Forum Discussion

jra505's avatar
jra505
Dialled in
2 months ago

Why do I have to give a phone number to log in to Virgin Mail??

Hello

I use VM for broadband, phone and email. I have a sub account email address, which my wife uses.

She is now having difficulty logging in, because of the shenanigans caused by the tie-in with 02, and the need for second factor authentication. 

 

She is vehemently opposed to giving her mobile phone number to Virgin, however that seems to be the only way now to log in to her email. Is that correct?

If so, this is just going to push us away from Virgin and we will start using other email providers from now on. I'm all for security, but it needs to be balanced and if people don't want to give out their phone number then they shouldn't have to.

 

jra505

2 Replies

  • coenoby's avatar
    coenoby
    Very Insightful Person
    2 months ago

    jra505​ "we will start using other email providers from now on."

    That would be a wise move.

    You may not be aware but VM stopped issuing new email accounts in May 2022 and since then new VM customers have not had the option of having a VM email account.

    Also, this year VM have been actively closing down VM email accounts that are no longer linked to a live VM broadband account. See here for their announcement about that Some important information if you have a Virgin Media email account | Virgin Media Community - 5607207

    VM have not made any announcement about the long term future of their email service but with no new VM email accounts being created and the VM email accounts of ex customers being deleted its long term future has to be in doubt.

    So moving over to email accounts from a dedicated (non ISP) email provider would seem to be a sensible move. 

     

    However, to answer the question in the title of your post: There are several options available to authenticate your VM02 ID.  See this link https://www.virginmediao2.co.uk/help/identity/security

    Take at look at the following sections in that link:

     "What multi factor authentication methods can I use for my VM02 ID?

    "How many multi factor authentication methods can I set up?"

    Coenoby

     

  • Graham_A's avatar
    Graham_A
    Very Insightful Person
    2 months ago

    "She is vehemently opposed to giving her mobile phone number to Virgin, however that seems to be the only way now to log in to her email. Is that correct?"

    According to VM you don't need to provide a mobile number for 2 factor authentication provided you supply a third party email address as backup for verification messages to be sent to.