Virgin.Net Webmail

I switched from their broadband service to PAYG yesterday. The people at Virgin also gave me a fresh mailbox whilst they were at it meaning that I've lost all my email and contacts. I've just been on the phone to them and they state that they don't offer any kind of support for their mail service and "cannot" restore the old mailbox. What's worse is that I asked exactly where it said the service was unsupported and he said it was in the terms and conditions, but after going through the terms and conditions with him it appears there was no mention of it - he was desperately clinging to his own definitions of what 'residential' vs 'business' means - 'residential' apparently means 'no support from us!'.

What was really insulting is being told "I'm sorry sir but it's Christmas Eve and we are really busy". Well firstly that's completely irrelevant - they shouldn't be open on Christmas Eve if they can't handle things, and secondly one of their customers has lost several years worth of contacts so it's a Merry F**king Christmas from Virgin.Net as far as I'm concerned. Also being told "every residential ISP service will do this" - no ISP I know does this, my BT mailbox still remains intact after 2 years.

Has the server been totally deleted? The reason i ask is because i still have 2 Virgin email addresses although i left their 512 ADSL service over a year ago. I set up mine to connect via MS Outlook so it contacts directly with the server and all my addresses are saved within Outlook.

If you need to setup outlook, go here http://www.virgin.net/customers/helpme/email/index.html
Assuming you read your mail via your browser, there's a very slim chance that your old emails are on the server but there's a fault with webmail/browser. Other than that, if the server was cleared, then i'm afraid it's gone for good. :shrug:

PokerPlayer said:

Has the server been totally deleted? The reason i ask is because i still have 2 Virgin email addresses although i left their 512 ADSL service over a year ago. I set up mine to connect via MS Outlook so it contacts directly with the server and all my addresses are saved within Outlook.

If you need to setup outlook, go here http://www.virgin.net/customers/helpme/email/index.html
Assuming you read your mail via your browser, there's a very slim chance that your old emails are on the server but there's a fault with webmail/browser. Other than that, if the server was cleared, then i'm afraid it's gone for good. :shrug:

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Yup!! Me too ..... I am still using my two Virgin addys after the same length of time (nearly). Pop3 tho' ..... I never used web-mail.

AlexanderUK said:

I switched from their broadband service to PAYG yesterday. The people at Virgin also gave me a fresh mailbox whilst they were at it meaning that I've lost all my email and contacts.

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Just changing package should not bring about getting a new mailbox.
So either the account became completely deactivated and then reinstated
as a pay as you go account.
or
your broadband account was cancelled and a new and different pay as you
go account opened.

I've just been on the phone to them and they state that they don't offer any kind of support for their mail service and "cannot" restore the old mailbox. What's worse is that I asked exactly where it said the service was unsupported and he said it was in the terms and conditions, but after going through the terms and conditions with him it appears there was no mention of it - he was desperately clinging to his own definitions of what 'residential' vs 'business' means - 'residential' apparently means 'no support from us!'.

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It seems to me that you were desperately clinging to harassing the
person you were speaking to for slightly misspeaking themselves.
A quick trawl through their terms and conditions yielded the following
relevant to your situation.

If the mailbox has been closed then according to their terms and conditions
it cannot be restored.
C4c Where data has been deleted or barred and mailboxes disconnected, we will not store or reserve either your data or your username.
H3 would also apply
Effect of Account Cancellation:
<snip> all email addresses (both primary and secondary email addresses) and any other features provided as part of the Service will be deleted and we regret that we will be unable to retrieve this data. We will not be able to reassign the same email address to you at a later date if you decide to re-register. <snip>
F14 would also seem relevant
use the Service other than for your personal use, and you acknowledge that Virgin.net shall not in any way whatsoever be liable to you or to any third party for any business losses (including without limitation any loss of profits, business or anticipated savings or for any destruction of data) suffered in anyway whatsoever by you or any third party;

Obviously the loss of contact information is unfortunate but surely if
it is of importance to you then you would have it stored in more than one location.

[/quote]
What was really insulting is being told "I'm sorry sir but it's Christmas Eve and we are really busy". Well firstly that's completely irrelevant - they shouldn't be open on Christmas Eve if they can't handle things, and secondly one of their customers has lost several years worth of contacts so it's a Merry F**king Christmas from Virgin.Net as far as I'm concerned. Also being told "every residential ISP service will do this" - no ISP I know does this, my BT mailbox still remains intact after 2 years.[/QUOTE]

I've got to say from what you are saying here I would get the guys point.
You are understandably upset at losing your contacts but once you
were told that they cannot be retrieved it seems you thought christmas
eve was a good time to then harangue and hassle some poor sod of an
agent.
It isn't his fault so really no point in taking it out on him.
If you have a complaint about the way in which email accounts
etc are assigned, created or ceased then why not put it in writing
to their head office (you know, the people who are responsible for the
way the service is supposed to work)

Pimpernel said:

Yup!! Me too ..... I am still using my two Virgin addys after the same length of time (nearly). Pop3 tho' ..... I never used web-mail.

