Email cancellation help

[LG66]

I work for a charity and we found out yesterday that our email account has been closed.  It appears that the person who registered the account died two years ago and when they left the charity about 15 years ago, didn't transfer ownership of the account.

We have been told that there is no way of retrieving the emails and now don't have any way of finding our contacts etc.,

Is there anything that we can do?  When I spoke to support today, I was told there wasn't. 

[goslow]

If the person who set up the mailbox is deceased, you may struggle to regain access as VM will require you to pass a security check on the mailbox. To continue using a virgin.net mailbox into the future, it needs to be associated with a subscription to VM broadband.

A VM forum person should reply here within a few days to advise.

[coenoby]

@LG66 

"no way of retrieving the emails and now don't have any way of finding our contacts"

Did you normally access this email account using the VM webmail service on the VM website? 

If so have you tried accessing the account using an email app or client? Sometimes it is still possible to access the account via an app/client for a while after the webmail access is removed by VM.

If you have the account set up on an email client such as Outlook or on a mail app on a phone you could try to see if that still has access to the charity's account

If you have not tried accessing the account via an email  app/client you can download Thunderbird (it's free email client) from here https://www.thunderbird.net .

Create an IMAP account in Thunderbird using the charity's VM email account and password. Sadly that may well fail due to recent measures VM  have implemented to make their email accounts more secure but it is the only way I can think of to recover the emails (but not the contacts) from that email account. 

It's a long shot at best but it's the best I can offer I'm afraid.

Coenoby

[LG66]

Thanks - we can't pass the security check on the mailbox.  We won't be using Virgin from now on - we've got a secondary email account that has barely been used, but it's going to have to be that one from now on.

[LG66]

Sadly we don't have an app or any other means of accessing the Virgin Mail - I'm afraid this is a classic case of lack of continuity and succession planning - when a Board member leaves the organisation checks like this should be made, and because it was such a long time ago predating when I started, this hasn't happened.  It's a very hard mistake but looks like there's no way we can access the emails - frustratingly most of our contacts are on there.

[coenoby]

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@LG66 wrote:

Sadly we don't have an app or any other means of accessing the Virgin Mail

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In my post I did give you a link to the Thunderbird website  https://www.thunderbird.net  where you can download the Thunderbird email client for free.  I have used that for many years.

At least it's worth trying to see if you can get access to the emails..

Coenoby

[Kirit]

Joining this topic as my historical email account of over 20 years was deleted a few days ago. I did not see the 30 days notice and am now at a loss on how to back up my old account.

Is there an option to have access again for a few days to allow me to back up?  Tried all the new email and password options but nothing. Are VM able to Support ?

[jpeg1]

Unfortunately once Virginmedia have closed the account there is nothing to go back to.