Email account closure

[Mr_Crabbit]

Same here, I am curious as to why my email account is being closed. I have had my virgin.net email address since January 1997, and still use it daily. It is tied to numerous online accounts. Every time there is a glitch with the email service and I try to get help, the party line seems to be that legacy email addresses such as virgin.net, blueyonder and ntlworld.com are being phased out and I should go away to another provider. I would much rather not.

To let you know how I got here:

In 1997, I was a dial-up internet user and Virgin.net was my ISP. I set up the five free email addresses that were allocated to me at the time to allow my wife & daughters to have their own addresses.
In 2000, we moved house and started using ntlworld for cable TV & telephone. A few months later, I was contacted my someone from ntlworld who noticed I was using my telephone line to access the internet & my email regularly. He suggested I use ntlworld as a faster cable ISP and I’d get new email addresses there. I declined his offer as my email address was very important to me after only three and a half years. He said I could keep using it as Virgin.net used ntlworld’s backbone and servers. Sold! I was allocated an ntlworld email address that is only really used to login to my account. When ntlworld and Virgin.net amalgamated to form Virgin Media, the Virgin.net account could not be used to pay for the service and if memory serves, the ntlworld account transitioned to my current Virgin Media one. I did not make any new virginmedia.com email addresses at the time. I still use my ntlworld email address to login to my account but I see I am being pushed to associate a third party email address with that account now. That is a subject for another thread I believe.

Bottom line for me is that I have been an uninterrupted Virgin.net / ntlworld / Virgin Media customer since 1997. Having a virgin.net email address is a big factor in my customer loyalty. If I am forced to go elsewhere for an email service, a considerable tie has been cast off and I'll be much more inclined to look at Virgin Media's competitors.

[goslow]

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@Mr_Crabbit wrote:

<snip>Bottom line for me is that I have been an uninterrupted Virgin.net / ntlworld / Virgin Media customer since 1997. Having a virgin.net email address is a big factor in my customer loyalty. If I am forced to go elsewhere for an email service, a considerable tie has been cast off and I'll be much more inclined to look at Virgin Media's competitors.

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If you are still a VM broadband customer it seems there may be a possibility of help from VM to link your .net email to your VM broadband service.

You may do best though to start your own topic as there are lots of people making tag-on posts to existing topics and your issue may get missed as the VM forum team try to deal with all the queries.

[Mr_Crabbit]

Thank you @goslow for your prompt reply. I'm afraid I don't hold out much hope of my virgin.net address being linked to my VM account. I have the Account and Area Reference numbers for both accounts to hand. Any time a link between the two has been suggested to telephone support, I've been told that a can keep one email address and the others will be deleted. One step forward and six steps back. ☹️ What irks me in particular is that I am not using my 25Gb of space on the mail server. I download my email to Outlook.

[jpeg1]

The telephone staff will say anything to close the call. Others in your position have been told on here that if the old email is in the same name as your current broadband account it can be attached to it.  You'll have to wait for VM to find your post here.

[Mr_Crabbit]

Thanks again, I reckon I'll need to start a new thread and ask what can be done.

[goslow]

The moderators have split your post so it is now a topic of its own.

[Mr_Crabbit]

Thank you moderators. I hope someone will be thoughtful enough to set up a procedure whereby my legacy account's details, with the more important email addresses, can be tied to my current one and not be considered an orphan. It seems a lot of customers are in the same boat so sometime within the next 29 days would be ideal!

Thanks again.

[Mr_Crabbit]

Thanks for your insight Rosebush18. I hope someone in a position of authority at VM is taking note of the number of related threads being started here. Closing down email accounts of so many long standing customers is going to cause a lot of aggravation and ill will. I hope the powers that be will reconsider this course of action and if it is really a benefit to their business. Surely it is not beyond VM to add a field to their customers' account details that states whether or not they have an active legacy email address in use, and if so, to leave it alone. Here's very much hoping!

[Gareth_L]

Hello Mr_Crabbit,

We have written to a small proportion of former Virgin Media customers, who left 10 years ago, to advise that we will close the email address that was linked to their old account with us. We are giving impacted individuals sufficient time to set up a new email account with another provider and move any emails they may wish to keep.

Gareth_L

[Adduxi]

Unfortunately a lot of the "long standing users" don't actually use VM anymore, so are getting a mailbox for free.  So there is some logic to this purge, and tbh I don't think it will harm VM. Even now they don't give new users mailboxes (since 18 months ago?) Personally I can see the VM email service being phased out as older accounts leave, mailboxes are purged after 90 days,  and the new accounts don't get mailboxes at all.