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e.mails being closed down by Virgin Media?

tony2cats
Tuning in

29/12/21

On Christmas day Virgin Media without notifying me shut down my business e.mail address.

I waited until the call centre was open again on Monday 27/12/21 and was told by a man in Sheffield that there was suspicious activity on my e.mail account and it was suspended as a result.  Further conversation resulted in my being told that I had to change my password.  I said "no thanks" and asked why this was needed as in late November I was without my business e.mail for three weeks having been promised a call back from the technical team for the very same issue within 72 hours.  Then five days later I rang again and was promised the same 72 hour response.  Five days later I again rang (having had no contact whatsoever) and during this time they also shut down my personal e.mail account.

I eventually got hold of one guy who forced me to change my e.mail password  (one I have had for twenty three years) and my e.mails were reconnected.

This has happened three times this past year.  On one such call I was told by a young advisor that Virgin Media no longer handles calls to do with virgin media e.mails  (mine is a ntlworld one from 23 yrs ago) as the system has been sold to o2,  ringing the number he gave me  (an o2 line)  I was met with astonishment and they knew nothing of such a transfer of e.mail ownership to them,   more subterfuge or is that damn lies from e.mail advisors.

 

This was from a UK advisor, most of the time you get Mumbai on the phone and loads of promises and lies but no connectivity with anyone who can help or answer a simple question  "Why do I need to change my password when its your servers that are being screwed with"?

 

I have before anyone responds reluctantly just changed my both e.mail access passwords and now have webmail coming in but I am going on a cruise in the Caribbean in 9 days time and want some answers as to why my e.mails are being switched off by Virgin Media without contacting me  (they have my landline number with them and knowledge of my mobile number)

 

My business has lost over 9K  of new gate installations as a result of their November /December cut off of my e.mails and I fear it is now time to sue them in court to get some correct attention from them.

 

 

The guy in Sheffield rang back my home number at around 4pm on Monday but refused to ring my mobile number when requested to do so by my wife.  I have not heard from them again and no doubt will lose the will to live if I am expected to wait for another call from them on my home number as I am in work all day long.

Can anyone explain what the heck is going on with this appalling treatment from such a large organisation?

7 REPLIES 7

dannylau
Very Insightful Person
Very Insightful Person

Firstly there is no such thing as as a virgin media business email, all email accounts have to have a virgin media domestic broadband account connected to them or they are subject to deletion. 

Secondly virgin media email is not very good and you would be far better off getting a professional email service.

If you send mass emails to clients this is probably why your email is suspended as this could be mistaken for spamming. 

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crany
Superfast

your not supposed to use virgin residential services for business and your lack of willingness to change possibly unsecure passwords makes me sad for your customers

Well I came on here looking for assistance and all I got was some arrogant fool trying to sound clever.

 

When I joined NTL world 23 yrs ago there was no NTL world business media / accounts,  there is now and you can sign up to virgin media business  which of course does have business e.mail addresses.  The fact that I can choose whether I want that additional expense is of my choosing and there is no covenant that I cannot use my virgin media (still ntlworld e.mail address)  as a business tool within my domestic e.mail account.

 

Then you make another assumption that I am sending mass e.mailing (which I am not nor have ever done so) so a quite unwelcome and certainly unhelpful reply.  Why did you bother?

 

You make 

Yet another arrogant unhelpful fool.

 

Makes me sad that I even thought this forum would be helpful in answering some serious issues which Virgin Media are experiencing at the moment and which is impacting on my business and personal life.

 

There is no dictate that I cannot use a domestic customer e.mail facility in my business useage.  In 23 yrs no Ntl world, or Virgin Media spokesperson has ever said this is unlawful, illegal or just downright not to be done so I can only assume you are just wishing to blow off air because you are bored.  Again you make unfounded allegations in regard to the depth of security of my passwords which are considered strong by Virgin media (how would you know in the first place how secure they were?)

Then you go on to make a personal attack on me with regard to the unwillingness to change passwords,  (for 22 yrs never had to change one  now changed them four times in 3 months - eventually you have to question WHY?  when its the Virgin Media servers under attack not my Mac?

