No bounce-back message for deleted ntlworld email addresses

Hello. I left Virgin a while ago because of unreliable broadband service in our area. My ntlworld email address carried on working until recently. I knew it would stop at some point, but I expected to receive a warning email beforehand from Virgin - no such email came. And now, I find that when I send emails to my old ntlworld email address, from another account, they do not 'bounce back'. Therefore, there is no indication given to the sender that this email account is dead, and the sender probably thinks they are being ignored. How can this happen? Virgin, you should have some kind of auto-reply set up to let senders know that their emails are not being received. If I'd received a warning email that my account was going to be cut off, I could have set up an auto-reply myself, but now I can't do this because I have no access. I also have three family members who had ntlworld email addresses, who are in the same situation. Is there any way that we can be given access to our accounts, just so that we can make the adjustments needed please? I think it's disgusting that we've been left high and dry like this. At least you could have set up an auto-reply to people still trying to send emails to these obsolete accounts. It's not good enough!