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You 2 need to be careful if you want to keep using your virgin addies,
technically they can be deleted after 2 months of not connecting
to virgin.net

They do run scripts every now and then to clear up inactive accounts.

The only way to be reasonably sure of keeping your virgin email
accounts working is to make a connection to virgin.net at least once
every 2 months.
I have heard of others who have had their email addies last without doing
that but basically they and you have been lucky.
I've heard of many many more who have their accounts disappear.
Using the webmail or accessing the mail account using pop3 do not count
as connecting to virgin.

Personally, i'm still using my old Virgin accounts on a daily basis and i think it's the same for Pimpernel. If i hadn't used an email address for 2 months, i don't think i'd miss it anyway.

And if anyone considers changing ISP's regularly, i'd recommend setting up independent email addresses such as google/yahoo/lycos. It just saves hassle long term. :nod:

Having worked the NTL vISP roundabout (virgin.net, tesco internet, and Which?) I know a fair bit about this shiz.

The webmail service is defined as being a temporary storage point only. The webmail server used to fall over more times in a year than I can remember and still they haven't sorted it out. I believe the webmail function is sub-contracted to a company or technology known as Critical Path, though this may be inaccurate.

As for Mr. Alexander, I think Zx nailed it pretty well, seems like you got a bee in your bonnet and you fancy taking it out on a few forums. The very fact that you only have one post to your name (that is to say one complaint, no replies) is indictive of the face that you're not planning on accepting any viewpoints other than your own. I hope you prove me wrong.

As for the guys who use pop3 access to their dormant accounts, nice job The deletion period for dormant vnet accounts is 18-24 months; but you're better off just re-grading your account ot PAYG and dialing in once every six months or so.

As aggressive towards Alexander as this may sound, consider this an public invitation to contact me with any issues you may have, if I can't sort it myself then I know who to point you towards

romerogoon said:

Having worked the NTL vISP roundabout (virgin.net, tesco internet, and Which?) I know a fair bit about this shiz.

The webmail service is defined as being a temporary storage point only. The webmail server used to fall over more times in a year than I can remember and still they haven't sorted it out. I believe the webmail function is sub-contracted to a company or technology known as Critical Path, though this may be inaccurate.

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The RDNS entry for Virgin's email server addresses (pop, mail, smtp) is mail.virgin.net.criticalpath.net which would indicate that they have farmed out their email service, as does this http://www.criticalpath.net/pdf/cs-Virgin.pdf

I've used a virgin.net email address as my main email address for years, as it was very unusual for emails to go missing, compared to the other ISP provided email services I've used. However the spam filtering is slightly too agressive now, so occassionally legitimate emails are lost. I now use gmail which puts suspect spam in a spam folder so I can recover it on the odd occassions when it does get it wrong.

As I recall Virgin used to provide a smaller email storage space for payg users, this might be the reason the existing mail boxes were deleted, or perhaps it was deleted in error. Unfortunately you can't depend on an ISP to keep a back-up of your data, if you must use webmail also use a email client to download anything you wish to keep (you can either use POP with the client set to not delete downloaded emails from the server or else use an IMAP client which will sync local mailboxes with your ISP provided email account).

zx814ever said:

You 2 need to be careful if you want to keep using your virgin addies,
technically they can be deleted after 2 months of not connecting
to virgin.net

They do run scripts every now and then to clear up inactive accounts.

The only way to be reasonably sure of keeping your virgin email
accounts working is to make a connection to virgin.net at least once
every 2 months.
I have heard of others who have had their email addies last without doing
that but basically they and you have been lucky.
I've heard of many many more who have their accounts disappear.
Using the webmail or accessing the mail account using pop3 do not count
as connecting to virgin.

Click to expand...

For the record ....... the Virgin addys are still there only because some contacts seemed unable/unwilling to change to my new ISPs addy. If they disappeared tomorrow ...... no sweat, and I would say 'Thank you!' to Virgin for their extended use!!

Also, like Mel I have a GMail account.

Me too! I just started a Google mail account as they've stopped issuing new Gmail ones. Was a bit more complicated to setup Outlook but i've got it POP3 and that should solve any future problems with ISP accounts.

Deleted, too much off topic.

PokerPlayer said:

Me too! I just started a Google mail account as they've stopped issuing new Gmail ones. Was a bit more complicated to setup Outlook but i've got it POP3 and that should solve any future problems with ISP accounts.

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I believe you can still get @gmail addresses if you sign-up from outside the UK