Customer support just told me 'all ntlworld accounts have been disabled' - can't get into my mail etc

[ChrisNoble]

So this a very aggravating one - yesterday at about 11am, my primary e-mail account (an ntlworld account) started failing - incorrect password. Happened on phone and desktop  - so presumably a server issue

Tried to log into 'My Virgin Media' - wrong password.

Since I use my own domain with a forwarder, I redirected the address to another e-mail address and got it to send a password reset:

Oops, we've ran into a problem.
Wait a minute and try again. If this doesn't work, please come back later. (Code: DEF01)

Phoned up Virgin this morning.

1. Apparently this account wasn't listed as my primary account - a (what I am sure was) an secondary account was now primary. Logged into the primary account on My Virginmedia successfully

2. Couldn't see a way to change the password on secondary accounts - going to 'Account Details > Manage other My Virgin Media accounts - lists the accounts (including the what-I-thought-was-primary ntlworld account) - but only with a 'delete' option - no edit options.

3. Customer service says that they will reset the password on the NTLworld account from their end. Comes back and says they can't do it and neither will have I "I've just been told that all NTLWorld accounts have been disabled and you would have been sent an e-mail to say they were being disabled."

1. Obviously I received no such e-mail
2. Other NTLWorld accounts are still working fine.
3. CSR cannot say when such an e-mail would have been sent

Sounds like a supervisor is pulling stuff out of their bottom to me.

So I'm stuck - unable to access a primary mailbox, or what was my primary account. CSR says she will escalate to IT who will get back to me in 5 days.

I am a bit annoyed. Anyone know what is *actually* going on?

[Jodi_S]

Thanks for the update ChrisNoble,

Glad to hear you received the help you needed. 

Sorry that you've had to migrate your emails away due to the issue.

If you need any further assistance, please come back to us through this channel.

Kind regards Jodi. 

[ALF28]

isp email

It is a good to have alternative email(s) in case you switch  provider and loose the isp email.

I use ntlworld.com and still do, for 20 years but migrated most contacts to other emails 6 years ago, mainly due to spam problems.

Virgin email like all free emails has to be used as any 90 day period of inactivity will result in the email being de-activated, although some are better like outlook.com and gmail.com that has 12 months period of inactivity or longer.

I migrated my emails  to other free email services, but bear in mind there is "no support" unless you use  the paid versions, at least there is some support for the virgin email, one advantage. Most have good security and recovery options which can be set up (2 factor authentication)

I have used gmail.com and outlook.com  and found them both very  reliable, but have also used many others such as yahoo.com, aol.com,mail.com,protonmail.com.

Some of the free ones have limited functions now, so the big players like gmail and microsoft are good choise.

Some people set up their own email service using hosted servers with their own domain.

It is a long process to switch emails so needs careful planning and can take a years to catch all your contacts, so wise to keep the virgin email active and working and use as spare email once you do switch to another email provider.

I think virgin are making some changes to their email system possibly to improve security etc, but I think they should increase the 90 day inactivity period to 12 months as it is a paid service but not as good as some free ones, and they are now restricting secondary email accounts for new cutomers.

[Sololobo]

---

@ALF28 wrote:

I think virgin are making some changes to their email system possibly to improve security etc, but I think they should increase the 90 day inactivity period to 12 months as it is a paid service but not as good as some free ones, and they are now restricting secondary email accounts for new cutomers.

---

Virgin Media Mail is (was?) provided as a free "value added" service, as such it cannot be considered as "paid for". What is paid for is VM's broadband connection.

[ravenstar68]

@Sololobo is spot on,

Virgin Media's email never has been a paid for service.  It's previously been provided to broadband account holders as a free service.

HOWEVER

While Virgin Media are maintaining the service for existing email accounts, they have now withdrawn the facility from new customers and have also frozen the ability to create new email addresses..

[ALF28]

Virgin email-yes it is a free add-on but many still use it to service their virgin media accounts so although free it is needed to access the VM account.

If the free email sevice is no longer available to new customers then how does virgin media get in touch, does this imply using you own existing email  address (non-virgin).

Is it the intention therfore to phase out the free virgin media email facility eventually.?- is there an end date.

At one time virgin used gmail, and Sky and BT use yahoo.com  mail but not sure if it is the free version or a paid version.

The free yahoo.com version has had some features removed recently and they will try to upgrade the account if you have issues, I do use yahoo.com myself.

The login to the VM account can be any email address, I do not use a virgin media email to login into my virgin account.

As exisitng customers can maintain  a virgin email while holding an exisitng account and can have secondary emails also, this is an advantage but I presume virgin will still require the virgin primary email to be attached to the VM account.

HOWEVER

While Virgin Media are maintaining the service for existing email accounts, they have now withdrawn the facility from new customers and have also frozen the ability to create new email addresses..

This also is unusual because most broadband providers do provide an email facilty.

alf28

[Graham_A]

@ALF28  New VM customers will need to use a third party email address to log into their My Virgin Media account and for all correspondence with VM.

Your last paragraph is rather out of date.  Very few ISPs provide email accounts these days.

BT have made a similar announcement today re stopping email provision for new customers.

[ALF28]

New VM customers will need to use a third party email address to log into their My Virgin Media account and for all correspondence with VM.

Thanks for the clarification regarding new VM customers.

