Virgin.net email stopped working

[jonpee]

since 2nd August I am unable to access my virgin.net account. It says the password is invalid.

The recovery process doesnt work and i dont receive any emails to my recovery email address.

😞

Is there a number that I can call please to get my account reset?

[jpeg1]

"It's worth pointing out that the discontinuing of Virgin emails (after 90 days on ending a VM contract) has been introduced over the past decade or so."

I think that's always been the case for xxx@virginmedia emails issued under a Virginmedia broadband account. The termination after 90 days was part of the contract, although VM seemed to let them run indefinitely, probably because it was too much trouble to do anything else. 

For the older addresses such as blueyonder and ntl, one would have to check back on the T&Cs when they were issued, but I find it hard to believe that there was any promise or implication that these email accounts would be maintained free of charge for ever. 

[Rosebush18]

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@jpeg1 wrote:

"It's worth pointing out that the discontinuing of Virgin emails (after 90 days on ending a VM contract) has been introduced over the past decade or so."

I think that's always been the case for xxx@virginmedia emails issued under a Virginmedia broadband account. The termination after 90 days was part of the contract, although VM seemed to let them run indefinitely, probably because it was too much trouble to do anything else. 

For the older addresses such as blueyonder and ntl, one would have to check back on the T&Cs when they were issued, but I find it hard to believe that there was any promise or implication that these email accounts would be maintained free of charge for ever. 

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I believe that the Ts and Cs of Blueyonder and NTL were broadly similar, ie, once you leave, you have a grace period of 90 days, after which, at some point expect your email account to be closed down and deleted. The operative term being ‘after 90 days’, which doesn’t mean that if it still works after 92 days that it will indeffinately! The virgin.net addresses are a bit more complex, but, for anyone who had an address as part of a legacy ‘dial-up’ service, when that service ended (2015/16?), customers were told then that if they were in a position to sign up for broadband then fine, otherwise the email address would be kept live for, I believe one year before being terminated.

At no point have VM or it’s precursor companies ever, ever offered a ‘free’, for ever, email service, it was always, always dependent on you somehow paying them, be it via being a broadband customer or, in the olden days, by being a dial-up customer and they got a proportion of the call charges*.

So, in answer to those on this thread claiming that ‘I’ve had a virgin.net address for the past xyz years, and it’s gone away and I demand that VM techs work on it…….’ Tell me how much have you paid VM all these years to maintain the mailbox? But yet, you now want VM staff to work on it for you, and you will pay nothing but expect current customers to subsidise you, no,? Someone has to pay the techs to work on your issue, will it be you?

I have seen all sorts of ridiculous posts on here citing the ICO and GDPR as to why VM ‘can’t delete the emails’ - hint, yes they absolutely can, and have. Firstly it doesn’t come under the remit of the ICO, and strictly speaking it would actually be illegal under the GDPR regulations if VM were to contact an ex-customer to tell them that their mailbox was going to be deleted soon! Because you are not a customer, you pay VM nothing, similarly, once the 90 days have passed, they owe you nothing!

Look, I am genuinely sorry for people who find themselves bereft of email, but, really, you were warned, you should have known. Now VM have done themselves no favours by not promptly deleting old mailboxes after 90 days, but they didn’t, and I can sort of see how this might have happened. But that’s not really an excuse. Think of it as you have had a free email service for xy years, fine, good for you. But it was always, always living on borrowed time, and now, finally it’s caught up with you.

[LouiseDickinson]

Hi Ashleigh_C

I have the same problem.  I have only recently realised that my email account is an orphan account and have been working on moving to a new account but suddenly lost access this week to my account before this process was complete.  I appreciate from this thread that it may now be deleted.  Is it possible if you can check for me?

[jonpee]

Hi

Exactly... its even mentioned in the terms & conditions that they would... My account hasn't been attached to a virgin media broadband account for over 2980 days!

However during this period I have had plenty of emails advising they are upgrading my email, updating my email migrating it to a new service, but never once of termination.

Even thou my email account isn't linked to a broadband account, we actually have a valid VM broadband account... for just as many years.

Having worked providing email services for government services for many years, the responses I've had are disappointing and quite insulting to believe this cant be undone.

[jonpee]

you might want to check your facts over GDPR as you are generalising. There's big differences in they data they hold about you and for you. Retention periods vary depending on what the data is and held in what context.  ISP's have to adhere to the Investigatory Powers Act 2016 which forces ISPs to have to retain data for longer than the 90 days of notice.

However I agree a standard 90 day termination of services, after stopping using any service sounds sensible.. but in my case we still have a valid and current broadband service with VM going back as far as @ntlworld days.... but its the virgin.net email address that's been cut off... because they don't have it linked to an account. They orphaned the account not me over 2980 days ago... and continued to email me during that time to update of successful upgrades to my email, successful migrations etc.. so no I wasn't warned... and why should I have known?

A simple.. email like all the other success and upgrade emails they have sent, that said.. we are killing access to your emails in x days.. would have gone along way... as a previous poster stated.. emails are linked to much of everyday life and in my case supporting someone with Dementia. Its unacceptable.

the fact the Terms & Conditions that keeps being quoted has a section called Notices and it clearly states any notice period starts from the date of the notification they will send a notice to you by email, sms etc. and that never happened.

