Resolved
Hi,
We are aware that some customers are experiencing issues with their email service and are very sorry for the inconvenience this is causing. Our teams are working flat out to fully restore all emails as soon as possible.
ModTeam
Update 13/07/23 - This has now been resolved. If you are still having issues, please make your own separate post giving as much detail as possible.
So what's wrong with the email now?
One account missing all the historic emails, and the one that seemed fixed now is difficult to log into, and has constant server issues, that's if I can get in at all.
I'm really getting sick of this now.
Like many others, all emails sent, received and saved in various folders, are no longer there to be seen. Many many conversations since June 19 either via phone or chat support on WhatsApp have ended with assurances that VM are doing all they can to restore full email services, and promise all will be back to normal either later that day, or by first thing the following morning.
Always giving the same old waffle of how they 'understand how frustrating it must be'.
Someone called Alex Wehrle keeps emailing too, with updates and further promises that all is good, emails and data is safe, nothing has been hacked blah blah blah.
Then last night, had a message from VM saying there would be no service between midnight, and 6am, so that essential maintenance could be carried out to resume full service. That came and went, service briefly came back for about 10 mins then went again.
My media app quoted new estimated time to fix would be 1pm. After 1pm that changed to 5pm. It is now showing 10pm **bleep**.
When I spoke to customer services, I asked the question "what happens if or when VM decide they cannot fix the problem, and customers have lost everything?"
She refused to answer, saying that they were 'not allowed' to answer that. When I said I was going to update social media on that response, and asked if she could confirm that nobody was allowed to discuss, she hung up.
So what on earth is going on. Are we just being strung along hour to hour, day to day, week to week? Don't appreciate being lied to so often by a company so ready to take my money, yet so slap dash in providing the service.
Just an update....10pm been and gone, and just to rub salt into the wounds, My Virgin media app says all is normal. Still no historical emails, went through the procedure yet again of generating new password for 3rd party access to emails as directed by VM, and at midnight, email service seemed to stop working again. Absolutely ridiculous. Dont know whether to 🤣 or 😭. They are just a complete joke.
Virgin Media......instead of hiding behind lies and waffle, raise your hands and admit you have seriously c**cked up and be honest about what you are going to do about it, if anything.
Funny that! I work for a major European airline. Our reservation and linked servers went down at 0600hrs this morning. All hell broke lose as customers rebooked with our competitors! The standby servers went back online by 0615hrs this morning and heads being lined up for separation from various bodies all day! Is it the same with Virgin Media, do you think?
No disrespect but that's just groundhog day meaningless repeat spiel , how long is this email maintenance lark going on for? We had this the other week where email was intermittently unusable for 3 days, but Virgin didn't notify customers of a problem until alot later by which time Down detector the mirror and mail online had already informed everyone on their websites? Seeing as your increased the price of your service this is really unacceptable and as with my original post it doesn't wash that email is free and not part of whats paid for, a service is a service, either provide a decent one or don't provide it at all, email is a necessity & crucial these days?
So, emails have started to come through again - at 18:29. However, still no emails prior to 19 June, so no different from yesterday. I need my historical mails asap - when will they be restored correctly into their folders? The inconvenience, effort and frustration is now at a maximum level.
Just noticed that the 'view status' now shows 'We hope to fix this by 30 June at 22:00'
just as I predicted earlier this afternoon :
'fix' date has now moved again!! now 17:00, bet it moves to 20:00 , then 22:00, then sometime tomorrow.
VM 'plucking numbers out of the air' again, (either that, or rolling dice !)
Everything they touch, turns into a disaster area....
Bet it moves again at 22:00 to 08:00 1st July.....(you heard it here first!! )
All VM are doing here is digging themselves into a a deeper and deeper hole
For what it's worth, just tried to log into email, and get the 503 error now!!
I've already posted that I've been told its going to upgraded overnight etc...
HughJarsse wrote:Just noticed that the 'view status' now shows 'We hope to fix this by 30 June at 22:00'
just as I predicted earlier this afternoon :
'fix' date has now moved again!! now 17:00, bet it moves to 20:00 , then 22:00, then sometime tomorrow.
VM 'plucking numbers out of the air' again, (either that, or rolling dice !)
Everything they touch, turns into a disaster area....
Bet it moves again at 22:00 to 08:00 1st July.....(you heard it here first!! )
All VM are doing here is digging themselves into a a deeper and deeper hole
For what it's worth, just tried to log into email, and get the 503 error now!!
Almost as if you have seen this sort of thing before, and knew what was going to happen, no?
Look to be brutally honest, I think that everyone who has lost all of their old ‘historic’ emails, need to set themselves a bit of a mental deadline. Personally, I believe they are all lost and won’t ever, ever be coming back - I’d love to be wrong, but realistically, the longer it goes on, the less chance there is of any restoration. Some have reported that they were told in an email that a definitive time line would be given by the end of this week, no? Well it’s now 7pm on a Friday, I suppose that technically the week doesn’t end until tomorrow (or maybe Sunday, depending on your view) - but really, is anyone, anyone still holding out hope of this happening?
