Once you left VM originally, then yes the email address should have been deleted after 90 days, often VM are quite lax about doing this and as you have found the address lingers on for some time, but is always prone to being deleted at any point after then. This is quite clear in the Ts and Cs you agreed to when you first joined VM.
The email address would have been classed as orphaned, ie not associated with a current broadband account, when you rejoined, it might (and I stress might) have been possible to associate it with your new broadband account - unfortunately I suspect that by now it is too late and the email address, mailbox and all the mail within it has now been deleted, or is in the process of being so.
As per the question of ‘why have you been lied to’ this seems to be a not uncommon occurrence with the offshore customer support staff, a mixture of poor training, inability to deviate from a script and a tendency to just make anything up to get you off the phone if they don’t know. VM have no provision for you to email them, I don’t believe they ever have had, the ‘tech support will reinstate it in x days’, was just a ‘shut up and get off the phone so I can chalk up another closed call’
Although VM’s processes and procedures can often be disjointed, chaotic and have have been lifted directly from a training manual written by Kafka, the onus was actually on yourself to make alternative arrangement regarding your email when you left two years ago. The fact that you got two years of ‘free’ email provision was a bit of a bonus but does have a habit of coming round to bite you back very hard indeed - just have a look through the many threads regarding similar issues.
I will escalate this thread to the forum staff to contact you and see what if anything could be done, but honestly I wouldn’t hold out much hope.
John
