Unable to access legacy virgin.net email account

[Annette_H]

I have two virgin.net legacy email addresses and one of them has stopped working but not the other one.  I would like to access the one that has stopped working so.  I just keep being asked to put the password in, which I have done but which doesn't get accepted.  How do I contact Virgin media to ask them what to do?

[jem101]

Annette, are you a current Virgin Media broadband customer? If so and you log into the my.virginmedia.com website with your main (broadband account) username and password, if you then select Manage Accounts, do you see either or both of the email addresses listed?

John

[John_GS]

Hi Annette_H

Thanks for posting. 

Apologies for the email issue. 

Can you confirm, are the emails in question linked to an active Virgin Media account and if so, can you try changing the password to see if that reset works? 

Best,

[Annette_H]

No, it is not an active account.  We were ported over to TalkTalk because there was no Virgin fibre in our area.  However, access to the email addresses continued until a couple of weeks ago when one of them stopped.  The other one still seems to be active.  I would understand it if both of them stopped but not just one.

[Sololobo]

You obviously missed this post from November 2014: https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Forum-Archive/Virgin-Media-National-Switch/td-p/2550863 where the bare minimum of information was provided to Virgin National customers.

There was also a dedicated website, no longer available, which at the time gave even less information than the above linked post. (See link in above post but not available now, not even on Wayback.)

Apparently letters were also issued to soon to be ex Virgin National customers.

There was a 39 page thread on the forum at the time which historically you may find of interest https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Forum-Archive/Re-Virgin-Media-National-Switch/m-p/2551129, as well as several other associated posts which I'm sure I could locate, but somehow I just can't be bothered after 6 years.

As you have just discovered, VM have been somewhat lax in closing legacy email accounts, but they have finally got around to one of yours. 

Accept that your closed account has gone for good, any currently working VM email addresses will find the same fate and act accordingly. Create new non ISP provided email accounts and migrate all your communications to them ASAP.

[Annette_H]

Thank you very much.  I thought this would be the case and I have already migrated the recipients of my other email address to another address.

Regards,

Annette

[Kath_F · Accepted solution]

Hi Annette, 

Thanks for coming back and updating things. 

We're sorry to hear that your email account may have been deleted after all these years. Whilst if it is deleted there will be nothing we can do, there is a chance we can temporarily restore access. It's not guaranteed but I am happy to try. If anything it will atleast allow you to pull any information you need before it gets deleted for good. 

I must stress this is only a one time thing and if it works, we won't be able to do this again and access may last a few hours or a few months so take the time to swap things over. 

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,
 

[Annette_H]

Hi Kath,

Many thanks.  I have provided the information you need in my reply to your private message.

Kind regards,

Annette

[Kath_F]

Hi Annette_H, 

Thanks for coming back to me via private message with your details. 

I have checked today and unfortunately I am not able to provide temporary access to the email address. It has fully locked and the IT team won't unlock unless we can attach it to an active broadband account. 

Apologies once again for any inconvenience. 

Thanks,

[Annette_H]

Hi Kath,

Thanks for your efforts.

Kind regards,

Annette