Emails destroyed!

Rottielover4

Decided to terminate contract for my landline with Plusnet a few weeks ago as I wasn’t using it. The contract was for landline and broadband and the cost had increased by quite a bit. The broadband speed was not good. On the 7th June it ceased, and a few days later went to check my emails only to find there was nothing at all there.  All folders , everything empty.
I contacted Plusnet, they were totally unhelpful and uninterested and told me this is what happens when you terminate your contract with us!!
I was never informed by them that this would happen otherwise I would have probably kept something with them . I run a smalll business and had stored a lot of info in folders and I have lost the lot. 

I have contacted the Ombudsman for Communications and they are looking into it for me. 

Has anyone else experienced this with Plusnet? 

TadleyBaggie

It's the norm for ISP provided email accounts, terminate the ISP contract and the email account will usually be lost (there are a few exceptions). Why should they provide a service to someone who is not paying for it? Doubt the ombudsman will be interested.

This is why ISP email accounts should never be used in the long term.

brewerdave

A bit late now ,but you should have downloaded all important emails to an email client like Thunderbird on a local PC. If you kept everything on PN's servers than no surpris that they have wiped them. I believe you could have kept the email addy live ,for a few ££s pm.

TadleyBaggie

Agree with using a client with local storage/folders such as Thunderbird. I have emails going back 18 years or so, from a variety of email providers (some ex-ISPs) and in that time I switched from Windows to Apple Mac. It has never let me down.

Rob5342

If you have cancelled a service that included an email account then I'm not sure why you'd expect the email to carry on,.you wouldn't expect the broadband or phone to keep going would you?

Your email should always be with a provider that's completely independent of your ISP so you can change isp easily.

Neil_Jones

Rottielover4 said:

Decided to terminate contract for my landline with Plusnet a few weeks ago as I wasn’t using it. The contract was for landline and broadband and the cost had increased by quite a bit. The broadband speed was not good. On the 7th June it ceased, and a few days later went to check my emails only to find there was nothing at all there.  All folders , everything empty.
I contacted Plusnet, they were totally unhelpful and uninterested and told me this is what happens when you terminate your contract with us!!
I was never informed by them that this would happen otherwise I would have probably kept something with them . I run a smalll business and had stored a lot of info in folders and I have lost the lot. 

I have contacted the Ombudsman for Communications and they are looking into it for me. 

Has anyone else experienced this with Plusnet? 

Yeah it tells you that here:

https://www.plus.net/help/legal/cancellation-policy/ - "When an account is closed, access to all account features provided by Plusnet will be removed. This includes email, hosted webspace and access (including discussion forums and access to the Help Assistant Ticketing system)."

If you haven't backed any of your email up and you've lost the lost because you closed the account, that's unfortunate but that's the way the system works.  Sorry.  Not sure what the ombudsman is going to tell you different but...

southsidergs

There's also the question of why you were using a residential product for business purposes? Surely if something is that important you'd use a service with proper backups etc?

virgo17

Very sorry that you have lost your emails.

Do yourself a favour for the future and set up email with a non ISP provider. Providers like Gmail and GMX offer free email which will still be available regardless of which ISP you use in the future.

ladruid

Its always sad when something doesn't go your way or as expected.

But this is 100% on your shoulders and Plusnet is not at fault as its all written into the contract you agreed too. Getting OFCOM involved will do nothing as it was your choice to end the contract. Why did you think Plusnet were going to help you, you were no longer a customer of your own choosing?

I am actually quite surprised you could even log into your Plusnet email account to find it empty if indeed Plusnet had removed the account, this would be the only thing I would be querying, "Why could I log into my account still, but all data had been removed?".

There is a positive side to this, you might be more carful in the future to read contracts and think of the ramifications when you cancel them or maybe even get a proper business email setup.

In the end though, just be thankful that you were not using a residential broadband service, and then offsetting the total costs against your business expenses. That could well be classed as tax evasion and that would be criminal.

hamster99

If this has only just happened then I would contact PN again and ask them if they can restore your emails if you re-instate your contract with them. It may not be possible and, if it is, it'll probably cost you some cash but at least it's worth a try.

I echo what others have said though - you should not be relying on an ISP provider to look after your emails. There are loads of services who will do it for free (e.g. gmail). For a very small monthly fee you can even use someone like IONOS who will register your domain and provide as many name@yourdomain.co.uk email addresses that you need. I've been doing that for my business for years with no hassles. I also regularly backup all of my email accounts to a local PC, can never be too careful!!

bob2302

I was surprised to hear that the OP could access the account to see that the emails had gone. I would have expected access to be lost before the deletion happened. If that had happened to an IMAP client the local copies would likely have been deleted too.