I have also noted the following for existing customers- who can continue to use the virign media email service.

Virgin Passwords- have reverted back to 10 digits, not 64 digits but I have 3 that are still set at 16 digits.?

Secondary email accounts listed in the primary account can now only be deleted, there is no edit facility any more (existing customers), however the secondary account holder can update passwords.

If a new secondary account is added by an invite, it will be in a third party email thus with no email facility, as new virginmedia.com emails can no longer be created, so there is little point in opening a secondary account which has no email?

So many changes do keep happening with the new virgin media web site and yet no advance warnings of these changes which are happening daily at the moment.

I presume my ntlworld.com primary and virginmedia.com secondary  emails are safe for the moment, and will continue to function for existing customers as long as the account remains open, and if they were to be removed by virgin in the future, I hope advance warnings would be given regarding any changes.

The email filters in settings are not reliable, settings often change and need to be reset, resulting in emails not been filtered correctly or actually deleted and going to trash. I have two events where filters have lost the action setting so the emails do not go to the chosen folder, and in other cases enabled switched to dissabled and even the conditions can also be changed, so best to check the filter settings regularly or emails can go to wrong folders or trash etc.I do not use blacklisting as that can conflict with filter settings. I have an autoforward set up but some emails ,usually spam do not always autoforward properly.

alf28

[coenoby]

@ALF28 

I think I can help with some of your questions:

"Virgin Passwords- have reverted back to 10 digits, not 64 digits but I have 3 that are still set at 16 digits.?"

My understanding is that VM's initial implementation of increasing the password length to a maximum of 64 hit a few snags. Therefore VM temporarily reverted back to setting the maximum of 10 when you reset a password. However the plan is to roll back to the 64 limit once they have ironed out the initial snags.

"Secondary email accounts listed in the primary account can now only be deleted, there is no edit facility any more (existing customers), however the secondary account holder can update passwords."

VM seem to have changed the way you reset passwords for a secondary email account. To clarify that, there are now two ways to reset the password on a secondary account:

1.  Log on to the "My Virgin Media" account for that secondary email account, (yes even secondary accounts have a MYM account.) So sign in using the secondary address and password from here https://virginmedia.com/my-virgin-media and you can reset the password and edit other details for that secondary account in the account details section.
2. If you cannot use the MVM route for some reason, you can still use the change password option as before - https://www.virginmedia.com/my-virgin-media/forgotten-details/password 

"I presume my ntlworld.com primary and virginmedia.com secondary emails are safe for the moment, and will continue to function for existing customers as long as the account remains open,"

When the changes were published (in a  VM email help sheet) VM said :

"Please note, from May 2022 Virgin Media will be phasing out the ability for customers to create new Virgin Media email addresses. Customers with an existing Virgin Media email address will not be affected, their mail account will remain as is.”

That would suggest your presumption about your existing accounts is correct. The only thing I will say is that as far as I can see, VM's announcement no longer appears in the link to that help sheet. https://www.virginmedia.com/help/billing-and-payments/manage-email-account .

I hope that helps.

Coenoby

[ALF28]

SECONDARY EMAIL ACCOUNTS-recovery can be difficult.

Thanks for the details on secondary emails.

My wife lost her login details but could not recover the account ,as she also lost the security question answer, and  an email recovery code is sent to the locked out email (how stupid is that), (the alternative contact address is no longer an option which is now removed for secondary emails).

The email can no longer be edited/password change in the primary account for some reason, only deleted now.

However she found the lost credentials eventually on a piece of paper and so the account is working now. (panic over)

The recovery can only be done with a date of birth and the security question answer, so these need to be safely recorded by the secondary account holder.

So   recovery by email sending a code  is no longer an option if locked out, nor the primary account email management, so if locked out of a secondary email it requires you to answer the security questions and if that fails  it would require virgin to unlock the account.

I have checked all accounts now and recorded the credentials/security questions.

alf28

[ALF28]

UDATE-SECONDARY EMAIL RECOVERY

I found that the email system remembered the alternative contact address and sent two reset password links to a gmail.com address at 08.08 and 9.30am,  but strangely also sent a change email adddress verification  to the locked virgin email. which was unusual as it was locked out at the time 08.56 am, and was  not recovered as the lost password was found written down and used to login approx 10.00am

[CORRECTION- the email verification was an old one, when I checked the date but had me confused for a while.]

I think the password/email reset was not working properly and not bringing up the usual reset page, but I have checked and it now asks for account number etc unless a secondary account  it instructs you to contact the account holder, but they can not now change secondary accounts-only delete them now, so seems to be out of date, but if the email address was "forgotten" then it could be found listed in the primary account and recovery attempted.

Forgotten your email address?

To recover your email address we need your account number, area reference and date of birth.

You’ll find these details on your bill or welcome email.

Not the main account holder?

If you are not the main holder and are using a My Virgin Media sub account you will need to contact the main account holder.

They will be able to check what email address you are using by going to My Virgin Media > Account settings > Account details > Manage accounts.

Account holder's date of birth

Account number

Area reference

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Note the password reset indicated it would go to the locked email but went to gmail

I tried the password recovery as a test and it is difficult, the  first attempt was error defo1, took a few goes and the refused password strength twice, but kept trying again with the gmail reset link and finally worked.

alf28