The perils of email tied to an ISP

[#1]

Hi All, a cautionary tale regarding Plusnet email....

My contract was recently up for renewal but as there was no option on my account to change to fibre despite knowing that it is available,  a new account had to be created to facilitate the change. I asked about my current Plusnet email address and was told it could be transferred to the new account. The switchover happened on June 2nd with the removal of the old telephone line and installation of the fibre cable, with broadabnd working at the expected speed. I could still login to the member centre with my old account and noticed it was saying next payment due June 5th. I rang customer services who said that account should have been closed at start of new service and they would do it straight away, I again asked about the email and was told once the old account was closed the new account should pick up the address (it already showed as my address in the member centre) however this has not been the case and I cannot login to webmail or setup my email client with the new username and  password.

I spoke with customer services yesterday and was transferred to someone in technical who was going to ring back but didnt hear anything ( tbh she didnt say very much and was difficult to hear when she did speak). Spoke to Customer services again today and it transpires I have been given the wrong info all along and the email address is NOT transferrable and it is now extremely unlikely it can be recovered altho a request has been put in to see if it can be done but not holding out much hope.

This scenario is EXACTLY the thing I wanted to avoid, when the contract came up for renewal I looked on comparison sites with a view to a possible change of ISP and i did create a gmail account and started to change some of my contacts but having been told my old email address could be transferred and as it was quite unique and often commented on I decided to stay with Plusnet as their pricing was good.

Considering all the hassle I now have of people not being able to contact me and having to make a list of all the utilities and services and other contacts I have to change contact details for Im now wishing I had done so previously and ditched Plusnet altogether.

[#2]

I thought a few years ago that I would at some point encounter a problem like this:

I used to work for BT, so had their broadband, (with associated email), as an "Employee Benefit".

When I retired about 2 years ago, I moved to Plusnet, (by then, PN weren't offering email for new customers).

I too had realised the number of websites that used my email address to login with. Luckily for me, I decided to make migrating them all to my Google Mail address my project for the first Covid lockdown.

It kept me occupied for a few weeks!

[#3]

Yes it's going to take a while to update all my existing contacts and inevitably I expect there'll be one or two I miss, just hope I don't miss out anything important. The customer service rep also said today about Plusnet not offering wmail to new customers and existing emails would be ending but at least would have been with notice instead of just gone with no warning 🤬

[#4]

@Jovin123 

I think that your experience with service reps is that you should not believe everything they tell you.  The question of the email service ceasing remains unconfirmed speculation.

On the other hand, the loss of email (where it exists) on closed accounts has been very clearly communicated for a good while.  Why an agent should advise that...

1. you can keep your email
2. it will simply move to your new account

... is totally incomprehensible.  Therefore I would be sceptical about affirmations of things NOT formally communicated.

I have escalated your experience, because users should not be offered incorrect information about the email service.

[#5]

@Jovin123 

"Yes it's going to take a while to update all my existing contacts and inevitably I expect there'll be one or two I miss, just hope I don't miss out anything important"

Do you use a password manager that you could use as a reference?

I use Sync in Firefox browser and also keep a separate spreadsheet of all of my logins - which I printed out and used as a tick list.

[#6]

That is a good idea!!

Where one has asked for the passwords to be stored locally, the browser will have the website and logon credentials used.

Whilst you will need to change contact email addresses, not all sites (service accounts) will then use the new email address as the login details.  It might become confusing were you need to keep using your Plusnet email address as the login identity ... even though you have changed the contact details!!

This might be a good time to get your own domain name.  That will never change, even if you change hosting providers.

[#7]

@Townman 

"This might be a good time to get your own domain name."

This is something that I have heard many times over the years, but what does it actually mean: what is involved and how would I actually use it?

I use Linux (Mint) as the operating system on my desktop PC and laptop, and also run a Netgear ReadyNAS home server.

[#8]

but what does it actually mean: what is involved and how would I actually use it?

@Mr_Paul  Assuming you wish to use the domain for email.

first you decide on and find a suitable domain name that isnt already registered. Personally I have an uncommon surname , so have managed to register <my surname>.uk . There are many sites that will search for available domains ( e.g https://www.mythic-beasts.com/customer/newdomain ) given keywords. Bear in mind that your email address(es) will be of the form <mailbox>@<domainname> so choose carefully. Domains ending .uk are the cheapest to register but I'd stay away from .co.uk if possible for personal domains as they are meant to be for companies.

