Virgin Media Internet and Blue Yonder email -> Switching to EE Questions

Honey_Bear

I'm sorry if this has been asked before, but while I'm not a complete luddite I don't know quite what the issues are with these questions. I've also done a quick Forum search and no-one seems to have asked these questions recently.

We've been with Virgin Media for about 15 years and until recently have been fairly statisfied with the service. However, every year they're now bumping the price up after we've renegotiated the cost and over the past two years that's added another £5 per month.

We popped into the local EE shop today to get a new sim card for a very old mobile phone and by the time we left we'd signed a new contract with EE for broadband and a landline for £29 a month, a saving of about £15 a month. We have 14 days to cancel the new contract.

My two criteria were that:

a) I keep my landline number. I need to keep the same telephone number because I've been running a microbusiness on it for 30 years and it's a word of mouth one, so changing the number would be catastrophic;
b) We keep our blueyonder.co.uk email addresses.

We were told they would simply port the email account over, so both were possible but that we would need to get Virgin to give us a code (mac code?) as they now own the phone number. We were also told that there would be a contract exit fee because the contract runs April to April, for which EE would refund us up to £50. We will also require a new router which will cost us £35. We're happy with that.

When I phoned Virgin they stated we will lose the blue yonder accounts. They also said there is no code to give us, all the new provider has to do is ask them to port it over. (The exit fee is about £41 inc VAT so that's not an issue.)

Within the deal EE has upgraded OH's mobile, doubled something or other (I don't use a smart phone so it's all goobledegook to me) for an extra £1 a month and apparently he can keep that even if we cancel the EE deal within the next 14 days.

He's happy but I'm confused! Has anyone else found the same issues, and if so how were they resolved?

Midland45

Honey_Bear wrote: »

I'm sorry if this has been asked before, but while I'm not a complete luddite I don't know quite what the issues are with these questions. I've also done a quick Forum search and no-one seems to have asked these questions recently.

We've been with Virgin Media for about 15 years and until recently have been fairly statisfied with the service. However, every year they're now bumping the price up after we've renegotiated the cost and over the past two years that's added another £5 per month.

We popped into the local EE shop today to get a new sim card for a very old mobile phone and by the time we left we'd signed a new contract with EE for broadband and a landline for £29 a month, a saving of about £15 a month. We have 14 days to cancel the new contract.

My two criteria were that:

a) I keep my landline number. I need to keep the same telephone number because I've been running a microbusiness on it for 30 years and it's a word of mouth one, so changing the number would be catastrophic;
b) We keep our blueyonder.co.uk email addresses.

We were told they would simply port the email account over, so both were possible but that we would need to get Virgin to give us a code (mac code?) as they now own the phone number. We were also told that there would be a contract exit fee because the contract runs April to April, for which EE would refund us up to £50. We will also require a new router which will cost us £35. We're happy with that.

When I phoned Virgin they stated we will lose the blue yonder accounts. They also said there is no code to give us, all the new provider has to do is ask them to port it over. (The exit fee is about £41 inc VAT so that's not an issue.)

Within the deal EE has upgraded OH's mobile, doubled something or other (I don't use a smart phone so it's all goobledegook to me) for an extra £1 a month and apparently he can keep that even if we cancel the EE deal within the next 14 days.

He's happy but I'm confused! Has anyone else found the same issues, and if so how were they resolved?

There shouldn't be any issue with keeping your landline phone number and having it ported across to your new EE landline.
However your email address will be lost after I think 90 days from when you leave Virgin. Once EE request your landline number from Virgin, you'll find Virgin will contact you with a much better deal, which if you desperately need to keep your email you may have to take. Its always best to have an email address which isnt supplied by your ISP ie Gmail,hotmail, icloud etc.

Honey_Bear

Thank you Midland 45. That's helpful and makes sense.

I've just done a speed test and discovered that Virgin has resolved the issue that's dogged us for years (poor download speed). My main reason for leaving has been resolved so I may not actually need to move after all.

Following a period of unreliable service from Virgin a few years ago I set up an alternative email account to which all of my emails are automatically forwarded. It's been useful several times, unfortunately, but it does at least mean I already have a second account that contains all of the recent incoming email traffic that I could switch to immediately. I must get OH to set one up as well.

[Deleted User]

Blue Yonder accounts will be closed.

This is why you should NEVER use ISP provided services other than the broadband and telephone.

Get an outlook.com account or setup a domain name and your own mail server.