Quote:
Originally Posted by 45rpm
Hello everyone,
I think this is a horrible way for VM to treat its customers. Although I do use Thunderbird with POP3, occasionally I need to find something specific, so I do a detailed search on VM's sever. In fact, VM's search is great.
I have countless numbers of friends and businesses that use my VM emails; so for me to switch to (say) Gmail would be a nightmare.
For a long time now, Virgin removes the email from ex-customers (ie those that switch to another broadband). That itself is wrong and the regulator should have stopped it.
Moving from Sky or BT to VM, one can retain the old email facility but not vice versa. Why!!!
There is still so many unanswered questions about the switch; eg long-term pricing, reliability, retaining the same addresses.
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"For a long time now, Virgin removes the email from ex-customers (ie those that switch to another broadband). That itself is wrong and the regulator should have stopped it."
Why? If you leave VM you aren't paying them a single penny and it does cost money to host email. So why should VM provide a 'free' email service to you? Well, not free, it's being subsidised by current VM customers.
"Moving from Sky or BT to VM, one can retain the old email facility but not vice versa. Why!!!"
Because BT and Sky allow you to carry on paying them a (small) sum of money each month to retain the email provision (like I said, this costs and they won't do it for nothing). VM have chosen not to go down that route, fine they may be missing out on some money, but that is their prerogative. Although I suspect that there are good historic technical reasons why they can't/won't do it.
"There is still so many unanswered questions about the switch; eg long-term pricing, reliability, retaining the same addresses."
Ok yes this is a concern, I strongly believe that any existing email addresses will be retained, it's just that a different company is taking over running the 'back-end'. Reliability? Who can say? I fully expect some glitches in the migration and some users will report a complete loss of all of their emails - nothing is ever 100% perfect.
Long-term pricing? Well almost certainly to creep up. Right now, if you decide to take up the offer, it's going to cost you an additional £6 (I believe) per month for the cheapest option, but it will be free for the first year.
So take up the offer, you now have a year to spin up a new Gmail etc. address and notify all of your contacts. After a year you cancel and don't pay anything.
Of course what they rely on is that you can't be bothered or simply keep putting it off, until they demand money or they will vapourise your email address - what do you do? Long-term pricing, well suppose after three years they up the price to £10 per month or £15 or £20? You now don't have a year to act, you have 30 days - again what do you do?