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What services? The @virgin.net domain is one that appears to no longer provide.
What services? The @virgin.net domain is one that appears to no longer provide. Photograph: Chris Dorney/Alamy
What services? The @virgin.net domain is one that appears to no longer provide. Photograph: Chris Dorney/Alamy

How did Virgin Media manage to lose my email account?

This article is more than 3 years old

It was all there on Saturday and gone by Monday without any warning

In late April my @virgin.net email account, which has been my main one for 20-plus years, disappeared. I used it on a Saturday but on Monday I could no longer log in and have been unable to do so ever since. Imagine all the links and contacts I have lost.

Despite spending, in total, a whole day on the phone to Virgin Media, and talking to a large number of people, no one has been able to resolve the matter. Can it really be that in 2020, an email account can just be “disappeared” by a provider without warning?

It seems that two to three years ago Virgin Media – bizarrely – may have “sold” its virgin.net domain to TalkTalk.

Virgin Media refers me to TalkTalk but TalkTalk says that the technical administration of this domain is nothing to do with it.

JF, via email

There is a long and complicated history around the Virgin Media brand, which was created out of the merger of NTL and Telewest in 2006 and, a few months later, its takeover of Virgin Mobile. The following year, NTL, Telewest, @virgin.net and Virgin Mobile came together under Virgin Media.

Then in November 2014, Virgin Media sold its internet “dial-up” ADSL business to TalkTalk, and Virgin began transferring its non-cable customers to TalkTalk in February 2015.

Since then, there have been numerous complaints about sudden email account closures.

Virgin Media told us that your account closure was caused by a technical issue. It says: “We have unlocked JF’s email and are sorry for the inconvenience caused.”

A customer service executive will deal with recovering lost content.We welcome letters but cannot answer individually. Email us at consumer.champions@theguardian.com. Please include a daytime phone number. Submission and publication of all letters is subject to our terms and conditions: http://gu.com/letters-terms

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