Account cancelled without notice or explanation

[#1]

My elderly parents phoned me today to tell me that Plusnet had cancelled their 20+ year old account with no notice, and don't seem to be able to provide any explanation as to how it happened.

They've informed me that Plusnet has created a new account for them but will take at least a week to get them connected again, and I'm concerned that they won't be allocated the same username and therefore my father will have lost the email address he's been using for the last 20 years.

Can anyone shed any light as to how this might happen, and whether they can be allocated the same username again? As a longstanding Plusnet customer myself, this is making me think twice about whether to remain with Plusnet. Appreciate this is technically not about my account but hope given the circumstances this is ok.

[#2]

Hi @ew027 

A warm welcome to the forums.  This needs staff attention, but in the meantime...

1. There are some know issues within the billing system which Plusnet appear to be unable to rectify and their pragmatic solution is to create a new billing account
2. New accounts cannot have the same user name as an existing account
3. New accounts now cannot have the email option

In such circumstances, Plusnet have previously made the old account email only, but that usually required such a decision to be made PRIOR to creating the new account and terminating the old account.  It also requires action from the user through the process - see my generic guidance notes below.

As for there being no notice, that sounds surprising - however it is not uncommon for users to not read (use) the DEFAULT mailbox (postmaster@myaccount.plus.com) to which ALL SERVICE NOTCIES will (should) have been sent.

Email only accounts

When your account is cancelled, any additional services you have such as email, web-space, cgi-service, etc. will stop working. If you want to retain your email service after your account is closed, you must advise Plusnet before the account is closed. There used to be a charge for email only accounts, but they are now free of charge.

Resurrecting an account as email only requires manual intervention from both yourself and Plusnet. The initial stage in account resurrection gets the default email address restored. You then need to setup any secondary Plusnet email address(es) yourself, at which point you'll be able to once again send and receive emails from those addresses.

If you have secondary email address(es), after you have recreated those email addresses, you will need to ask that their contents are restored by updating the existing thread or try posting on the generic email restore topic. Please note that these backups are kept for 30 days only.

The process should go something like this...

1. Prior to your account being closed, you must tell Plusnet that after your account is closed you wish to retain the account as email only - contact the Customer Options Team - agents receive few requests for this, so if there are any doubts refer the agent to KBMS article #3349 or ask "Albert"
2. You need to make a note of all of your Plusnet email address(es) by going to manage my mail at https://plus.net/email
3. Your account is terminated
4. Plusnet resurrect the account as email only
5. Plusnet will restore the default mailbox - you might need to change the name before the @ symbol to what you had before
6. You recreate any secondary email address(es) and then request that their contents are restored
7. Plusnet restore the secondary mailbox(es) content

The process could take up to one week, after which everything should then work as it did previously, however please note that emails sent to the email address(es) between the account being closed and the email addresses being recreated might...

1. Be returned to the sender as un-routable (no such domain)
2. Be returned to the sender as undelivered (no such addressee)
3. All be delivered to the default mailbox if catch-all is enabled

[#3]

Hiya @ew027 thanks for getting in touch. I'm so sorry to hear about your parents account and for the hassle this is causing them. This is certainly not the experience we want them to have and I'd like to help.

If a new account has been created, they won't have the same username and if the old account was closed without it being requested to keep as mail only, then the email address will have also been cancelled. 

If you can please send me over a PM with their username (or full address and postcode) I'd like to take a further look at the account to see what's happened and will certainly do what I can to try and get the email back. I can also ensure all the relevant steps are in place to get the services re-provided. 

(to send a PM, click on my name and then to the right, there will be a grey button to 'send private message' and in the message please include a link to this thread)