BT £7.50 Charge for Email

bmbm365

Now I am sure this has been a hot topic before.  However I was recently helping my father who is in his 60s with his billing.
He was with Btinternet back in the old 56k modem days.
I couldn't believe it when i found out it was paying £7.50 from nothing more with BT apart from emails! (Tel/TV/Bradband with Virgin).
I looked, and Btinternet is powered by Yahoo!  I use this particular brand for free!!
Anyway i begged him to change and stop.
He says there is no way. All his internet banking, personal contacts use this email address. He is also a sole trader and uses this email for business for decades with business cards, letter heads etc with this email address.
The reason I have come to this forum is because I am surprised Martin Lewis himself has not picked up on this.
Am I naive to believe my father is lumbered with paying whatever price BT set? He switched away from BT back in the modem days- yet still paying them! What gripes me the most I think is the fact that they use Yahoo!

Is there anything I can do to help him?

Browntoa

Yes convince him to set up a Gmail account and that it's not the hardest thing in the world to change email addresses.

Bulk email to business contacts saying my new email address is

Chino

bmbm365 said:

I am surprised Martin Lewis himself has not picked up on this.

Picked up on what? A company charging customers for a service it provides?

Your father, as a business owner, has evidently decided that he'd rather pay £7.50 per month to continue with his current email arrangement than spend his time advising all his customers and suppliers of a new email address and dealing with the consequent fallout as and when emails don't reach him.

bmbm365 said:

However I was recently helping my father who is in his 60s

Of what relevance is your father's age to any of this?

[Deleted User]

bmbm365 said:

The reason I have come to this forum is because I am surprised Martin Lewis himself has not picked up on this.

First of all, the number of people affected by this "issue" will be tiny, really tiny. 

Secondly, Martin Lewis sold this website some years ago and he'll never read your thread
Thirdly, most people "in their sixties" would resent the implication that they need help with technology which has been available since 1971..

Your father is paying to maintain a business e-mail address, not a "free" domestic one. 

If he no longer requires the service provided then it's surely up to him to cancel it. 

littleboo

£7.50 a month sounds a reasonable price to pay if he is deriving both business and personal benefit

Marvel1

bmbm365 said:

Anyway i begged him to change and stop.
He says there is no way. All his internet banking, personal contacts use this email address. He is also a sole trader and uses this email for business for decades with business cards, letter heads etc with this email address.

Is there anything I can do to help him?

Guess not, as he is happy with what he is paying and sees the benefit.

JJ_Egan

Why has ML not picked up that i pay for a personal email address.

giraffe69

Do you really expect BT to provide a service such as email for free when your father is not taking the internet service? Email comes free with BT internet but presumably your father thought he could get a better deal. As suggested above a gmail address is a one off decision and then never again will you or your father be beholden to an ISP for email.

bmbm365

I guess my shock was that the email provider was Yahoo! Its not really serviced by BT, maybe they pay Yahoo! for hosting? You literally have to go to the Yahoo website to access your emails.
The reference to age was my Dad's reasoning as to why he is not willing to change his email address after all these years and services of all things that use it.

In my world it feels like when you change numbers when you change network providers. Your number is like your identity. Say i switch Three to Vodafone, but still pay Three for usage of the telephone number they generated. 

Its not always been a charging service. But has steadily risen over time and looks like it will just continue..

Ok, well Ofcom is looking into this- looks like i'm not sooo unreasonable to think it's just not such a simple case of people being happy to pay and so end of debate!  Anyway by the 7 quite direct messages saying if my Dad is willing to pay = no issues, gives me the impression that Ofcom won't have a leg to stand on, which is unfortunate for the few of those with old internet domains.

Owain_Moneysaver

bmbm365 said:

I couldn't believe it when i found out it was paying £7.50 from nothing more with BT apart from emails! He says there is no way. All his internet banking, personal contacts use this email address. He is also a sole trader and uses this email for business for decades with business cards, letter heads etc with this email address.

Why didn't/doesn't he get his own domain? Would look a lot more professional than a BT or Yahoo email address, and is completely independent of ISP. Email and a .uk domain for about $30 a year https://www.dynu.com/en-US/Email

george9071

Your father has obviously set his mind to paying for his email, it's his choice, i can understand the hassle of changing email and it is annoying if he is determined to keep it then he should.