So, honestly, set yourself a deadline, if nothing has been restored by then, then work on the basis that it’s gone, it’s been lost, it’s not coming back and VM will be doing precisely nothing to help. What do YOU need to do to work around it? How damaging is it for you? Who do you have to try to contact to explain the situation and get important emails resent?
If, and I freely admit, it is still a bit of an if, this happens, then absolutely DO NOT expect Virgin Media to assist here, they simply won’t be in a position to do so. The onus is on YOU to try to make it good as best as you can, and some of you are going to suffer considerable loss, both financially and emotionally from this, and I am very, very sorry for you!
On this and other threads, there has been posts regarding how much compensation VM might have to pay out. Realistically, probably less than you think. To claim compensation, legally you have to show material or emotional loss, secondly, you have to show that VM were ‘negligent’, and lastly, VM will, no doubt point to the clause in the Terms and Conditions (which, you did all read and fully understand, before clicking the OK button on the sign up page; no),which does explicitly say that YOU, the customer, are fully responsible for making backup copies of important emails and VM make no guarantees……etc?
If the worst happens and VM are eventually forced into making a statement along the lines of, ‘look we are sorry but….’, I suspect that any ‘compensation’ will be along the lines of £10-£50 credit off of your bill, but you’ll need to jump through some oops to claim it. Otherwise, it’ll be OK, see you in Court, and remember as the plaintiff, the onus is on YOU to prove that VM have been negligent etc. And lastly to the couple of posts calling for a ‘class-action’ lawsuit, all I can say is stop watching too many American courtroom dramas, there is no such thing in English Law!
So; as one post on here asked, ‘….what can we do?’ If you are asking what can be done to ‘make’ VM get your emails back then the answer, alas, is absolutely nothing - sorry!
On the other hand, what you could do is to show that this cavalier attitude to their customers, simply isn’t going to be acceptable, and leave. I don’t think the real problem here is the loss of emails, as bad as it is for individuals, no, the big issue is how VM have handles this. The lack of any meaningful information, the obviously mandated from on-high, copy and paste responses (almost as if they are trying to rile up a mob armed with the proverbial pitchforks and torches to march on Castle VM, like the closing scenes in the old Frankenstein films).
Let’s look at this dispassionately, it has been over a year since VM announced that no new VM-branded email addresses will be given out. You don’t have to be Einstein to see the writing on the wall here, they are, absolutely are, going to dump their email provision, sooner rather than later. And despite claims that they will keep the status quo, maybe maintenance of the existing system or proper backups, maybe weren’t too high on their priorities, nor retaining the staff who knew how this all worked, so when, inevitably the proverbial fits the fan, then……
Somewhere in VM Towers, someone is running the numbers through a spreadsheet, it will cost £xyz to restore everyone’s old email, if we do nothing then maybe we’ll lose £abc due to people just leaving in disgust as to how they have been treated. Of course if xyz is more than abc, what do you think they will do?
'Almost as if you have seen this sort of thing before, and knew what was going to happen, no?'
Yes, been there previously with VM, on several occasions, so I have a darn good idea of their non existent 'strategy'.
Me, for a few years now, (Caught once, fool you. Caught twice, fool me!) I have used Mailstore home, (free, portable, easy to use) to back up all 3 of my email accounts to a portable hard drive, (kept disconnected from pc until I need to backup/retrieve) once a week, on a Sunday morning. So basically, I have 'lost' very little 'if' VM never deliver their repeated 'cut and paste promise' to restore historical mail. It's the repeated nuisance of no email, oh wait it's back, err, no, it's gone again and the current problem I have of not receiving any mail from Gmail, and sporadic email from talk-talk, that either never arrives, or, arrives 7-8 hours after it was sent.
Suffered the stupidity of VM's 'get as much as you can, from as many as you can, for as long as you can, for as little as you can possibly get away with' business strategy for long enough to know what to expect. (sweet FA!!)
The only reason I am still with them, is nothing better available near me, BUT...Cityfibre are working their way towards me, so that may well change very soon. The minute a viable alternative is available, I am off, 100% gone!!...
STILL no resolution to all this mess. WHEN are VM actually going to acknowledge the chaos this is causing for users and get it sorted out? I now can't send or received any emails since this morning, never mind the fact that I am STILL missing all my historic emails over a week later. Please please this needs to be a priority!!!!
frustrated frustrating f..................
same old crap from VM when ever they say they are going to do any kind of maintenance on there service it goes **bleep** up it happens every time.i bet they not going to give any kind of compo to anyone for there **bleep** up
Anonymous wrote:Yes good advice and need to do it. Just wondering how reliable and safe are gmail or hotmail? Surely can't be no worse than this shower of **bleep**e!?
I've had an account with gmail and yahoo for over 20 years and no issues.
