Retrieving NTL email account
My 91 year old father has recently moved into a care home. His home Virgin Media account was therefore cancelled. He has now lost access to his NTLworld email account. Is there any way to retrieve this, even temporarily?
Forum Discussion
5 Replies
- Tom_W1
Forum Team
Hi Jmat thanks for your post here in the Community although we're sorry to hear of the concerns you've raised here and the circumstances surrounding your father.
Unfortunately, once a Virgin Media account has been cancelled, the email address is also terminated alongside it - we're really sorry about this.
We do appreciate this will be a disappointing response and we're sorry for any inconvenience this has caused you.
Many thanks
More than disappointing, especially for my father. This was the only way where had of contacting his few friends and family, and since he is housebound and has Alzheimer’s, this means those connections are now completely lost.
I’m wondering if you have thought about the impact your process has on vulnerable elderly people? And if you would consider changing it to make it dementia friendly? Your current process only serves to make them more isolated and lonely.
Jmat wrote:My 91 year old father has recently moved into a care home. His home Virgin Media account was therefore cancelled.
In fact, the Terms and Conditions of VM's broadband accounts say that the email accounts linked to a VM broadband account will be deleted 90 days after the broadband account has been cancelled.
So when was your father's account cancelled?
If it was less than 90days ago VM have a duty to allow him to continue to access his VM email accounts until the 90 days are up.
Coenoby
Thanks for your response. I have since found out the terms and conditions say this... but if you know anything about dementia and Alzheimers you will know that the suffers lose their memory. And since I didn't now what terms and conditions my father signed up to 20 years ago, and he has no idea, an email reminder from Virgin Media would have been useful. Instead, a vulnerable customer has been left isolated with all his contacts lost. It is cruel and lacking in compassion to do this to a 91 year old man without any notice whatsoever.
I know only too well what a terrible and cruel impact dementia has on the lives of everyone affected by it. It affects not just the sufferer but their family members and close friends so my thoughts are definitely with you on that.
The point of my post was simply to draw your attention to the fact that the statement by the VM Forum Team in their post to you on 20/03/2024 that "once a Virgin Media account has been cancelled, the email address is also terminated" was not the full story.
If the VM account had been closed less than 90 days ago then your father still had a right to access his email account and in that case the Forum Team might well have been able to help you and him regain temporary access to the email account.
I am sorry that in the event that advice was of no help to you.
Over the years I have participated in a number of forum threads where ex VM customers have been left distraught by the loss of email accounts that they had been using for sometimes 20+ years after closing their VM broadband account.
Even though those individuals were (as far as I know) not affected by memory loss, the loss of contact details, important documents sent as attachments and key information sent via email was often extremely stressful for them.
Giving some warning that an email account is about to be closed would seem to be a reasonable and simple thing for VM to do. All I can say is that, for some reason, VM do not seem to do that.
Finally, I would reiterate that my thoughts are with you, your father and the rest of the family at this difficult time.
Coenoby
