Orphaned Account - Oct 2021

[John_B2021]

Hi,

I signed up for a virgin email account when they started and seem to remember it was marketed at the time as an "e-mail address for life" ...and have been using my ....@virgin.net e-mail address ever since, quite happily. I even worked for Virgin for a while.

Then last week .. cut off ... no warning, no offer to upgrade, nothing ... just stopped.

It might have been polite to at least notify me?

No I'm not a VM customer and searching online suspect that it might be tagged as an "orphaned account"

Anyway of getting this back? Sign up for something?

[Serena_C]

Hi @John_B2021

I'm really sorry, but unfortunately to use a Virgin Media email account, you must have an active Virgin Media broadband subscription as @jem101 advised.

Apologies for any inconvenience caused.

Kind regards,

Serena

[John_B2021]

Thanks Serena,

OK ... I'll scratch my head to see how I get a VM Broadband Package where Virgin can't currently provide it, elderly relative maybe? 🤔 ... in the meantime

..Let's work the problem ... we got a Man on the Moon 50 years ago so this should be easy to solve in comparison

OK so when I worked for Virgin (Atlantic) some years ago I remember the whole Virgin Group as being very innovative (+ fun) ... and RB himself is a man quick to take take a business opportunity when they arose ... Here's the situation as I see it:

• Reading through the posts here I'm obviously not the only one who took the offer of an "e-mail address for life" many years ago and signed up with Virgin. Do I still have the documents ...No, but obviously I've been using it for ever which gives it some value to me, as it will to some others.
• So I'm probably not the only one in this particular boat.
• I'd be happy to sign up for a VM broadband package ... but VM are currently unable to offer that in the are in which I live, and moving house seems and extreme measure to keep an e-mail address
• It costs VM something to host my e-mail ... somewhere a hard disk is spinning and that costs ... and as the world has moved on I should not expect that for free.
• Am I happy to pay for it and for VM to make something out of it ... YES
• We just need to put together a simple package where I pay to keep what I have, and VM make something from it
• VM is understandably keen to encourage new customers to take up its Broadband package to cover it's investments made so might not want to offer a "watered down" version of just an e-mail account to new customers, but obviously in my case that's not available from VM.
• .. but that shouldn't mean it's impossible to offer "legacy" e-mail holders the chance to cover their costs and contribute to VM's coffers in some way.

Why not push this issue up to Marketing? As I say I remember Virgin taking great pride in being innovative and they might even appreciate you doing so 🙂 I'm sure together we can solve this.

Kind Regards

John

[Serena_C]

Thanks for your response @John_B2021

I will raise your suggestions regarding keeping an email address when you no longer have Virgin Media services with the appropriate team, but as Kath previously advised, while your account is still working I would recommend setting up another email address with one of the many free providers and forwarding all your important mail over to the new email address.

Apologies for the inconvenience,

Serena

[John_B2021]

Thanks Serena,

Sounds like two sensible ways ahead. 

Knowing Virgin I'm sure they can come up with something ... but I'll start with your "Plan B" just in case they are no longer as innovative as they used to be.

Thanks again for your help and I hope you have a great weekend

John

[ravenstar68]

@John_B2021 - The only way VM would be able to do that is if they were to copy some of the ISP's and provide an email only subscription to existing email users.

HOWEVER

BT and others have comme under fire for making people pay to kee their emails.  My understanding is that OFCOM are investigating the practice.

Personally I have no isue with it, running email servers costs time and money.  That cost is factored into the money made from Broadband subscriptions.  In the old days, the money was made from you dialing in via Modem (I miss the screechy noises 😂).  Even though it may have had the tagline - E-mail for life, the smallprint was that you needed to dial in at least once every 180 days in order to keep it active.

BTW Fun fact - Virgin Group stopped having anything to do with virgin.net years ago.  It was launched as a joint venture with NTL and then taken over solely by NTL.  The rebranding of NTL/Telewest laer on to Virgin Media, was simply that - a rebranding with Virgin Group licensing the name for NTL/Telewest to use.  Richard Branson was trotted out for marketting purposes only.  Add to that Virgin Media was accquired by Liberty Global back around 2013.

