Removing my wifes unused email account.

[Gooner11]

Hi could someone please help, my wifes name is the primary email account and mine is a secondary one. All emails sent to my wife come to me. Could someone please advise how I remove my wifes email address as she doesn’t use it and make my address the primary one. Also my daughter changed her name through marriage and I would like to know how I change her mail address to her married name, hope this make sense. Thanks.

[Graham_A]

@Gooner11  Unfortunately, whilst both tasks sound simple enough, neither is possible in the VM Mail system.

The primary username is set in the VM account setup system and cannot be changed, other than to a completely different non virgin media email address that the user already has or creates for the purpose via a third party email supplier.  Changing the primary username does not alter the underlying email address.

Once an email address is set up it isn't possible to then change it at a later date.  If your daughter wants an email address in her married name she will have to create a new email address with her chosen email supplier.  

[Gooner11]

Thanks for that graham, the problem I have is that many years ago when I set up the mail address I somehow ended up with 3 addresses for me. One in my wifes name( which appears to be the the main one)  one in mine and one with a combination of number and letters. Only my address is needed but I can’t remove the other 2. Can someone from virgin please help. 

[Graham_A]

Your description sounds very much as if the different email addresses are aliases of the primary account.

This was possible with blueyonder accounts and possibly Ntlworld accounts.

The way that the alias addresses work is that they share the same mailbox as the parent address.  This means that they cannot be deleted without deleting the parent address.

[Gooner11]

Again thanks for your help, your probably right because the account was set up many many years ago. The problem is my wifes names is the primary one and then the 3 aliases are my wife, myself and the mix up of letters and numbers. It hasn’t caused a problem up till today when my daughter sent an email to my wifes address but obviously it came to me. Fortunately she doesn’t use this address ( my daughter didn’t realise). I wanted to remove my wifes address and make mine the primary one but  it’s seems like this isn’t possible.  I’m the virgin media account holder so you would think someone from virgin could sort this out? 

[Graham_A]

The Virgin Media Forum Team should respond to this thread in a day or so.

They may suggest that their IT colleagues can delete alias addresses without deleting the parent address, however previous posts on this forum have  indicated that this often ends up with entirely unsatisfactory results.

I will keep an eye on this thread to see how it develops.

[Gooner11]

That wouldn’t be of any use, unless my email address can be made primary and my wifes moved it wouldn’t be of any use. 

[Tom_F]

Hi Gooner11, thanks for getting in touch. 

I'm sorry to hear you've encountered this issue with your email addresses. 

Unfortunately I have to confirm what Graham_A suspected, it's not possible for us to swap an email alias with the primary - or delete the primary email address for an active account. I've questioned this in the past and it was agreed that would be a useful thing for us to be able to do, but unfortunately at this stage hasn't been implemented - apologies.

Tom 

[Gooner11]

Thanks for getting in touch Tom, it doesn’t make sense that I have 3 email addresses and one of those includes my wifes name. What would happen if we separated and she was to use that address? All her e mails would come to me. Thanks for the reply but I can’t see the sense in it.m