Virgin Media Community

[ryanpiran]

Hi,

I've also been unable to access my @virginmedia.com email account for three days now. I've tried support by phone and most recently via the 07533051809 support text message system which Virgin Media asked me to use on Twitter. However the support text messages halted all of a sudden yesterday afternoon. So I thought I'd try the forum. It would seem from the number of similar posts that a large number of users are affected by this.

I have some time sensitive emails which I need to respond to so any help with this would be much appreciated!

[MissPasko]

For anyone reading this thread, please start your own thread as per Forum guidelines.  One person one problem one thread.  You will get individual attention and when solved, you can mark the thread as solved.

@ryanpiran 

• Are you a VM broadband customer?
• Is your email address showing in the my profile/my services page, or the manage accounts tab when you sign in at myvirginmedia.com? https://my.virginmedia.com/
• What error message do you get when you try to sign in to webmail? https://my.virginmedia.com/my-apps/email/mailbox
• Have you changed your password - the team will need to know this is done.

[ryanpiran]

@MissPasko

- Yes I'm a VM Broadband customer
- Yes the account is shown here and I have changed the password through this page but it has had no affect
- The Error message displayed is as follows:

Your mailbox is not available at the moment.

Please retry again in one hour and make sure you are using the correct password to access your email from all of your devices.

If the problem continues, please call our team for help on 150 from a Virgin Media phone or mobile, or 0345 454 1111 from any other phone and select option 2. For details about how much it costs to call our team from a Virgin Media home phone, visit virginmedia.com/callcosts. Call costs from other networks and mobiles vary.

- As above yes I have just changed my password via the manage accounts tab at myvirginmedia.com

Thanks in Advance for any help with this!

[David_Bn]

Good Morning ryanpiran,

Thanks for your post on our Community Forums and a very warm welcome to you!

Sorry to see you've been having issue with your E-Mail account. It sounds like your E-Mail address may have been locked for security purposes by our IT team.

We can resolve this issue but this would need to be done with the account holder, can you please confirm that the Media account is under your name?

Kindest regards,

David_Bn

[ryanpiran]

@David_Bn

Thanks for your reply. It would seem from the number of people having this exact same issue reported on the forum there may have been a security issue that has led to a large number of account being locked then?

No I'm not the account holder. This is a family account so the account holder is actually my father. It's an email address I've had for many years but is my primary email address which I need access to.

[David_Bn]

Thanks for coming back to me ryanpiran,

If your Father can set up a Community Forum profile and can contact me, I'll be happy to assist further

Alternatively, if you're Father can call us on 0345 454 1111 our team will be able to discuss this with him and have the E-Mail address back up and running

Sorry I can't currently be of further assistance 

David_Bn

[pauln2]

@David_Bn

I am the VM account holder for ryanpiran's email account. Would you please assist in unblocking his access. He is expecting to access some very important emails. 

Thanks

[David_Bn]

Thanks for your post pauln2,

Sorry for the inconvenience this ma have caused you

Check out the purple envelope in the top right hand corner for a PM from me

Kindest regards,

David_Bn

[MissPasko]

---

@ryanpiran wrote:

@David_Bn

Thanks for your reply. It would seem from the number of people having this exact same issue reported on the forum there may have been a security issue that has led to a large number of account being locked then?

No I'm not the account holder. This is a family account so the account holder is actually my father. It's an email address I've had for many years but is my primary email address which I need access to.

---

This is a general message to anyone who might read this thread, not just the original poster.  I am not a legal expert, and I am not a business contracts expert, nor an expert in domain name rules.  This is my understanding of the system.

Unless you have your own personal domain, and run your own mail-server, you do not own "your" email address.  Any VM domain addresses (virginmedia.com -- blueyonder.co.uk -- ntlworld.com -- virgin.net) are owned by Virgin Media (or any parent company -  I guess that is Liberty Global or whoever it is in future).

The Terms and Conditions at Virgin Media allow account holders to create and use a primary address which is permanently linked to an account, and up to 9 secondary addresses at any one time permanently linked to the primary address profile.  There are also some alias addresses for blueyonder accounts.  The email addresses have a mailbox attached.  There are conditions that have to be met for all these to be active/enabled.

The named account holder can access any of the secondary email addresses - read the emails, send emails, delete emails, delete contacts, change the password to the account, even delete the address and mailbox ENTIRELY, after which it can never be recreated.  The named account holder can gain access to any service linked to the email address - bank accounts, shopping accounts, social media, etc.

The named account holder can cease Virgin Media services and all those addresses are meant to close after 90 days.  The named account holder may die or become incapacitated, and the account closed or transferred to someone else.

Except in the case of under-age family members, do you really want someone else in control of your favourite email address and precious personal data?

Virgin Media provide the email services as a free add-on to the broadband service.  While I'm sure they don't intend to close it - they could do so with very little notice!  At the moment, it helps create sticky customers.  People who like their email address and don't want the hassle of leaving their ISP because they don't want to change email address, even when prices rise or service is not to their liking.

But VM don't guarantee any service level.  Generally it works, sometimes it breaks down for everyone.  Sometimes it breaks for some customers.  The support is patchy, the spam filtering has good days and bad days.  The security level is not really good enough for modern banking and finance transactions.

So have a long hard think about whether you really need an email address that has these limitations.  It is probably worth the hassle to choose a new one and gradually move your requirements over to it.

All these email addresses are under the control of the named account holder.