Bt deleted my email account

smokeybradshaw

I've had BT email for over 10 years. I've had to pay for it on and off over the years (depending whether I had other BT products or not).
I've always been given the opportunity to provide my bank details to pay for the service.


Early July I cancelled my infinity and switched to sky Q. At the time I was informed by BT customer service that I would lose all my products (as I would expect).


Then on Wednesday 5th Oct, I was unable to access my account.
After being passed around several departments, I was informed my account had been deleted and could not be retrieved.

I hadn't received any further correspondence from them after my initial phone call (they have since insisted they sent an email dated 21st July (which I didn't receive)


Can they do this? Surely my information can't be permanently deleted?


I would have thought they would disable access for a period of time before permanent deletion.


I'm pretty angry, and frustrated and the lack of support and options open to me.


Any ideas?

kwikbreaks

Learn from your mistake and get a non-ISP based email set up.

I don't see why you imagine that this is anybodies fault but your own. You were told the services would go and had several months in which to backup your data. You didn't do that and it's gone. You are not a BT customer so I don't see them doing anything much to help but they are the only people who maybe could if they do have any backups.

smokeybradshaw

I wasn't suggesting it was anyone's fault. And I would still be a bt customer given the chance to pay. I don't believe a mention in a phone call two months ago is sufficient. What would happen if someone was sick and unable to sort this out?
It seems a harsh mechanism to simply delete an account. As before, removing access for a period would give the account owner a final chance to arrange payment.
I was asking if anyone had a suggested course of action to retrieve the account?
I would imagine it would be retrieved should the police wish to view my data.

forgotmyname

You don't think them telling you your going to lose your email etc is enough for you to think your going to lose it and save your data and get another account?

The accounts gone unless you can create a new account with the same email address. Its probably locked now for some time.

If someone were sick and unable to sort it out then i would ask how they managed to sort out switching accounts etc?

Course of action get yourself a non ISP based email address as mentioned above.

d123

smokeybradshaw wrote: »

Early July I cancelled my infinity and switched to sky Q. At the time I was informed by BT customer service that I would lose all my products (as I would expect).


Then on Wednesday 5th Oct, I was unable to access my account.

Have I got it right? They told you they were going to close all your products and it came as a surprise some months later that they did what they said they would?

They deleted a product exactly as they advised you they would, yet you expect them to have some form of telepathy, why didn't you tell them during the phone call that you wished to continue subscribing to their email service?

Sorry, I can't see why you are upset at BT. If you want someone to blame have a look in a mirror...

virgo17

Whilst I am not a great fan of BT myself, I don't see they have done anything wrong in this matter. They told you what would happen and even seem to have given you about three months grace before doing so.

The ability to retain a stand alone BT 'paid for' email doesn't seem to exist anymore.

As other posters have remarked, consider setting up a third party mail service. Even free providers such as Gmail and GMX offer a pretty good reliable service these days and in the GMX case provide a number of email aliases to suit different needs.

Fightsback

smokeybradshaw wrote: »

I wasn't suggesting it was anyone's fault. And I would still be a bt customer given the chance to pay.

You can and boy you will:

http://bt.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/48758/~/bt-premium-mail-features

It does seem you are blaming BT for your own inaction after cancelling their service and in an ostrich like manner pretend nothing is going to happen. If you cancel your phoneline do expect BT to carry on giving you free phone calls ?

JohnB47

Let's just be reasonable here.


It seems to me that the OP was told that he would loose BT services and understood that. However, as happens to all of us occasionally, he didn't fully think this through, therefore didn't realise that this included his email service.


I can think of countless occasions when, after the event, I thought 'why didn't I think to ....'. Like when I agreed some changes to be done to existing plumbing at the same time as a complete bathroom refurb. I did think to check repeatedly that this work was mentioned in the written instructions to the fitter but despite this the work wasn't done and when I asked to see the paperwork, it simply said 'additional plumbing work', which the fitter said didn't cover the extent of what we'd expected. I should have insisted on seeing the paperwork.


So I'm afraid BT is not at fault here. An email from them, that didn't arrive, would have been useful but the OP should have understood the implications in the first instance. It's tough but many of us make similar mistakes.

S0litaire

Previously BT handled all email services "in-house" they physically owned and operated the email servers, so they could let ex-customers stay on as it wasn't costing them much in the grand scheme of things...

But a few years ago BT went with Google ( i think or was it yahoo?) services to host mail.

This costs BT an amount Per user and they changed their T&C so that if you didn't use your email service for 6 months then it would be automatically deleted. I think at the same time they stopped the use of email to Ex-customers, in an attempt to keep their admin costs down.