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EsmieP1972's avatar
EsmieP1972
Hanging out
2 months ago

Virgin.net emails gone. Still a paying customer. Now involving Communications Ombudsman

I have been using a virgin.net email address for 20 + years without any issues. It was originally linked to an old virgin account. However I have a newer virginmedia account which I've also had for years and the virgin.net email was registered as a second email under this new account together with a new virginmedia email address. The virgin bills were sent to the virgin.net email address. I was accessing this all fine until Sunday 13th July.  However that night I had notification of site maintenance. Learned since that this was the O2 merger and I have not been able to access my emails at virgin.net since. I have tried everything but it initially stated the password was incorrect. I've tried multiple passwords, password resets and have tried the email app password. I had also linked the virginmedia account to a gmail account and have logged in with this but can't see my virgin.net emails. I have contacted customer services multiple times in the last few days and have just been blatantly lied to. They have said I should still be able to see the virgin.net email account when i log onto my virginmedia emails using the gmail account associated with the virginmedia account. I can log on to my virginmedia account and can see my virginmedia.com emails but my virgin.net email has completely GONE. I was told yesterday it would all be sorted within 48 hours and now realise that is another lie, as I sent my virgin.net email a message this evening from a different email account just to check it didn't get rejected and it got bounced straight sent back saying the virgin.net doesn't exist. 20+ years of emails just GONE.  I have had no notice nor any notification that this was going to happen else I would have downloaded them and taken action to download my contacts and swap over bills etc. I have now read multiple cases on here and online about people losing all access to these accounts in the same way. I assume the same has happened to me. I am totally and utterly disgusted and appalled at this. Especially given that I have been a virginmedia customer for years and pay a fortune for the services. Is there any way that the virgin.net email could be temporarily reinstated so that i can at least quickly download my historic and sentimental emails? 

If not, I will be making an immediate  formal complaint to the COMMUNICATION OMBUDSMAN Ombudsman and also calling the ICO in the morning to discuss data protection. This is extremely distressing and I have spent HOURS trying to rectify this in the last week. I get that the emails are not supported to non paying customers but I am still a paying customer and have been for years! Just disgusting customer service from Virgin. 

3 Replies

  • Mr_Crabbit's avatar
    Mr_Crabbit
    Dialled in
    2 months ago

    Join the club! I've had my virgin.net email account and addresses since 1997, I joined ntlworld, as was, on the understanding that I could keep using my email addresses. 'No problem' I was told, 'We host Virgin.net servers', and things were fine until recently. When Virgin.net and ntlworld merged to form Virgin Media, I kept my ntlworld email address for the rebranded account, I rarely used it as my virgin.net addresses remained in everyday use. It has become plain that Virgin Media have no interest in hosting email services and scant regard for customer loyalty and support. Good luck with your endeavours!

  • Lee_R's avatar
    Lee_R
    Icon for Forum Team rankForum Team
    2 months ago

    Hi EsmieP1972 thanks for posting and welcome to our community.

    Sorry to hear you've lost access to your virgin.net email address. And for any inconvenience this may be causing. So that I can take a look on your behalf, I'm going to send you a private message. Please keep an eye on your inbox in the top right of your screen.

    Regards

    Lee_R

  • Richardr1's avatar
    Richardr1
    Fibre optic
    2 months ago

    Hopefully you get this resolved.

    However, just as a procedural point, the ombudsman won't look at complaints until you have gone through Virgin Media's official complaints procedure [i.e. not just a complaint here or over the phone] and either eight weeks have passed or Virgin Media have agreed that deadlock has been reached. Ofcom are reducing the time to six weeks from next April.