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84-year-old with an Email Problem - "Your mailbox is not available at the moment"

AngryOAP
Joining in

I am going around in circles and pulling my hair out.

Virgin media customer service have twice reset the password to my email account, but my mailbox is always "not available at the moment".

The problem is that I unwisely used my virgin media email address when I tried to register for a mygovscot online account in order to use my local council's digital services. But now I cannot logon to my irgin media email to verify my email address. So, I filled-in an online "mygovscot helpdesk" ticket to ask for help, but no one ever answers. And because my personal details are already stored on their computer system, I cannot reregister for my personal digital account again (with a different email address).

Without access to my virgin media email account, I cannot do anything, and everyone just ignores me!

Can anyone help an 84-year-old who doesn't have a clue how to fix this problem?

4 REPLIES 4

Anankha
Problem sorter

Are you currently a Virginmedia Broadband customer?
Have you tried accessing the account via a different browser?
Have you added the account to an email client like Windows Mail?

My Broadband Ping - Virginmedia

Hi Anankha,

Thank you for your reply. You are the only person who has replied. The virgin media support staff are nowhere in sight. Perhaps they know that they can't help me.

Yes, I do have broadband. I have tried to logon to my email account using Firefox and Edge, but without success. I have also tried to use thunderbird to access my email account but that also did not work.

From within my broadband account, when I clicked on the “Email” button, I saw the message: “Oops! We can’t find the page you’re looking for.” So, it looks as though my virgin media email account has been deleted, and that my virgin media email address only serves as my username to access my virgin media broadband account.

Dear, oh dear! What a shambles!

In the meantime, iHub, the Livingstone-based company which is responsible for the developing the “mygovscot myaccount” software, has sent me an email (to my second email address) with a link so that I can activate my “mygovscot myaccount”.

Amazingly, iHub’s instructions state: “Once you have clicked on the above link to activate the change, the new email address will be used for any subsequent emails which are sent. If you don’t follow the step above, your previous [virgin media] email address will continue to be used in any communications.”

You can’t make this stuff up! If you do not confirm the email address that you use to apply for your “mygovscot myaccount”, iHub will create a permanent “mygovscot myaccount” for you anyway! And since they have created an account for you, they will never let you create another one.

So finally, once I had succeeded in logging into my “mygovscot myaccount” with the link I was sent, I tried to change my username (my virgin media email address), but the iHub software wouldn’t let me. Instead, it gave me the error message: “fault”. I guess their programmers haven't got around to writing the necessary software for this functionality yet. But I wish them well and I hope they succeed one day.

Why does the UK have such terrible telecoms companies? All I wanted to do was to create an “mygovscot myaccount”, so that I could apply online for a replacement "National Entitlement Card", which is just the official name for my OAP bus pass. But now I’ll have to ask a neighbour if he’ll push my wheelchair to the offices of my local council, so that I can apply in person.

I pity all the younger people in Britain who have to suffer such terrible online services.

The good news for me is that I now know that I do not have a virgin media email account… Yippee! I am now free to leave this company!

You’re welcome. 
It can take a few days for support to get to questions so I’ll try to offer some suggestions in the meantime.

Are you accessing your emails here?
https://my.virginmedia.com/my-apps/email/mailbox
You would sign in with your main account email address & password.
Do you have third party antivirus software? If yes then this may be preventing access.

When adding an account to Thunderbird you would enter the details thus:
imap.virginmedia.com
Port 993
SSL yes/on

smtp.virginmedia.com
Port 465
SSL on/yes

Username is the full email address
Password is your main account password.

 

I’d expect when you click on the change email address it will permanently allow you to use the 2nd email address & not the Virginmedia email so this should be fine to do so.
I have moved away from using my NTL/VM email addresses & use Google email &/or Yahoo email addresses for business & shopping. At least I know it’ll not stop working.

My Broadband Ping - Virginmedia

Travis_M
Forum Team
Forum Team

Hi @AngryOAP 

Thanks for posting on our community forum and sorry to hear about the issue with your mailbox.

I am going to drop you a private message now to collect some more information and investigate further, please keep an eye on your inbox for a message from myself.

Regards

Travis_M
Forum Team

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