Unable to change passwords for my secondary email accounts?

[MMG]

I have been trying to change the passwords for my secondary email accounts since 4.8.22. The previous password change option has been removed. Now the only option is to DELETE! I have spoken to 9 different customer service advisors and spent around 10 hours on the telephone! VM advisor today tells me that the only way to change the passwords for each of my VM secondary email accounts is to telephone VM and share my password with the Advisor who will reset the password! This seems to be totally contradicting the usual security advice "not to share your password with anyone". VM must have thousands of customers with secondary email accounts all ringing to change passwords! It makes no sense commercially for VM and is dreadful for customers hanging on the phone waiting to speak to an Advisor.  What is going on? I have been a loyal customer for many years but this experience has been disgusting.      

[MMG]

I have tried to change the passwords for my secondary email accounts but the only option is to DELETE! I have now spoken to 9 customer service advisors since 4.8.22 and spent around 10 hours on the phone!  Today I have been told that the only way to change these secondary email passwords is to phone VM and they change your password. Like you I think this is very unsecure and only feel safe changing my own password. VM must have thousands of customers wanting to change secondary email passwords it makes no sense. There customer service advisors are going to be spending their days changing passwords! We are being told to keep changing passwords and not share with anyone?! I have been a loyal VM customer for many years but the service I have received since 4.8.22 is disgraceful promised call back umpteen times never received a call back.  

[Graham_A]

If you are seeing the delete option then you are logged into the primary account.

Log out of that account and then sign into the My Virgin Media account for the secondary account with the secondary email address and current password.

You will then be able to change the password and update other details if required.

[jem101]

Now although Graham is technically correct, if you have forgotten the password for the secondary account then in practice if you follow his instructions to reset the password, what will happen is that you will be asked for answers to ‘security questions’ which you should have set up when the account was originally created. And no, not the answers associated with the primary account, those for the secondary account.

What, you never set up any security questions for secondary accounts? No me neither, because it was never required, until recently when VM decided to completely revamp how it all works! So that route leads nowhere.

Ok what you need to probably do is to call Customer Services and hope you don’t get put through to an agent who denies they can reset secondary account passwords or even that such things exist - does happen, see other threads on here! If you get them to reset it, then armed with that, you can then change the password to something more to your liking and even setup the aforementioned security questions so it doesn’t happen again.

It’s almost as if VM’s changes to the system were not entirely well thought out!

On the other hand, considering that VM no longer allow new email addresses to be created for new or existing customers, some might think that they might deliberately make the process as miserable as possible in a hope that enough customers give up to justify them closing the email provision entirely, might make some sense.

Of course some people might think that, I, naturally, couldn’t possibly comment!

Oh and the promised call backs, they hardly (well just about never really) actually happen. They are a means by which the customer service staff can get the annoying customer off the phone so they can chalk up another successfully closed call - which is the most important thing isn’t it?

[Graham_A]

I don't agree with Jem101 regarding security questions on secondary accounts.  These have been required for years and any time the secondary account was logged into the user has been promoted to set them up if not already set.

In any case the security answers only come into play when using the forgotten password route not the method outlined above which requires the current password to be known.

[jem101]

Sorry Graham, but with all due respect, rubbish’! 

So if these security questions have been ‘required for years’ how comes it is only in the past month or so that these sort of questions have suddenly exploded on the forums?

I have been a VM customer for over twenty years, in that time I have setup many ‘secondary’ email addresses for myself, my wife and two daughters - in all that time, not once have any of them felt the need to sign into the my.virginmedia.com website, nobody needed to or thought it necessary to ‘log into that account’, why would they? It’s a secondary email account, no more, no less, once setup on a device to access your email it just works. There’s no reason for any normal person to think anymore of it, until such times as it doesn’t work and/or they can’t remember the password and then find that VM have pulled the rug from under their feet!

No, sorry, but this is a typical, really poorly thought out decision made by people who have little or no idea of how things work in the real world or how users actually behave. Or even worse, don’t care about the end users!

Best wishes (honestly😀)

John

[Graham_A]

The security answers for secondary accounts were set by the primary account holder using the old My Profile/Manage Accounts page.

I have also been a customer for over 20 years and am very familiar with the workings of VM email accounts.

So we must agree to differ on this one.

[jem101]

Fair enough we’ll agree to differ and say so more about it.

I’ll not comment any more on this issue and leave it to you to explain the situation to other posters then. However, I can confidently say there will be more and more of these or similar cases reported here.

Best wishes

John

[MMG]

Hi Graham, thank you for taking the time to reply. Have just tried and the only problem is now my secondary email password now has to be used to access My Virginmedia account and Virgin Media Mail? See the Important message advising this which I have copied below:

"IMPORTANT You'll need to use the new password you've chosen wherever you use your My Virgin Media account to log in. This includes accessing Virgin Media Mail, and all Virgin Media apps, such as the Virgin TV Control and Virgin Media Connect app. When prompted, enter the new password you've chosen and log in."

This means if I now try to reset a password on another of my secondary email accounts that will then become the email and password to access MY Virgin Media, Virgin Media Mail etc and so on for all of my email addresses. This is utterly ridiculous. I have to agree that I think Virgin are just making the use of their email accounts so dreadful, time consuming and unsecure so that customers will give up there VM email accounts. 

If I am being forced to close all my VM email accounts I will leave VM altogether after many loyal years. I will not be treated with such distain by VM I am paying far more being with VM than elsewhere for a service which is diabolical. 

Do VM ever read posts on Community and offer help here? They certainly need to listen to the hours of recordings and promised call backs which never happen. I would hate other customers to have to experience what I have had to endure from this awful company. 

MMG

[MMG]

Hello Jem101, I appreciate you taking the time to reply. I totally agree that VM have decided to make using their emails so difficult, time consuming and frankly unsecure. Everyone knows passwords are personal and that you should never tell anyone your passwords yet VM are forcing you to give your passwords over the phone to total strangers. One advisor even set a password he came up with and I could not change it to a personal password known only to me. Today again I was forced to divulge another password to yet another total stranger on VM!

I think you are right in that VM so called "Customer Service" advisors are using the promise of a Technical Call Back to finish a call. I have spoken to 9 advisors so far and have again been promised a call back tomorrow - I am not holding my breath!

A loyal customer of many years will be leaving and warning others. Thank you again.

MMG