[ravenstar68]

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@MarkB6 wrote:

I explained that the email service sits and runs on servers operated by cloud service provider OX (Open Xchange). Surely there's a technical IT team the liase with OX and could access and provide log-in so I could at least retrieve and archive/export saved email to another email address....I hope their tech team access and view these comments and can help.

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Ox apps is just a web based application, the company itself creates and licenses the application, but the application itself is installed on Virgin Media's mail system.

[ravenstar68]

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@jonpee wrote:

you might want to check your facts over GDPR as you are generalising. There's big differences in they data they hold about you and for you. Retention periods vary depending on what the data is and held in what context.  ISP's have to adhere to the Investigatory Powers Act 2016 which forces ISPs to have to retain data for longer than the 90 days of notice.

Ripa doesn't require that ISP's retain data, it does however give the Secretary of state a means to issue data retention notices so that data that might be required for investigatory purposes is not lost.  However even there the code of practice states the following

A notice will not necessarily represent the full range of services and data types which a telecommunications operator or postal operator could retain.  (Paragraph 17.31)

However I agree a standard 90 day termination of services, after stopping using any service sounds sensible.. but in my case we still have a valid and current broadband service with VM going back as far as @ntlworld days.... but its the virgin.net email address that's been cut off... because they don't have it linked to an account. They orphaned the account not me over 2980 days ago... and continued to email me during that time to update of successful upgrades to my email, successful migrations etc.. so no I wasn't warned... and why should I have known?

A simple.. email like all the other success and upgrade emails they have sent, that said.. we are killing access to your emails in x days.. would have gone along way... as a previous poster stated.. emails are linked to much of everyday life and in my case supporting someone with Dementia. Its unacceptable.

the fact the Terms & Conditions that keeps being quoted has a section called Notices and it clearly states any notice period starts from the date of the notification they will send a notice to you by email, sms etc. and that never happened.

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From Virgin Media's Acceptable use policy

6.5. It is your responsibility to back up the contents of your Virgin Media email account. Upon suspension or termination of services the content may be removed and permanently deleted by Virgin Media without notice.

[LouiseDickinson]

Dear Forum Team,

I have the same issue of suddenly loosing my @virgin.net account.  I appreciate all the points made and realise I should have done something sooner.  It might not be possible, but if it is, please can I have access again to my account to make arrangements for the data transfer.  Thank you.

[goslow]

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@LouiseDickinson wrote:

Dear Forum Team,

I have the same issue of suddenly loosing my @virgin.net account.  I appreciate all the points made and realise I should have done something sooner.  It might not be possible, but if it is, please can I have access again to my account to make arrangements for the data transfer.  Thank you.

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You would do best to start your own topic for your own issue. Otherwise it is likely to get lost in this growing topic belonging to someone else.

[ravenstar68]

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@Rosebush18 wrote:

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I believe that the Ts and Cs of Blueyonder and NTL were broadly similar,

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For context here's para 27 of Blueyonders acceptable use policy for the email

27A.

The provision of personal webspace and email facilities require us to provide storage space on our computers and servers. In order to assist the management of our services (including but not limited the provision of the Services you and other users), YOU ACKNOWLEDGE AND AGREE THAT:

• We shall be entitled to delete any emails in any individual email account if the storage space utilised by such account is in excess of the Email Storage Quota. We also reserve the right to suspend the further use of any such account (including receipt of emails) unless and until the account meets the Email Storage Quota; and

• We shall be entitled to delete any emails in any individual email account that has not been accessed for ninety (90) consecutive days; and

1. We shall be entitled to delete all emails in any or all of your email accounts immediately upon the termination of this Agreement and/or the cessation of our provision to you of the Services.

You acknowledge and agree that any such deletion of such emails shall be without any liability to you, and we shall not be required to provide you with prior notification of the same.

Source: blueyonder > help > services > terms and conditions (archive.org)

(Taken from the Wayback Machine).

Here too is the relevant section from virgin.net AUP

1. If you are closing your Virgin.net account:
   a. You shall be responsible for all relevant Charges relating to your account up until the Effective Date of Cancellation.
   b. Any email and webspace (Freespace) data will be deleted and we regret that we will be unable to retrieve this data.
2. If you are cancelling the Service but changing to PAYG or 24seven:
   a. You shall be responsible for all relevant Charges relating to your account from the Effective Date of Cancellation.
   b. Any email and webspace (Freespace) data will be retained under your new PAYG or 24seven package.
   c. The new service is provided at the end of the notification period and new terms and conditions of the new service which apply will supersede these Terms and Conditions;

Again, taken from the Wayback Machine

Virgin.net - Terms & conditions - Broadband (archive.org)

It should be noted that if the old virgin.net account and the current broadband account are owned by different users then it's not possible to transfer email between accounts.

@jonpee All accounts created by an account holder are linked to that account and cannot be moved individually.  Virgin Media have never had provision to do this.  As stated, the move and transfer was to be used when the main account holder moved house and took up a new broadband provision.  I've had to make use of that service myself when I was still a Virigin Media subscriber.  Sadly I moved out of a VM area and lost my old blueyoner address - however I'd long since moved away from using it as my main address. 

Tim