Whatever the point is this email was 6 words long. The email address of the recipient was a department/organisation not an individual. There was no catalougue of emails that could be taken as a campaign against someone (or at least they are not showing them to me and they surely would have if they were going to send one and this was the basis of their "case") and if that was the case they should be involving the police or at least advising the third party to do so.
Morover UK libel law which presumably is at least part of the reasoning behind Virgin thinking this type of thing is any of their busines is fairly clear.
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You can't easily Libel/Defame someone or an organisation whose reputation is damaged. Harrassment laws are not easily applied to one incident (email)
http://www.urban75.org/info/libel.html and
http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilre...yberspace.html .
It seems whoever received it complained - Virgin looked it up and then without actually bothering to contact me as the account holder, sent me a letter judging it to be abuse. Without talking to the sender how would Virgin know if the complainant had a case.
Whatever your stance on this they should at the very least have "investigated" it by contacting me as the Virgin account holder before finding their own customers guilty for an email presumably they have absolutely no idea was about/concerned or the contect in which it was sent. Law aside Virgin obviously maintain the right to terminate a contract
If you are one of these people that hear the word "abuse" and imagine the worse you have to acknowledge that it is a much maligned term. The widest definitions include thisngs like "if it is offensive to the recipient" etc and on that definition anything any of us say or do can be taken as abuse - or dare I say it anything Virgin transmit into millions of homes on TV could be too. Abuse has to be taken in context and you would expoect an ISP would understand that and at the very least seek clarification as to the context from both parties before attempting to come to a decison<p>
The situation has today got worse becasue today I received a letter dated a day before the postmark and dated the day my Internet Service was disconnected
It makes no reference to the conversations I had with the Internet Security Team manager/supervisor which happened at the end of the day this letter is dated. The person I spoke to did not mention this letter in conversations with me and it has been sent by the person I spoke to yesterday that told me "he knew it was me on the voicemail" even though no name was left and he wouldnt play it back to me and wouldnt answer any questions as to why he thought it was appropriate to make allegations against me becasue I was the account holder. He made no mention of the letter either - that is signed by him - which if it was written when it says it was you would have expected him to do
Basically the letter covers their backsides to ignore all the concerns I raised with them when i actually got to speak to them to try and find out what the issue was about.<p>
The letter says
"We wrote to you on the 24th July 2008 to let you know that offensive emails had been sent from your internet connection (note its emails again when the only email traceroute they sent me contains the word a...hole) We also wrote to you on the 28th July regarding an offensive voicemail you left
(I havent left them any voicemails becasue I refused to deal with a machine after they sent me the original letter and subsequently when they suspended my Internet - and the guy whose name appears on this recent latter is the guy who specifically told me the voicemail doesnt have my name on it and couldnt/wouldnt play it back to me) As we haven't received an apology from you we have had to temporarily suspend your Internet account"
Was no mention of this letter on my account records from 14.30 of the day of the date on this letter which is probaly part of the reason no one in Tech support, Customer Service was aware of it or made aware of it after calls to the department late in the day
Basically it goes on to say I now have to sign an enclosed form and "include a letter of apology" "if we don't hear from you in six weeks, well have to permanently close your email account - and we'd much rather it didn't come to that"
Now just to explain the significance of that. Yesterday ie the day after this latest letter is dated but the same day it is post marked. I sought clarification of my contractual obligations and what Virgin proposed to do give nthe ywere suspending part of the package of services I buy from them. I also raised the issue of my email specifically. My stance with Customer services was if you are going to suspend one of my services fine i am not paying for any of my services from now on and I will seek relief in so far as I can becasue you havent given me 30 days notice, you have presented me with no evidence I have breached the terms and conditions of the contract and you are denying me service whilst asking me to continue paying for it
The attached "form" is made up as far as I can see in that it is bespoke and if I were to sign it it would ammount to an admission I had breached their terms and conditions.
Today I have been referred back to Internet Security becasue all my services remain disconnected - my phone is not just receive incoming calls but totally disconected - which people who have had their outgoing calls suspended will understand is not usual"
So in my mind theye are just tying to cover their backsides an continue to refuse/talk about specific allegations and evidence whilst while trying to effectively blackmail me into admitting I have done something wrong to justify their behaviour
The whole thing throws up some horrendous gaps in their processes from this apparently all powerful team having virtually no customer facing skills, actual knowledge of the law and most importantly the policy they seem to adopting towards their own customers when a third party totally unconnected to virgin accuses someone of "abuse".
Customer Services and every other department refer back to them and are subserviant to them.
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