Then you register that domain ( costs about £7/yr )

Then you get an email hosting package for that domain. Some packages will allow a limited number of mailboxes i.e <mailboxname>@<domainname> whereas others allow unlimited. My hosting allows unlimited ( but subject to a total storage size of 2Gb ) and costs £25/yr. For info I have 5 mailboxes e.g myname@mydomain , wifesname@mydomain for example. I also have aliases ( forwarders ) whereby I have unique addresses for the various websites I'm registered on e.g amazon@mydomain which forwards to myname@mydomain.

The domain registration and hosting can be with different providers but its simpler if they are with the same one.

You then configure you email client to collect mail from the relevent mailboxes and send mail via your hosting providers servers using the information that your hosting provider supplies.

Using Linux (mint)  I would guess that you would use Thunderbird as your email client, that's what I use on Ubuntu.

HTH

[#9]

@MisterW 

Thanks for the info - very interesting.

Yes, I do use Thunderbird on my PC's, and the built in mail app on my Android devices.

So using your examples, it would cost me £32 per year for our family of three adults, and we would share a total of 2GB storage?

What advantages would that give me over our existing Google Mail accounts, which I think give us 15GB of storage each, for free?

We already understand, and accept, that Google uses our data etc.

[#10]

@Mr_Paul

Started a reply earlier but got distracted by other matters. Now out. @MisterW has offered comprehensive advice.

[#11]

We already understand, and accept, that Google uses our data etc.

If you're happy with that then fine. Personally I only use google email accounts when forced to, for instance Android devices.

What advantages would that give me over our existing Google Mail accounts, which I think give us 15GB of storage each, for free?

The only real advantage would be the ability to use aliases, such that different email addresses could be used on each website, with the mail routed to common mailboxes. This means that if one website gets compromised only the unique alias for that website is affected. You simply delete the alias, create another and change the registered email for that website.

As for storage, how much storage do you actually use ?

I tend to keep between 1 and 2 yrs worth of email on my domain IMAP accounts, everything older than that is archived to local folders using Thunderbird on my desktop machine and backed up. I currently have 1 domain with 5 mailboxes and a second domain with 4, that currently totals about 500MB with approx 17 months data.

[#12]

@MisterW 

Thanks for the reply.

"We already understand, and accept, that Google uses our data etc."

To expand on this, whilst I often read that we should be concerned about privacy etc, if a company wants to use my data to target me with adverts for things that I might actually be interested in, (like Amazon do), then I don't have a problem with that.

I keep all of my old emails online, filed into sub-folders - I find it useful for finding out where I bought something in the past for example: where eBay only show records for the past 2 to 3 years, I have a record of everything that I have bought through them since 2006!

When I post on a forum, and receive a notification that the thread has been updated, I keep the latest email as an easy link for future reference. That folder goes back to 2005.

[#13]

Thanks everyone for the replies and advice.

I dont use a password manager or allow the browser to store passwords but I do have a list of most of the important contacts such as banks, utilities etc so have logins for them.

I will look into the option of getting a domain, a search on one site suggested <username>.plus.com is available but I would have thought anything .plus.com would be registered to plusnet. Other sites suggested <usernameplus>.com which seems more likely.

In the meantime I have to wait until Saturday when the agent I was speaking to yesterday is going to call me back with an update but Im not at all hopeful that the address can be restored.

[#14]

I will look into the option of getting a domain, a search on one site suggested <username>.plus.com is available but I would have thought anything .plus.com would be registered to plusnet.

They are.

Other sites suggested <usernameplus>.com which seems more likely.

I'd look for domains ending .uk e.g .org.uk, .me.uk or just .uk domains as .com domains are considerably more expensive

[#15]

I cannot think of any merit of seeking a domain name which looks like Plusnet's account.plus.com - it is asking for confusion!

There are many different views on what a domain name might be and many more on what it should not be.  Remember that this is likely to live with you for life, so avoiding one using your family name might be a consideration for unmarried females!!