Email lockout

[JimAdams]

Dear Forum,

I appear to have been locked out of my virgin.net email.

I did not change the password and it won't let me reset the password either.

I have tried for hours on the phone to get someone who can tell me the problem but

they don't seem to have any technical expertise for emails nor any support for dealing with it.

Can anyone help me solve this or provide a contact to someone who can help?

Yours, Jim.

[用心棒]

The forum team are best placed to help further however be aware that: (a) it can take them a few hours / days to respond; (b) the help they can offer maybe limited if the email address in not linked to an active Virgin Media broadband  service.

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[Akua_A]

Hi @JimAdams,

Welcome to our community forums and thank you for your first post.

Sorry to hear you have been having recent issues with your email. Just to clarify, do you have an active VM account with us? What error message do you get when logging in? Have you tried the following link? https://www.virginmedia.com/help/billing-and-payments/login-problems

Thanks,

[JimAdams]

Hello @Akua_A

Thank you for your reply.

Yes, I have attempted to find help from the site but I'm afraid it's just a massive web of dead-ends.

I have also spent over eight hours on the telephone (mostly on hold) with no luck.

My original password responds with "incorrect" - I did not change it.

Similarly, when I try to change/reset to a new password it responds with "you can't use that password try another".

And that happens no matter how many passwords I try.

There is no option to contact any Security and Fraud Department within the company.

I see no alternative but to go to the Police and report this as "Data Theft", "Identity Theft" and/or "Fraud".

I will also send an actual "letter" to Head Office in Reading and label it addressed to "Security and Fraud Department".

I can't imagine that they haven't got one somewhere. There's certainly no useful contact info on the site about it.

I also noticed that there is no useful offline backup system that can be used.

The facilities that are supplied don't even work properly are an afront to good database design.

Mind you that also seems to be true of other email services such as GMail.

I'll be 70 in a couple of months and I have become more and more dependent on email communications.

And now I am scared for my future.

[jem101]

---

@JimAdams wrote:

Hello @Akua_A

Thank you for your reply.

Yes, I have attempted to find help from the site but I'm afraid it's just a massive web of dead-ends.

I have also spent over eight hours on the telephone (mostly on hold) with no luck.

My original password responds with "incorrect" - I did not change it.

Similarly, when I try to change/reset to a new password it responds with "you can't use that password try another".

And that happens no matter how many passwords I try.

There is no option to contact any Security and Fraud Department within the company.

I see no alternative but to go to the Police and report this as "Data Theft", "Identity Theft" and/or "Fraud".

I will also send an actual "letter" to Head Office in Reading and label it addressed to "Security and Fraud Department".

I can't imagine that they haven't got one somewhere. There's certainly no useful contact info on the site about it.

I also noticed that there is no useful offline backup system that can be used.

The facilities that are supplied don't even work properly are an afront to good database design.

Mind you that also seems to be true of other email services such as GMail.

I'll be 70 in a couple of months and I have become more and more dependent on email communications.

And now I am scared for my future.

---

The most important question asked, and one you have failed to answer is 'are you a current Virgin Media broadband customer?' If 'yes' then the next question is 'have you always been a customer since originally setting up the email address, and have you moved or had any break in service?'

[Adri_G]

Hello JimAdams, thank you for reaching out on our help forum with your issue.

We're sorry to hear of the issues faced with your email account and password recently, we're eager to best help with this.
As our helpful staff member Akua asked above, can you please advise if you have an active account and service from us, currently?

Let us know as we're eager to assist with the issue with your password. 
Please, be advised if no you're longer a customer any emails would stop working within 90 days from the service disconnection and account closure. 
Feel free to ask if you have more questions, we'll do our best to advise.

[JimAdams]

Thank you everyone for your replies so far. I had a television account long ago. But this email is unrelated to it. That one disappeared after closure.

No, this one was a special offer when Richard Branson was in charge and the contract was essentially something like - "Free Email for life". I probably have the original CD with the original software and T&Cs.

This was in 1996 and so my two virgin.net Email addresses are both 25 years old based on that original contract. I guess that makes them two of the oldest Email addresses in the world. Just for that alone, I should be allowed to keep, or at least migrate them elsewhere.

At the moment though my main concern is my data and contacts.

I'm starting to get a sneaking suspicion that this has not been hacked by a third party but hacked by someone in the Virgin Financial Department. Either way I consider this a cybercrime and I shall definitely be going to the police. I still want my data and attachments out of there.

I'm still open to any further suggestions and solutions.

[JimAdams]

Hi Adri, No, I have never had any other accounts attached to this email. It was a free standing deal and it has been fine for 25 years.

And thanks for your reply..

[jpeg1]

When you started up these email accounts, were you dialling up on a phone line to use them? If so you will need to read the Dial up section of this post. 

https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Email/Orphan-Email-accounts/td-p/3492073

Since you still have the original Ts & Cs it would be worth checking what they say.

Hopefully a staff member will pick this up and attempt to get temporary access so that you can recover what you need, but those email addresses will not be going indefinitely and you will need to find alternatives, as many others in your position have had to do.

It's extremely unlikely that there has been any illegal activity. 

[Kath_F]

Hi JimAdams, 

Thanks for coming back to us on this one. 

Any email accounts need to be connected to an active broadband account in order to stay active now so if it's not, this could be why it is no longer working for you. 

We would need to take a closer look at things in order to help further but will need to confirm some information with you. I have sent you a private message regarding this. Just click on the little plum envelope at the top right-hand side of the page to access your inbox.

Thanks,