Cancelling broadband - cancelling email account

alyth

hi,

being totally un-techie I'm wondering whether anyone can give me advice. I'm moving to China in 3 weeks, and therefore cancelling my broadband which is with Virgin. I've only ever had a virgin email account and use it for everything, facebook, paypal, I've given out the email to lots of people in anticipation of moving.

However, because I no longer have the broadband my email account will be cancelled/deleted. I'm told that I've got a 90 day leeway period after my cancellation date in Scotland. A friend last night set up my virgin emails so that they go to my hotmail account. However, at the end of the 90 day period what happens - does my virgin email account just disappear, and what happens to sites like facebook that I use my virgin email account to log in with.

I hope I've made myself clear, I get things like my credit card and bank statements sent to my virgin email account, so do I need to change those details? Thanks in advance.

flashg67

Quick answer - change everything to your other web-based account - be it your hotmail account, or open another eg gmail account just for this. You need to tell your bank, Facebook etc as it's possible you'll lose the Virgin account totally, although it may be possible to still receive, but not send from the Virgin account, but don't take this as read. My old Tiscali account still receives emails and I left them 2 years ago!

Good chance to get rid of all those spammers too!

JJ_Egan

You should be able to log in to any site where you used an email address .

The actual email account will receive emails but you will not be able to send any .
After 90 days you will have lost access to the account in or out .Its gone it does not exist .
Usually the accounts email box get deleted at some time in the future depending upon the ISP policy . Often its a block deletion every so often .

You can always set up a email address that has nothing to do with ISP .Usual is to have your own web domain and private web address fred@ me.org.uk .
Cost about £15 PA

alyth

Thanks, I really appreciate your replies - I literally found this out last night when I rang virgin to cancel the broadband for the house. I'm just in the process of changing things over to my hotmail account and I've got a yahoo one as well - I hadn't thought of the idea of setting up a web domain but that's brilliant, I'll research that tonight.

Just to confirm - so I'll lose the email account and in-box etc after 90 days but I should still be able to use the virgin.net email address to log into things? Flash I totally agree, it's a great idea to get rid of the hundreds of spam emails I get......quite liberating in a way!

closed

When there's so many free email (virgin uses gmail anyway) services, a web domain is a bit pointless.

I'd assume your email will be dead from day one.

JJ_Egan

closed wrote: »

When there's so many free email (virgin uses gmail anyway) services, a web domain is a bit pointless.

I'd assume your email will be dead from day one.

Well yes GMail is a free non ISP provider to consider .

jje

alyth

I did set up a gmail account this afternoon as well, I'd forgotten about that. It's not a matter of life and death losing the virgin.net account, just more annoying that I'll have to re-register and subscribe to things.

victor2

closed wrote: »

When there's so many free email (virgin uses gmail anyway) services, a web domain is a bit pointless.

Not totally pointless, it means you can have yourname@yourdomain.com as your email address, rather than having to come up with a difficult to remember unique email address for gmail and the like. Other benefits as well when you have control over your own domain.

bigfreddiel

get your own domain - and just redirect to yahoo, hotmail, or any other free webmai

i use uk-cheapest - free email redirection, very easy to use, no need to buy any mailboxes from them, i just redirect to my hotmail account

i can set up as many addresses as i like - good for combating spam, but there are loads of free anti-spam email services, for example mailinator.com

cheers

fj

fj@mailinator.com

cookie365

I've heard of VM email addresses getting cancelled on the day the contract ends, so don't assume you'll have any leeway.

macman

Since VM simply uses a rebranded GMail, that's the obvious one to go with.