Hey DottyDani,  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. Thanks 

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Pete_Notts wrote:

Spot on. When we signed up it was listed and provided as a service. There was no asteix comment which said 'this is free, and we are not liable for it'

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I do wonder if the ‘claim’ that the VM email provision is ‘free’ and hence VM have no requirement to maintain it, is based on an incorrect interpretation of the OFCOM mandated automated compensation scheme, which, when regarding broadband, only talks about prolonged periods of connectivity outage and the compensation that a customer is entitled to. There is absolutely no mention of email or any other subsidiary offerings, which may give the impression that VM have absolutely no responsibility for them. All fair enough.

However, in the past, when people would have first contracted to VM, provision of an email address, was marketed as an ‘incentive’ or joining, indeed, as pointed out, it was, at one time, mandatory that you used a VM email address!

Now, OK, they are no longer offering any email provision for new customers, and haven’t for a year or so, that may, or may not be an indication to you all as per VM’s intentions mean-long term regarding email provision. But that isn’t retrospective, it doesn’t mean that VM can simply wash their hands of any duty of care over existing customer’s email provision.

Legally, if VM try to argue in Court that this is a ‘free’ unsupported, extra, for which they hold no responsibility, I don’t think that is going to fly!

However, as there is no automated compensation scheme, taking legal action against VM for losses, may not be at all straightforward. I suspect that, at best, VM will eventually offer a token amount (say £10 credit on your account), for everyone affected by loss of historic email and who bothers to claim it*. Beyond that, if you feel that you have suffered material or emotional loss by the email failure, then you will probably have to initiate a small-claims action. But, do bear in mind that in this case, you are the plaintiff and the onus is on YOU to show (as it’s a civil matter, it’s done on the balance of probabilities), how much you have lost and be able to prove it. In their defence, VM will probably point to small print in the Ts & Cs which state the importance of YOU, the customer to make backups of important messages. Surely if they are important to you, then you would have made copies no? Oh you didn’t, well sorry about that, we did warn you; will be their argument!

So be prepared for that!

So personally, I do think that if push comes to shove, then yes, VM are liable for some degree of compensation for customers affected by this - but it’ll probably be a token amount, unless you can prove otherwise.

One, possible good thing to have come from this is that, despite how tempting it is to do so, never, ever, ever, treat email as a long-term filing cabinet, type of provision. It simply isn’t! The way that the underlying email systems are built, was never designed for that, the fact that it (mostly) works, (well until it doesn’t), is a testament to how well the various systems have been implemented but think of it as ‘your filing system containing vitally important documents’ is entirely under the control and ownership of another party, and they don’t actually care too much if your stuff all vaporises, doesn’t bother them in the slightest, you lose your house, can’t make an insurance claim, irreplaceable messages from long deceased relatives, all gone - well, I can promise you that absolutely no VM / Microsoft /Google / Apple staff will loose a single second of sleep over it. 

And yes, that sounds really harsh and uncaring, doesn’t it? Except it is, alas the truth. If something is really important to you, then for God’s sake, you make provision to look after it, because, I promise you nobody else will!

Look, I have no idea what has happened to the VM email provision over the last month or so, but a brief check on the forum here will show an increasing number of posts from people having issues - it does appear to have been being run down gradually, it also seems likely that the recent loss of email was a failure in a storage system which took out a number of (and who knows how many) mailboxes, and it looks as if their restoration process from some kind of backup or snapshot system either failed or simply couldn’t be done quickly. Whether that was some procedural failure, human error or lack of investment, well, we will probably never know!

So perhaps, the most important thing is to take away from this is the idea of ‘do not absolutely trust a third party to look after your vital documents’, because ultimately, they don’t care! Of course they don’t want the bad publicity, and naturally individuals working for VM will be moved by stories of lost messages from deceased loved ones, but the company, as an entity in it’s own right? Absolutely not!

* and I would just like to say, that there have been one or two posts on here talking about ‘class-action lawsuits’ against VM and who wants to join in? Well firstly you don’t ‘join into a class-action’ and secondly, you have been watching too many American legal shows, there is actually no such thing as a ‘class action’ in UK Law - so a bit of a non-starter.