Virgin Media taking my email address away after 15+ years

louisboy20

Was wondering if anyone has any advice on this email issue please?

I have had a Virgin email address for over 15 years, which was originally set up when I had a dial-up service from them. The arrangement was that you had a free email address, there was no standing charge and you just paid for the usage of the internet as you went along. I haven't had dial-up with Virgin for many years, but they have always allowed me to keep my email address. Once or twice over the last few years, I received an email from them stating that I must dial-in to their service in order to keep my account open (which I did). Although even those emails stopped some time ago.

Yesterday, I received an email from Virgin Media stating that they were closing my email account within 30 days as I "no longer had a Broadband Account" with them. As you can imagine after 15+ years of having the same email address, this is going to cause me an awful lot of hassle as I have numerous online accounts associated with that email address.

I have just had a look on the Virgin Media website and discovered that they closed their dial-up service in May last year, so I suspect that they are now closing all the email accounts of those who originally signed up via their dial-up service, as they can now say that we are no longer receiving a service from them.

Does anyone know if I have any rights in this matter? (They do state in their email that of course, I could keep my email address if I signed up to their Broadband Package - which is something that I cannot do, even if I wanted to, as I live in an area where it is not available!)

boo_star

No.

The T&Cs almost certainly allow them to withdraw the service at any time given reasonable notice.

Most tech-savvy people moved away from ISP provided email years ago towards webmail services. Or bought their own domain which they could switch between back-end providers at will.

My advice would be to open an Outlook or GMail account, sift through your emails and change the registered email to your new one before 30 days is up.

mattyprice4004

So you just expect them to provide the free service forever?
You have no rights, you don't own the email address and don't pay for it either.

visidigi

No you have no rights, its a clear demonstration why ISP email accounts are a bad idea.

Sign up to a web based mail such as Google now and start swapping your email addresses in all your online accounts.

InsideInsurance

Or switch your broadband to them to enable you to retain the email address.

I agree with others though, you should move away from ISP email anyway as too many eggs in one basket

Retrogamer

InsideInsurance wrote: »

Or switch your broadband to them to enable you to retain the email address.

That's not possible

louisboy20 wrote: »

(They do state in their email that of course, I could keep my email address if I signed up to their Broadband Package - which is something that I cannot do, even if I wanted to, as I live in an area where it is not available!)

brendon

Virgin provided you free email for 15 years. Not something to complain about.

JJ_Egan

The usual story with defunct EMail accounts or you no longer having an account with the ISP is that you lose them on cease of service .
But the way the system works is that they may be live for many years but are subject to deletion at any time .
An email address/ email space is in effect something you borrow from the ISP .
Google GMail or pay for your own email account that can be moved between ISPs .
louiseboy20@louisboy20.org.uk

lucy03

brendon wrote: »

Virgin provided you free email for 15 years. Not something to complain about.

Personally I think it is something to complain about, if only on a forum, as Virgin will be aware of the inconvenience they'll cause. I have no doubt they would have worked out the cost benefit in doing this but all the news I've heard about Virgin recently is negative and I'm surprised their conclusion is to do as they've done. But I'm sure it's legal and mentioned in their terms and conditions.

Armorica

Have you posted on the Virgin forums?

And is it actually a virgin email address? That long ago, it would have been ntl?

(I've still got my ukgateway.net ISP address from the late nineties - they transferred it to tiscali when they closed which was kind)

Nilrem

Armorica wrote: »

Have you posted on the Virgin forums?

And is it actually a virgin email address? That long ago, it would have been ntl?

(I've still got my ukgateway.net ISP address from the late nineties - they transferred it to tiscali when they closed which was kind)

Virgin used to do dial up long before NTL/BY merged and got rebranded as VM.
I remember because I used to have a Virgin.net (I think it was) dial up account when I first went online.