@grahamm77 wrote:
One of the things that Virgin has never explained is why my account is on Blueyonder and my original Email address but then I was moved to Virgin for my Email. My wife is still on Blueyonder. When VM changed the password they did so for Blueyonder and NOT for Virginmedia.com. So that didn't help at all. The password for Virginmedia was unchanged. It was interesting that Thunderbird mail client connected to the IMAP server with the OLD password not the changed one. I even tried a new Outlook Profile - but that didn't work. So in the end I decided that some interaction between Outlook 365 and Virgin IMAP server was the problem. So I un-installed Office 365 completely (not an easy job aka the way MS do things). Then I did a fresh install of Office 365. Then i connected Outlook to the IMAP virginmedia.com server with the OLD unchanged password. I connected immediately. I then restored my address book and I am up and running. But this has virtually been all my work the most helpful advice was from the Microsoft Forum. It only took me 2 days, 5 phone calls to Virgin Help desk (Virgin back office guru's are supposed to be ringing me - I will wait and see what they say). Also posts on this forum with people telling me the IMAP ports etc.. which I do know from when I connected to Virgin - they are in my log book. I have also written a letter to Virgin Head Office at my dissatifaction. I am trying not to be a negative user or be rude. But that has been my experience and I am not a happy bunny with Virgin at the moment
Well a sorry tale of woe, but I believe I can offer a possible explanation for what has happened here - and these are based on an extrapolation and compilation of reports from other posters on here.
Back when the old NTL and Blueyonder companies merged and rebranded themselves as virginmedia, there was, indeed a plan to offer everyone new virginmedia.com addresses based on their existing ntlworld.com or blueyonder.com addresses, so your original me@blueyonder.com address would be 'turned' into me@virginmedia.com with, presumably, the original still working as an alias. This actually never happened and ntlworld.com, blueyonder.com and virginmedia.com addresses continue to all be live and usable although it has been the case for a long time that only new virginmedia.com addresses could be created but in the last few months, even that provision has been removed - which may or may not hint of how much longer VM intend to maintain any sort of email provision.
I can quite believe that at some point in the past, you were told by customer services that the blueyonder.com addresses were all being shutdown and hence you 'had' to have a new virginmedia.com address instead. This was simply not true, as your wife continued use of a blueyonder address would indicate - but even now there are reports on here of customers being told by customer service agents that 'all ntlworld and blueyonder address are being deleted by the end of the month' or whatever. The thing to always have at the back of your mind is that, for some reason which escapes us, the VM call centres seem to work on the basis of 'if in doubt - just make something up, anything will do!'
I have little doubt that your old me@blueyonder.com address is still actually live and accepting email.
The explanation for the login for the VM account still being the me@blueyonder.co.uk, is quite simple. This is more of a 'username' rather than an email address, and it appears that VM's system has no mechanism to allow it to change. The use of an email address as a username is perfectly valid, email addresses have to be globally unique so a good way of ensuring that your username isn't the same as anyone else's. So your VM login username is still the old blueyonder address even though it isn't actually seen as an email address.
Changing passwords when odd stuff happens? Well consider that VM's current system will be an amalgam of systems inherited from all the mergers and acquisitions in the past. WOuldn't surprise me in the slightest if the whole lot is held together on a wing and a prayer and user accounts and details could be on m ore than one system. In theory these should all stay in sync, but sometime they don't and a change of password 'kicks' the sync process off and gets everything back into operation.
Lastly, there have been one or two cases reported on here of users needing a password change for a 'secondary' email address, which isn't too easy now, calling customer services to be told either 'this can't be done' (rubbish) or the agent changing the primary email address password, leaving the one that needed changing, well, not changed. Sound familiar?
Whether this is all down to poor training or bugs in the system, I wouldn't like to speculate, but I suspect that this is what has happened to you. There was originally a password sync or other issue, you call VM who manage to change the wrong account, in the meantime the issue sorts itself out and your virginmedia.com address starts working again but with the original password - as it was never changed!
It would be interesting to see what happens if you were to try to log into your original me@blueyonder.com address with the new changed password and seeing if it works. Or it it doesn't, to see if it allows you to reset the password on it to something of your own choosing.
Anyhow, as I said, just a bit of idle speculation - oh, and don't hold your breath waiting for any call back from VM's email gurus, or indeed the office cleaner - these things are routinely promised but very rarely happen - it's more of a technique to get you off the phone rather than anything else.
