email services, even for existing customers, from July 2024. Is this correct? She told me to get gmail addresses (I had to get one set up so that I could communicate legal matters while purchasing a property). I went straight back to my VM emails once they had resolved their tech issues. I have a number of VM email addresses - one for my work, one for amazon etc, one for family, one for legal stuff + a couple of others.

It can't be that they want to remove my addresses only, as I didn't ask for compensation or could it be just my ones?

Has anyone else heard about this?

  • Tudor's avatar
    Tudor
    Very Insightful Person
    2 years ago

    "VM were going to stop email services, even for existing customers, from July 2024. Is this correct?"
    Untrue, VM have not announced that they are shutting down their email service. What the have announced is that the are not issuing an email address to new customers. This could be viewed by some people that they are shutting down their email service, there has been no announcement about this. What   I would recommend is that you get an email address elsewhere and transfer your use over to the new one. I personally have never used a VM email address, I have had my own domain and email address since 2001.

  • jpeg1's avatar
    jpeg1
    Alessandro Volta
    2 years ago

    Firstly, you cannot trust anything said on the phone by the VM call handlers. They know nothing of VM future policy and will just make up anything to get rid of your call.

    However, VM stopped issuing new email accounts back in 2022. Since then there have been many problems with existing accounts, loss of data and widespread hacking. They now require broadband customers to have non VM email accounts. 

    It seems pretty clear that VM no longer consider email to be an important part of their product. A policy change on this could be announced at any time. It would be sensible for any user of the remaining VM email accounts to move to alternatives and copy over their contact data while they still can.. 

  • AK222's avatar
    AK222
    On our wavelength
    2 years ago

    Thank you for replies. So I can keep using my email addresses I guess. I will go through them all and delete spam type ones and load important ones onto an SD disc type think. I'm not too good with technical stuff.

    • coenoby's avatar
      coenoby
      Very Insightful Person
      2 years ago
      AK222 wrote:

      So I can keep using my email addresses I guess. I will go through them all and delete spam type ones and load important ones onto an SD disc type think. I'm not too good with technical stuff.

      OK, but it's important for you to bear in mind that VM email accounts can only be used as long as you have a VM broadband account.

      VM's Terms and Conditions have always said that VM will delete all VM email accounts linked to a VM broadband account 90 days after the broadband account is terminated.  In the past VM were very lax on doing that but now they seem to be having a purge and closing these old unattached email accounts.

      By sticking with your VM email account you are effectively locking yourself into having VM as your broadband provider.  Currently, you may have no intention of changing your broadband provider but who knows what the future holds? What if you moved to an area that is not covered by VM?

      Personally, I think it would be a good plan for you to look at the other email services offered by dedicated email providers  with a view to setting up an alternative email account which does not lock you into using a specific broadband provider. Take a look at these for example https://www.lifewire.com/best-free-email-accounts 

      Set up a new non VM email account and start using that alongside your VM email account and then gradually switch over to using it for all your email needs.

      Coenoby

    • Tigerclub's avatar
      Tigerclub
      Tuning in
      2 years ago

      It is absolutely true that VM have made no comment regarding the long-term provision of email services. The July 2024 could well have been nothing more than some half-overheard gossip in the staff canteen, on the other hand?

      If you look at what has actually happened, firstly VM no longer allow new customers to have a VM-branded email address or allow existing customers to set up a new VM-branded address, secondly, VM are now gradually requiring existing customers to set up a non-VM branded address to gain access to their online accounts.

      This doesn't seem to be the actions of a company intending for there to be a long-term future for their own email provision!

      So by all means do carry on using your VM email address, but hypothetically, if VM were to announce, tomorrow, say, that they were simply terminating all email provision and deleting all email addresses as of xyz date, what would you do? You have a Gmail account, fine, how long would it take you to find and notify all of your contacts to use this instead of the VM one, which won't work after xyz date? It's a bigger job than you might think! Maybe start the process now?