Virgin mail stopped this morning.

[Clarkeyboy]

I am aware that I may be in big trouble here, as it appears that my virgin.net email has stopped working as of this morning. I have been using this address for so long, I can't remember! With everything set up via that address, I even used it in preference to the newer "virginmedia.com" choice when given the opportunity many years ago.

I am aware that the use of the service may be gone, but I have multiple accounts that point to that address and changing account details on many sites seems to be impossible as they need to confirm via that virgin.net address! All rather complicated to say the least!

Am I able to get messages forwarded at the very least, if I am unable to get the account accessed? I have had no indication that this would happen at the given time, so it's been a rather stressful time to say the least!

Any help would be most appreciated!

[m00g]

Firstly, are you an active Virgin Media Broadband user?

If so, try resetting the password via your account at VM.

If that doesnt work someone from the forum team will pick this up.

[Clarkeyboy]

Thanks for the reply - I've been trying everything via the Virgin website, but frankly they've been no help at all! I'm unable to change the password and everything points to a frozen account or a system outage, but I am sadly expecting the worst!

[m00g]

One of the forum Staff will be along in a day or so, hopefully sooner, and i wish you luck getting it back.

[Clarkeyboy]

Thank you - I won't hold my breath!

[Carley_S]

Hi @Clarkeyboy

Sorry to hear your having issues with your email at the moment. Can you confirm that you have an active Virgin Media broadband service? I am unable to check that on our system.

[Clarkeyboy]

I did until recently! I had no indication that this address was going to be dumped on this day, particularly as it's been used for 20 odd years! I clearly won't be renewing my mobile now either!

[jem101]

By recently, would that be about three months, by any chance?

Use of any of the VM email addresses is absolutely conditional on you being a current broadband customer and the email address and mailbox should be closed down some 90 days after you leave. Doesn't always happen on time and can be a bit later, sometimes years but eventually it does go, this is firmly stated in the Ts and Cs (which nobody ever reads fully, but still).

John

[Clarkeyboy]

Bit of investigation means this is even more puzzling as it appears it wasn’t linked to my virginmedia account so it appears that it’s been around 20 years! So the random date for removal is even more confusing! My wife has a similar account that I set up at a similar time and hers is still going but never linked to a broadband account! 

[jem101]

It is quite likely then that your wife’s email account will also vanish soon again with no notice. What should happen in theory doesn’t always pan out in reality, the history of the Virgin.net email accounts is a little confusing. Many years ago there was a dial up internet access provision also confusingly called Virgin.net and later an ADSL service with the same name. Customers of these were allowed to create and use an email address ending with @virgin.net on certainty conditions, ie that they used the dial in provision regularly Virgin received a proportion of the telephone fees for this, or that they continued to be an ADSL customer.

Back in 2014 or so VM closed the dial up service and the following year sold off the ADSL service to TalkTalk (cue many years of confusion over responsibility for the virgin.net email addresses), anyone with such an address were given a year to migrate their email to another provider OR if they could sign up to a VM cable broadband account then they could continue to use it, not everyone was in a cable area so this might not be possible.

However in some cases the legacy .net email addresses weren’t closed down after a year as they should have been and simply lingered on, similarly for some customers who did take up the VM cable offer, the old .net email addresses were not properly associated with this account. Some users left VM but found that their old addresses still worked and carried on using them.

However these addresses were always on borrowed time, VM run periodic sweeps or cleanups of addresses not associated with live accounts and when found, unceremoniously lock them and then delete them. This might sound a bit harsh but VM will, not unreasonably, point out that, well you aren’t paying them anything, and they did tell you back in 2015 or so - what you didn’t read the small print of the agreement? - that this would be the situation and you have been getting a ‘free’ email service for all this time, so you can’t really complain. Alright, yes, maybe it could have been handled better, but it is what it is!

OK, best to work on the assumption that your email address has gone and isn’t coming back, your wife’s if likely to go the same way at some point and make alternative arrangements.

John