EMAIL CLOSURE

[#1]

Hi Nick BS - thanks for your reply.  I rang last Friday and spoke to a lady at a Plusnet contact centre to say that my emails were playing up, taking ages to do anything and giving me all sorts of odd messages.  She told me that it was probably been because the email section was being closed down and I was most likely losing the email facility slowly, and that they no longer had an email team - I assume that means a team to give advice on faults?  She also said that members who had been with PlusNet for 10 years or longer had already been told of the Email closure and the contact centre had only just been told of that?  She also could not help with my emails problem but thankfully it is getting nearer normal, although still running slower than usual.

I am an OA P, but usually good enough to work things out, but spent a bad weekend wondering how to let lots of friends, companies etc. know what my new email was, and, firstly, how to keep emails referring to upcoming flights, shop receipts - these days companies want you to save things on computers etc. rather than to waste paper giving receipts.

So, I am feeling re-assured that it is not happening, at least in the near future.  I do hope that PlusNet (not you personally) do advise all their customer service staff NOT to tell customers that email is closing down. It is quite upsetting as it appeared to be on the point of closing.  If and when it does happen, then I trust PlusNet to advise customers just what to do in changing their supplier. Thank you again for your reply,  Catherine C

[#2]

@annechad As has been pointed out (more than once) in this topic, if and when PN decide to discontinue the email service, customers will be given adequate notice, and there are a number of Community members, never mind PN staff, who are willing and able to help in that situation.

[#3]

Legend John -  Thanks for your help.  I only brought it up as when I looked on the Community Posts after speaking to the staff member to report a fault , what she said made me check on the Forum and the email "closure" seemed to come up often last year but I could not find any further comments in 2024.  I found it difficult to think that Plusnet would do anything suddenly, I was warned of the mobile phones and changed without problem to EE as recommended by PlusNet staff.

I just can't understand why the lady I phoned for help gave me the completely wrong information, saying she had been told recently and that the email staff had been closed down etc. etc. -  was she new or just having a bad day I wonder?

So -  I will just wait and hope it does not happen for a long time yet.

Regards, Catherine

[#4]

@annechad I suspect - and it is only my suspicious appraisal of BT -  that there have been 'suggestions' put out to certain frontline agents to  give out this damaging misinformation - to what end I do not know, but it is a bad approach. As  I have said elsewhere, the BT Group as a whole appears to have higher management who work to the practices of the old GPO Telephones principle of treating their customers (and paymasters) as an annoyance. It is about time they dragged their business practices into the 21st century.

[#5]

Thanks for the clarification. This is pretty bizarre, isn't it? When I spoke to customer support because my current contract was coming to an end, I finished by thanking him for his very clear and helpful advice - even though it was the bad news that I should abandon my free-online email address leaving me three weeks to tell my hundreds of contacts and change all the sites that I've used the address to register with. It never crossed my mind that the advice he was giving me might be just plain wrong.

Thank you again to everyone in this thread for explaining the real situation.

[#6]

@DaveC9 

There is something of distinct difference for you here - your email brand is a very old legacy service which is NOT associated with your current Plusnet broadband account.  Therefore on terminating your broadband account, your email service should continue as is ... unlike those users whose email is connected to their Plusnet account (@account.plus.com) who will lose their service on moving away.

The 'loss' of email is a multi-faceted space... PLUSNET broadband subscribers using the Plusnet BRANDED email service will lose that service should they migrate away or (for whatever reason) start a new broadband account.  Anyone using a legacy brand should be fine on migrating away as that email service is not associated with the broadband account.

As reiterated here, there is no declared position on the total withdrawal of the existing emails services, though they are not available to new account holders.

[#7]

@Townman 

The plot thickens! 

That would be great if it is the case, but I can't quite get my head around it.  free-online seems to be one of the 'brands' of plusnet since, if I understood it right, several ISPs merged many years ago. To manage my broadband contract, including my email, I log on to the plusnet site with my plusnet broadband logon details, choosing the free-online drop-down. My email appears to be hosted on the plusnet site.

Where would/could my free-online email be hosted if I terminate my plusnet broadband contract?

[#8]

For info. I phoned the support line (again) this morning, and they have now issued me with a 24 month contract with everything as it is now: email and landline remaining as they are.

Forewarned, I will during the next two years migrate to a different email address and encourage people to use my mobile number instead of the landline so that I will have more flexibility by the time this contract expires.

Thank you, Community members, for your advice.

[#9]

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@DaveC9 wrote:

Where would/could my free-online email be hosted if I terminate my plusnet broadband contract?

---

I will seek clarification of my understanding.  Certainly the MAAF legacy brands are not connected to a current Plusnet account.

[#10]

@DaveC9 

FREE-ONLINE email accounts could be in a grey area when leaving Plusnet.  If they were down-graded to email only sometime ago and are NOT associated with an active Plusnet broadband account, then closing a different Plusnet broadband account will not impact the continuance of that email service.

[#11]

This is getting a bit ridiculous.;  Surely there is someone of authority in Plus/Net - technician, manager, executive etc - who can explain just what, if anything, is going on in plain English!! I gather that most of the replies are from customers who know what they are talking about, but  myself and probably many others do not understand most of the technical things!!  i.e. - what is a Domain? and why is my email address not a specific PlusNet  address?

Am I correct  so far -  it appears that PlusNet are not currently intending to close down their email system so email addresses and all our saved emails are safe are just are not changing - for now anyway?  It seems a simple enough matter for them to address.  If the reply is to the effect that currently there is to be no change, it would be very welcome but if there are plans in the system then surely they could speak up and (again in plain English) advise as to how we can change email addresses and save all our saved emails and addresses etc. - which would be quite a job.  

Please, PlusNet, you must read all these comments - surely you can let us all know the situation. I don't particularly want to change and move away from you as I know how to work your system!

[#12]

@annechad Most of the replies (with the exception of that from 'NickBS') are from fellow forum members, including some ex-customers who have remained on the forum to help those such as you, and you have been told that there are no current plans to change email provision for customers who currently have an email address in the form of <anything@youraccountname.plus.com>. How much clearer can we be?

[#13]

In very plain English until there is an announcement on anything … there is nothing to announce. When there is something to announce, customers will be the first to know.

Anything else is speculation from uninformed front line support agents.

[#14]

Unfortunately, some seem unable to grasp this simple point.

[#15]

@annechad

I can sympathise with you, in that it must be confusing. Who do you believe, Plusnet call centre employees tell you one thing and people on this forum tell you something else!  It's not the first time that call centre staff have not been on message.

We have been told before on this forum that this is being addressed @NickBS, but it seems to be ongoing.

Just to be very clear BT has stated that Plusnet is becoming an Internet only provider, this means no phone /voice, no mobile, no business products, no TV, no Web hosting and no email. New customers have been Internet only for a while now. 

What we don't have is any timescale as to the withdrawal of the remaining legacy services, apart from being told it will be in good time to make alternative arrangements.

Having spent a lifetime in the tech industry, suppliers have  always given approx dates for the withdrawal of any services, I can't understand why Plusnet can't do the same.