 

Being sad for my customers is a personal insult without provocation I can only assume you are just another keyboard warrior with nothing better to do than insult people (there ditto !! )

BenMcr
Very Insightful Person
Very Insightful Person

@tony2cats wrote:

There is no dictate that I cannot use a domestic customer e.mail facility in my business useage. 

Here's the current Acceptable Use Policy for Virgin Media residential services which form part of your terms of use of the services:

https://www.virginmedia.com/shop/the-legal-stuff/acceptable-use-policy

5. Your responsibilities - Virgin Media’s systems, services and equipment

5.2. Specific prohibited acts in relation to Virgin Media’s systems, services and equipment are:

5.2.4. trade or business use of our services, except for remote access to your employer’s corporate network (and remember in any case that we are not liable for any loss occurring as a result of such use), unless you subscribe to a a product that is specifically stated as a business product. If you are a residential customer and you wish to use our services for trade or business use, go to https://www.virginmediabusiness.co.uk/ for more information;

Similar residential only terms existed back in the days of ntl too. Here's some of their terms from 2004:

https://web.archive.org/web/20040410150930/http://www.ntlhome.com/legals/residentialterms.html

21. Residential Use Only

The Services and the Equipment are only provided under this Agreement for residential customers and for residential use only. The Services or any part of them cannot be sold for money or monies worth. We have no liability, whether due to our negligence or otherwise, for any losses incurred by any business, trade or profession carried on by You or any other person using the Services or the Equipment.

**********************************
I work for Virgin Media - but all opinions posted here are my own

dannylau
Very Insightful Person
Very Insightful Person

@tony2cats wrote:

Well I came on here looking for assistance and all I got was some arrogant fool trying to sound clever.

 



@tony2cats wrote:

A quite unwelcome and certainly unhelpful reply.  Why did you bother

 


@tony2cats wrote:

Yet another arrogant unhelpful fool.

 



@tony2cats wrote:

You are just another keyboard warrior with nothing better to do than insult people (there ditto !!) 

 



Yes it is us being insulting 

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ravenstar68
Very Insightful Person
Very Insightful Person

@tony2cats 

This is my personal take on the situation

  1. You've been using a consumer e-mail address for business purposes.

    This is a bad idea on many fronts
    You're limited in your choice of email address - if someone else has already picked your email address the you have to choose another.
    There are no SLA's with regard to email issues - whereas business orientated email services provide firm guarantees of uptime and timescales for resolution of issues should things go wrong.
  2. You've been using the same password for 23 years.
    While this might seem a good idea - the thing is that as technology has moved on it's become far easier for bad actors to guess passwords

    Try putting a password formulated in a similar manner to your own into this site - https://www.security.org/how-secure-is-my-password/
    Note - Don't use your real password
    The site will estimate how long it would take to guess your password.

    I'm assuming that if you're running a business - you most likely have your own domain name - If you're not willing to pay for a proper business orientated email service then there is an alternative - zoho.com still has a free account for a single domain with up to 5 email addresses with 5GB space per mailbox - https://www.zoho.com/mail/zohomail-pricing.html?src=zmail
    Scroll down to see the Forever Free Plan on their account

To the best of my knowledge Virgin Media business broadband DOES NOT come with email provided - for the simple reason that most businesses will be running email on their own domains rather than one provided by an ISP.

Remember

ISP's provide access to the internet - Not email
ESP's provide dedicated email services.

While most if not all residential ISP's will provide access to emails - it's not their core business - they provide it only as a free add on to the broadband service.  While on the business side - it's assumed that someone running a business should have either the acumen to either run their own business or to sign up with a dedicated ESP.

ESP's have SLA's and KPA's aimed at ensuring email uptime is kept as high as possible (as discussed earlier) as well as dedicated email support. (they also have compensation agreements for when these are breached).

I'd also add that there is nothing stopping you from running your own email service - Although you should run this on a Static IP - which means a business broadband service (Or hiring a Server or Virtual Server - I currently run my own email server on a VPS with a static IP).

Tim

 

 

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