Tim

[jem101]

@John_B2021please for your own sanity do not have even the slightest hope that somehow VM will come up with a solution for you to keep the mailbox without being a customer. The Virgin Group might well be the most innovative, far sighted and availed company on the planet (hint : they aren’t) but as @ravenstar68 says, that’s all irrelevant as the Virgin Group and Branson have absolutely nothing to do with VM (other than letting them use their brand) - VM is a wholly owned subsidiary of an American company called Liberty Global, who when they say jump, the board of VM reply in unison’ yes sir, how high exactly sir’.

Even if the marketing people though your idea had merit, it would require new billing, customer services and accounting procedures to be put in place, there would be technical issues to address and change - it is all geared up for email addresses to be tied to live broadband accounts, that would all need to be unpicked.

Short answer, it’s just not going to happen.

Getting a relative in a VM area to sign up, probably won’t work either. I believe for a move and transfer to take place (as the process is called), the old email address needs to be associated with an account  - which yours being orphaned, won’t be. Again it’s a procedural thing, there just isn’t a mechanism to do it.

Lastly, you can setup forwarders on your old address but these would be associated with the mailbox itself, once the mailbox is finally deleted, the forwarder would go with it, so this is a strictly short term method just to get you enough time to notify all of your contacts that your email address has changed.

I’m sorry to say that this email address absolutely will vanish, could be later today, could be a couple of months but it is on borrowed time.

John

[John_B2021]

Thanks for taking the time to reply Ravenstar<

<The only way VM would be able to do that is if they were to copy some of the ISP's and provide an email only subscription to existing email users>

... "managed to get a Man on the Moon 50 years ago" as I say ... gotta think positive! 🙂 ... and I promise not to complain to OFCOM 😂

And ... Gosh yes I'd forgotten the old warbling when I connected on my PSION 3 just to receive a one line e-mail from CompuServe! ...OMG how many minutes/hours if my life did I waste waiting for those things to connect?!

Thanks also for the info about Liberty Global ... I did know about that actually as was (vaguely) associated with the team flying Mike Fries (CEO) and his team around in their business jets at the time, which were an invaluable tool for them as they hopped between "goodness knows how many meetings" in "goodness knows how many countries". In fact still have the contacts ... perhaps that'd be a better route to keeping my e-mail address? 🤔 Bit "extra" tho!

[John_B2021]

Thanks Jem for the reply,

<Even if the marketing people though your idea had merit, it would require new billing, customer services and accounting procedures to be put in place, there would be technical issues to address and change - it is all geared up for email addresses to be tied to live broadband accounts, that would all need to be unpicked. Short answer, it’s just not going to happen.> 

Yep I agree with your assessment ...however a quick look at Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_Global) suggest they probably have the expertise to pull it off 🤔 if so desired 😃

<Getting a relative in a VM area to sign up, probably won’t work either. I believe for a move and transfer to take place (as the process is called), the old email address needs to be associated with an account  - which yours being orphaned, won’t be. Again it’s a procedural thing, there just isn’t a mechanism to do it> ... OKkkkkk .... only now it seems I DO have an account number associated with my account/sorry e-mail address so could that new account number be used?

In the meantime yes I am following your sound advice about transferring things over but, it's only when you start doing this you realise quite how much of your life, correspondence, apps, bank accounts etc etc etc are all associated with an on-line identity. Bit like clearing out the attic when you move house! 😕

ATB

John

[deepdhaliwal]

Hi, I'm currently experiencing the same issue as the OP, can anybody help?

I have tried numerous times to call up (and have been hung up on twice) along with hitting a brick wall over and over again when using the WhatsApp service.

I have tried to send a test email to the account and do not get a non deliverable message, so really hoping something can be done to resurrect the account, even if its just for a short time to allow me to transfer its contents.

Thanks in advance,

Mohinder

[Ashleigh_C]

Hi there @deepdhaliwal

Thank you so much for your post and welcome back to the forums, it's great to have you here! 

I'm so sorry to hear that you are also effected by this issue! 

Can I ask if the email is linked to a current and active broadband account at all? 

Thank you.