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Baz46
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22-02-2020, 09:32 AM
1

Rip-off – charging for e-mail addresses!

Ofcom is writing to broadband companies to ask why some people are having to pay to keep old email addresses.

"TalkTalk charges £5 a month and BT charges £7.50 a month if customers switch providers but want to keep using their email addresses as before.

Virgin deletes those it gives to customers 90 days after they leave, but Sky lets people keep theirs for free."


Is there anything these large organisations will not stoop to in order to make money? Bad enough that they have contracts, the length of which they specify, that allow them to do anything, such as charging if you want to leave for another supplier, that change the monthly payment part-way through a contract, etc., etc. Now they are charging for e-mail addresses if you leave – probably yet another way to prevent people leaving for better deals!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-51571275
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22-02-2020, 11:03 AM
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Re: Rip-off – charging for e-mail addresses!

Seems fair enough to me. I keep an aol address which means that talk talk have an address blocked that they could use otherwise.
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22-02-2020, 11:56 AM
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Re: Rip-off – charging for e-mail addresses!

I see nothing wrong with TalkTalk's policy, If someone isn't subscribed to their services why would they let let them keep the old email address?
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22-02-2020, 12:03 PM
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Re: Rip-off – charging for e-mail addresses!

Totally news to me about paying for email addresses.
Got me 2 AOL, 5 Yahoo, 1 Hotmail, not that I use them all but they do come in handy now and again.
In my earlier life in the 1990s I had a Blueyonder and a Virgin when I had a Commodore 64 computer.
Never paid a penny for any of them and if I had to I would drop them all in a minute.

I can always go back to using pigeons..
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22-02-2020, 12:09 PM
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Re: Rip-off – charging for e-mail addresses!

Originally Posted by Baz46 ->
Ofcom is writing to broadband companies to ask why some people are having to pay to keep old email addresses.

"TalkTalk charges £5 a month and BT charges £7.50 a month if customers switch providers but want to keep using their email addresses as before.

Virgin deletes those it gives to customers 90 days after they leave, but Sky lets people keep theirs for free."


Is there anything these large organisations will not stoop to in order to make money? Bad enough that they have contracts, the length of which they specify, that allow them to do anything, such as charging if you want to leave for another supplier, that change the monthly payment part-way through a contract, etc., etc. Now they are charging for e-mail addresses if you leave – probably yet another way to prevent people leaving for better deals!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-51571275
Do what I did years ago: create a Gmail address. It's free.

I only use my Virgin address to access certain pages. After that, and I don't want to visit the site any more, the inevitable junk mail all goes to my Virgin address. I now have well over a thousand emails that I never look at. Virgin can have them if they want!
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22-02-2020, 01:12 PM
6

Re: Rip-off – charging for e-mail addresses!

I think some people are missing the point on the charging of e-mail addresses and in my opinion it is because OFCOM has not made it's reasons very clear as to why it's investigating.

I'll explain. Many years ago when the internet was in it's infancy, an email address was a gimmick, a new form of communication but in digital form. You have to remember that when the internet was coming about, the only trusted and reliable forms of communication was either by post or by phone. Digital communication for the masses was new and not something people trusted so quickly and easily.

Now we move in to today's society and virtually everything we do requires an email address. Banks want to send you your bank statements via email or they charge you to have them send paper statements, same goes for utility companies. When you sign contracts, usually done online, they require that you have an email address so they can send you updates of the application progress. Employers require and email address so they can email you your payslip. If you want to complain about something, you are told to email the company. The requirement of email is not by choice, it has been forced up us by businesses, education establishment, governments and councils. An email address is now an integral part of society because it has been forced upon society that way and thus your email address is now a part of you, just like where you live is a part of you.

An email address is now more than what it used to be and thus in my opinion internet service providers should not charge for keeping a person's email address if they change provider. If they insist on charging then it should be done in the same manner as the postal redirect service offered by Royal mail, which makes sure you get your mail to the new location whilst being given the time to contact people and companies of your new address. The same should be done with email, if a customer wants to change service provider, the provider should provide a service where 1) all the customers current emails be transferred to the new provider and 2) a redirect service put in place where any emails sent to the old email address is automatically redirected to the new email address.
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Baz46
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22-02-2020, 01:23 PM
7

Re: Rip-off – charging for e-mail addresses!

Originally Posted by JBR ->
Do what I did years ago: create a Gmail address. It's free.
Yes, I did the same and now have four gmail addresses, all for different purposes. There are always two that I can just dispense with should junk mail, or any other unwanted communications, become too much. One is for personal use, the other one was for before I retired and ran a small business.
I have to say though that the filters on gmail are very good so I've never had to delete any e-mail addresses.
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22-02-2020, 05:40 PM
8

Re: Rip-off – charging for e-mail addresses!

I used to be with Virgin so had a Virgin email address but since moving to Worcester (where there is no Virgin cabling), I changed to Sky and a gmail address. We had been here for around 3yrs before Virgin contacted me via phone asking me if I wanted to keep my Virgin email and if I did could I set up a DD please? "No, ta and by the way, where did you get my phone number from?" No answer to that.
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22-02-2020, 08:44 PM
9

Re: Rip-off – charging for e-mail addresses!

An ISP provides services/servers for their own customers. It is entirely separate to other ISPs. It's not like the Post Office that is the same company and so can offer a redirect service to customers who move to a different place.

In view of that, I think if a person moves to another ISP, it is probably reasonable that the old ISP shouldn't be required to host the ex-customer's e-mails and address(es) on their servers for free.

I have e-mail addresses on Virgin Media's servers. I have no intentions of changing ISP but if I had, I don't think I'd expect VM to keep providing space for my e-mails and e-mail addresses.

I have got Outlook.com and a Gmail.com addresses that I sometimes use ..and could make more use of if I were to leave VM.
 

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