Email hacked

[MikeMurphy2001]

My virgin.net email account of 30 years has been stolen by hackers. I can’t log into my account now because they’ve changed my password. How do I get help?

[Kain_W]

Thanks for the response MikeMurphy2001, 

Just from checking our system I can see through another thread that our team has invited you into a PM.

To avoid confusion I'll allow responses to occur from there.

Regards,

[MikeMurphy2001]

Hello John,

Unfortunately, this has not yet been resolved.

I should have mentioned that when I moved into my current home, I asked Virgin for a service. They could not provide it because there is no cable here.

Am I to be penalised simply because you could not provide a service to me?

I also note that any email sent to my account has no reply. You have not even set up an automated response informing the sender that my account is no longer active. In fact, I thought I had been hacked! This means that many companies writing to me will think I am simply ignoring them. This will undoubtedly cost me financially and could damage my business reputation. Will Virgin recompense me?

Should I be seeking legal advice on this situation?

As I mentioned previously, I am willing to become a customer again, but you seem to be blocking that too. Why?

Regards,

Mike.

[Akua_A]

We can understand this is not the news you wanted to hear regarding your email account. Unfortunately, once the account is closed, any email addresses attached to the account are supposed to be closed within 90 days. You can find all you need to know here https://www.virginmedia.com/legal/fibre-optic-services-terms-conditions We do apologise that in your case, the email remained active until a recent sweep was done by our team. We are unable to retrieve the email back even if you were to rejoin our services.  If you wish to raise a complaint, please respond back to our team via private message and they will be happy to assist.

Thanks,

[MikeMurphy2001]

You've ignored what I wrote above. This conversation is pointless.

What is your CEO's email address? I will write to him.

[Adri_G]

Thanks for this reply although we're sad to see your frustration with this matter, MikeMurphy2001.

I will send you a private message here shortly so we can raise your concerns, please check the top right-hand corner to find the purple envelope and you'll see my message.

[MikeMurphy2001]

YOU cannot provide me with a service and I have to pay the price by losing my 31 year old email address!!!

Is that right?

[goslow]

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@MikeMurphy2001 wrote:

YOU cannot provide me with a service and I have to pay the price by losing my 31 year old email address!!!

Is that right?

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Have you spoken to the ICO about this for advice?

https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/contact-us-public/public-advice/

VM has continued to process and store your information for a very long time (long after they said they would delete it). Their own processes currently state they will delete the data after 90 days from leaving VM (but they regularly fail to do this). This has left customers vulnerable to email accounts being taken over which were assumed to be closed.

In your case, the reverse was true. By failing to delete your account within 90 days you have continued to use the account and have important information stored therein. IMHO this is a failure to handle your personal information correctly in so far as they have failed to delete your data within the timescales they state and, when they did get around to doing so after a significant length of time, they failed to give you any warning that a very active account was about to be deleted imminently.

You have nothing to lose by contacting ICO. If you get any feedback from them, it would be interesting to hear what it is on the forum.

Good luck with it.

[MikeMurphy2001]

Many thanks for this info about the ICO. I will pursue it. I’m also speaking to a lawyer soon. I’m sure the contents of my emails are my ‘property’ and VM have no right to withhold them from me. 

I’m also going to contact the Ombudsman. We can’t allow big companies to do this sort of thing.

Thanks.

[MikeMurphy2001]

How do I make an official complaint?

[MikeMurphy2001]

Now Virginmedia are just ignoring me, hoping I’ll go away.

I won’t.

Hopeless company. Pathetic customer service…