Moving house - Virgin / Blueyonder email incompatability

[cargosales]

Hi all,

Any help with this one would be mightily appreciated please !!

We currently have all telephone, email, broadband, TV etc with Virgin. We are moving house (miles away) and tonight spoke to Virgin to arrange dis/re-connection and to transfer everything across to the new house.

All fine and dandy except they have just turned round and said that they can't transfer my 'Blueyonder' email address, and it won't work once we leave this house, because the new place is in a different telephone exchange area, and I will have to change it for a new 'Virgin' email address.
To say this would be an inconvenience is understating things somewhat - it's my principal business email address, with something over 1,000 contacts, and many years of useage.

For the life of me I can't see why they can't simply 'point' the old address to the new setup / exchange.. It can't exactly be rocket science, or have I missed something fundamental?? Or, did they, when they set up the system??

I can't be the first person this has happened to, although they'd have us believe that this is a 'unique situation', previously unheard of in the civilised world. Yeah, right..


Just wondering if anyone else has had any experience of this problem and/or Virgin's attitude, and if so, has any suggestions to help them re-think the technical possibilities?

Thanks for any and all advice

CS

[cdtaylor_nats]

It sounds like they are talking utter s*t. Call up someone higher up the food chain and ask them to consider that if you have to lose your e-mail address you might as well lose all the Virgin services.

It might be worth pointing them to this answer
Re: Move & Transfer of email address's (blueyonder... - Help & Support Forum

[mixture]

cargosales,

First thing to say is that email is totally and utterly independent of your means of connection to the internet (be it satellite, cable or otherwise). So it is total and utter rubbish to say that one is dependent on the other.

Now, it is common when moving to a different ISP that your outgoing ISP will refuse to maintain your email service. That is to be expected, given you won't be paying them any more.

But if you are just moving the same service from the same ISP to a different location, I don't see any possible reason why they could be fussy. It's probably just not something that's on their standard call centre script. Try talking to someone more senior.

[Spurlash2]

No help with Virgin, but...

You need your own domain name. mail at cargosales dot co dot uk, for instance, is available for £17 a year.

If you run a business, then a company I use (others are available) can supply you with 10 POP3 Mailboxes and E-Mail forwarding.

I have used my own domain for about 10 years now, and all email goes to that one principal address and is then forwarded to my current ISP address. I don't use it for a web presence (although you can).

Doesn't help with your Virgin issue, but something to think about as a business person.

The link from cdtaylor_nats to the virgin site just left me with a headache!

[Saab Dastard]

As long as you're not changing your type of broadband service (for example, going from fibre-optic broadband to broadband that's delivered down your phone line, or vice versa), you can keep your Virgin Media email address.

If you're moving from one type of broadband to another, you may receive a new Virgin Media email address.

That's verbatim from the V-media website - Moving Home section, self service section. I don't think a link to it would help, as you have to log in.

Thinking about, there's no reason why you couldn't operate the email account via webmail - while you adopt spurlash's solution and migrate your primary account to a domain of your choosing.

SD

[call100]

I would double check with Virgin..Are you changing from cabled to ADSL or like for like?
This is one of the many reasons why should not use your ISP's email for anything other than a throw away. There are plenty of others out there that travel with you whoever you use a supplier...

[Mike-Bracknell]

Bottom line - it's technically not a problem, they just want to eventually drop the Blueyonder domain and so are migrating people away from those services in this 'passive' manner.

Hence, you have 2 things to do:

1) Shout at Virgin
2) Get yourself your own domain, which alleviates any need to rely on others for naming.

[mixture]

2) Get yourself your own domain, which alleviates any need to rely on others for naming.

Well, not strictly true. Although domain names can be transferred from provider to provider, unless you're lucky enough to own your own hosting company or a business grade internet connection you will still be reliant on someone else to host your email for you (and no, don't think about trying to stick an email server on a residential grade broadband line, it generally won't work for many reasons and for your average Joe it's not worth the hassle, especially if your computer knowledge does not extend to knowing what an MX record is).

Anyway, I digress. Point being, choose your host wisely. Don't just go for the cheapest ones out there, they tend to have lousy support.

[cargosales]

Thanks for all the replies ..

Apparantly 'the problem' is that we're moving from an old Telewest area to an old NTL one and 'the two systems are technically incompatible'. Hence they cannot transfer the (Telewest) Blueyonder email address to the old NTL area. Even though both areas have Virgin fibre-optic services available.

This evening, trying to speak to someone who actually knows what they are talking about and who could offer some help or useful suggestions proved utterly fruitless.....

My "Look, with the greatest respect, you are reading from a script which I don't understand and I don't think you do either, so please could you put me through to a techy person who can help me" was met with "of course, just hold on" and finding myself back at the beginning of the 'press 1 for ... saga'

Eventually I did manage to get put through to 'a technical person' but who was clearly in India or somesuch and on a VOIP connection of such poor quality that I couldn't understand even half of what the poor chap was saying

I will try to forget the two hours of my life I will never get back and try again early tomorrow, when there's a chance that Indians will still be in bed, and someone higher up in the Virgin food chain might just be available. (See, I'm an optimist really!!)

GRRRRRR

CS

[mixture]

cargosales,

My deepest condolences and sympathies go out to you in these difficult times.

You could see if you can play the oldest trick in the book, threaten to leave and get yourself put through to the "retentions" team.

Otherwise yes, try an early call (they may just be operating an overflow system, in which case the early bird will indeed catch the worm) , or try going for the callcenter operator's manager, frequently escalations get put back to the UK (my experience elsewhere, not with Virgin).

Edit... a quick google yields 0800 052 0431 .... have you tried that ? Apparently a Liverpool call centre, so they sort of speak English there !

[Gertrude the Wombat]

All fine and dandy except they have just turned round and said that they can't transfer my 'Blueyonder' email address, and it won't work once we leave this house, because the new place is in a different telephone exchange area, and I will have to change it for a new 'Virgin' email address.
To say this would be an inconvenience is understating things somewhat - it's my principal business email address, with something over 1,000 contacts, and many years of useage.

Erm ... mistake, basically.

Do not rely on your connectivity ISP for an email address, because you will connect to the internet by different means at different times and from different places. Especially for business email addresses, get your own domain, then you can move it around email providers if and as necessary (I've moved mine once, and with co-operation from both it was completely painless).

Plus having a proper address of your own, rather than m y n a m e @ i s p n a m e . c o m, makes you look rather more of a grown-up to your customers.

[mixture]

makes you look rather more of a grown-up to your customers.

Yup. I have a policy of not dealing with businesses who trade with an isp / hotmail / yahoo email address.

[call100]

As mixture says...On the options dial go through to retentions and tell them that you are not happy with the situation you find yourself in and am considering leaving. Best way to speak to England......Try phoning as close to 0800 as possible for more chance of a UK call centre.

[cargosales]

Thanks chaps .. err, yes, I pressed 2 to get connected to the 'you're leaving us' i.e. 'retentions team' option , whereupon I got to speak to the script reading moron I mentioned earlier, who plainly couldn't give a toss about my predicament. Bottom line: they just don't care

Thanks for the number mixture, I will try it tomorrow. Early !!

Yes, all, bitter lesson learned about having an independent / non-ISP-related email account x 2

Domain name has tonight been purchased and forwarding enabled (Even if I don't really see why that is necessary simply because useless sodding Virgin can't connect a couple of wires

Funnily enough, having a Blueyonder email addy has never been a problem in dealing with people or businesses on a daily basis - a working email is a working email, which is all I really want.

CS

[Gertrude the Wombat]

On the options dial go through to retentions and tell them that you are not happy with the situation you find yourself in and am considering leaving.

Thing is, they know that's bluff because you've got nowhere else to go. There's only one cable operator, and nobody in their right mind would give up a cable modem service in favour of the bodged ADSL-over-Victorian-phone-lines nightmare.

[Saab Dastard]

Bottom line - it's technically not a problem, they just want to eventually drop the Blueyonder domain and so are migrating people away from those services in this 'passive' manner.

Mike's right - it's technically not a problem because all Virgin, NTL and Blueyonder mail services are provided by gmail anyway.

SD

[LH2]

So what's preventing this chap's email address from working after migration to another provider? Will the old provider just scratch his mailbox? Do they block access to their IMAP/POP3/SMTP server from outside their IP blocks? Something else?

I know some providers try to block TCP port 25 (and 465?) to try and force you to use their own SMTP servers but that can't be what's stopping the OP's show.

As for the own domain vs freemail provider discussion, the latter works perfectly well in many cases (incidentally, that's a nearly universal approach in parts of the third world).

Although I have a couple of domains registered, my "real" email address, i.e., the one that I use for serious business and close friends/family is a freemail one I've had since 1997 with a lesser know provider, but one which is highly regarded in the technical community (its core business being the provision of email service), so in a way it gives you a certain "prestige" as it kind of makes you stand out as a connoisseur.

[mixture]

what's stopping the OP's show.

Basically, he is a customer of a company called Virgin. Virgin acquired a company called NTL:Telewest. NTL:Telewest is the byproduct of the merger of, yes, you guessed it ... NTL and Telewest. These companies in turn are the amalgamation of a number of smaller local cable companies that sprung up during boom times.

So in essence, "old habits die hard" as they say. And what you get as a Virgin customer is dependent on which "region" you are in. The legacy companies had two different email systems ...... you get the drift.

There is no technical reason why he should not be able to get his email transferred, merely a business one to do with what policies and infrastructure were transferred during all that M&A activity over the years.

I know some providers try to block TCP port 25 (and 465?) to try and force you to use their own SMTP servers but that can't be

And this is a very, very good thing. I think all residential internet connections should have port 25/465 blocked by default. Users should be forced to demonstrate technical competence and consent to automated security scanning before the ISP even considers unblocking.

The amount of spam that originates from virus infested home-computer zombie-nets is simply staggering (generally said to be around 80%-90% of the worldwide spam volume).

You should also bear in mind that there are special lists available to ISPs and other relevant parties (e.g. vetted businesses) that contain the IP ranges of other ISPs home customers. Therefore even if your port 25 is open, you may find your messages never get through because the receiving ISP quite rightly blocks the spam sources.

[Mike-Bracknell]

Originally Posted by mixture

And this is a very, very good thing. I think all residential internet connections should have port 25/465 blocked by default. Users should be forced to demonstrate technical competence and consent to automated security scanning before the ISP even considers unblocking.

I even wrote a spec for a RBL-based meshed router network to limit the amount of port-scanners and SMTP-spammers with connections, but apparently a DNS lookup on rogue machines would slow down router traffic unacceptably