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Account cancelled

Hiems89
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Registered: ‎21-12-2020

Account cancelled

Last Thursday I stopped receiving emails on my Plusnet addresses. I checked the Plusnet webpage, where I logged on to get the message that my account was closing.

My initial phone call to Plusnet customer support the next day (Friday). Go nowhere as all the relevant people that the adviser I spoke to tried to contact were busy. He said he would call me back when he had reached them, but five hours later I had heard nothing and phoned again.

I learned that my account had been closed (one adviser described it as having been "destroyed"), apparently in a random act by the Plusnet system - I am a very longstanding customer. I was told that my account had not been touched since last October, so that it certainly wasn't anyone in Customer Options, according to the adviser.

Fortunately, I have not (so far?) had a break in my broadband service, as a new account was set up for me. However, I have still not been able to access my emails. Hopefully they are stuck on a Plusnet server somewhere and can be accessed, but, most distressingly, that is not yet clear.

One adviser said that if they are still there they can be retained attached to an email-only account in my old account name. A subsequent sales(?) adviser who I was passed to later in a two-hour call (mostly spent listening to the wonderful collection of Plusnet Christmas songs), set up a ticket asking for the recovery of the emails on my three addresses. I was told that I would hear within 72 hours.

This afternoon (Monday), I learn that that ticket was wrong in some way, but that a correct order request was put in (by whom?) at 8 this morning. I am told that I will know within 72 hours from the new start - so perhaps by Christmas Eve.

I am concerned that this additional delay puts the chance of recovering the emails at greater risk.

It seems that this is not the first time this has happened: see the thread Account cancelled from 25-02-2019 9:19 AM. I really wonder why Plusnet has not managed in the past nearly two years to fix a system that destroys random accounts in a way that is seemingly so difficult to recover from. Surely there has to be a better approach.

In any case, while my case progresses through PN customer support, I thought that Forum users would enjoy this little Christmas story.

18 REPLIES 18
Strat
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Re: Account cancelled

Moderators Note
This topic has been moved from Accounts / Billing  to Email.
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Hiems89
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Re: Account cancelled

Note that the thread referred to in my post, Account cancelled from 25-02-2019 9:19 AM, is in Accounts / Billing.

Townman
Superuser
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Re: Account cancelled

You might get some assistance in getting your mail account restored by posting on the mailbox archive restore topic.

Superusers are not staff, but they do have a direct line of communication into the business in order to raise issues, concerns and feedback from the community.

Hiems89
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Re: Account cancelled

Thank you for the suggestion.

Unfortunately, since the broadband account that the mail account was attached to was destroyed by the system for no known reason, it is not clear that the emails have been archived.

I have been promised news from the network team tomorrow. Fingers crossed!

Gandalf
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Re: Account cancelled

Thanks for your post @Hiems89 

I'm really sorry to see what has happened. I've reinstated your Free-Online account now however you'll need to log in online and go to Manage My Mail at http://www.plus.net/email to re-setup your mailboxes.

Let me know if there are any further issues though as I suspect due to the type of account you have, you may have problems logging in, because the only account type I could move you to is a Plusnet branded one.

If you can't login I'll see if we can re-instate the Free-Online login component manually however that may have to be after the bank holiday unfortunately.

From 31st October 2022, I no longer have a regular presence here as I’ve moved on to a new role.
Anoush Mortazavi
Plusnet
Hiems89
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Re: Account cancelled

Thank you very much for your help with this!

Will what you have done also have recovered the emails stored in my three mailboxes? I am really concerned about that. Or should I wait until after the bank holiday, and then follow this up?

Thrall
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Re: Account cancelled

Have you tried logging into your account online and re-setting up the mailboxes? From reading other posts on here I believe mail can be restored but the mailboxes would need to first be remade.

Hiems89
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Re: Account cancelled

Thank you for your confidence. Given the varied statements I have had from PlusNet customers services advisers, I think I will wait for confirmation that the emails can indeed be restored.

Thrall
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Re: Account cancelled

I imagine it’ll be difficult to restore mail without an active and working mailbox as there wouldn’t be anything to restore your mail to.

The post from @Gandalf asks you to try logging in...

Gandalf
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Re: Account cancelled

Thanks for the post back @Hiems89 

Did you manage to try logging into your account? Thrall is correct in that we'd need the mailboxes re-setup before we can restore your mail. If you can't login to your account then I'd need to look at fixing that first.

From 31st October 2022, I no longer have a regular presence here as I’ve moved on to a new role.
Anoush Mortazavi
Plusnet
Hiems89
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Re: Account cancelled

Thank you for the update.

I have been able to log in to the new account. I have created three mailboxes with the old prefix names, but, of course, these are not the same as the old email addresses because they don't have the old Free Online domain. I hope they will be helpful nonetheless.

I should note that when the new account was set up on 18 Dec, I was told that its base email address would be the same as the basic address on the old account with the old domain. I wondered about that at the time, but was assured that that was the case.

Thank you again for your help.

Gandalf
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Re: Account cancelled

Thanks for getting back to me @Hiems89 

Unfortunately that's what I feared. Based on what you've said, the "Plus.net Portal Login" component hasn't associated itself with the "FreeOnline Mailboxes" I added after reactivating your account. 

We'd need a "FreeOnline Portal Login" component adding, which might be impossible due to system limitations. I've dropped an email to a few colleagues to see if anything can be done. 

With regards to your new account, I'm afraid that as that'd be of Plusnet "flavour" rather than FreeOnline, and the username is different, it's not possible to get your original email addreses instated on that account.

We'd have a greater chance of getting the FreeOnline portal login component added on your existing legacy account.

I'm not in the office tomorrow so I'll check back on Wednesday however I can't guarantee we'd have a resolution by then as the guys I've emailed may not be in the office due to the festive period and it may take time to track down the right people. 

Really sorry again for the issues we've caused. 

From 31st October 2022, I no longer have a regular presence here as I’ve moved on to a new role.
Anoush Mortazavi
Plusnet
Gandalf
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Re: Account cancelled

Thanks for your time on the phone @Hiems89 it was good to speak with you.

I'm sorry again for what had happened.

As discussed I've re-created your FreeOnline email addresses from our side which should start working within 4 hours, and I've raised a task to our NetOps team to restore your mail to the mailboxes as they were when the account was destroyed.

The task should get picked up tomorrow and as I'm out of the office tomorrow I'll call you back on Wednesday to follow up. Fingers crossed by then your mail's restored and we have a plan to enable you to manage your mailboxes online.

From 31st October 2022, I no longer have a regular presence here as I’ve moved on to a new role.
Anoush Mortazavi
Plusnet
Hiems89
Grafter
Posts: 27
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Registered: ‎21-12-2020

Re: Account cancelled

Thank you very much for your help, @Gandalf. The three Free Online email addresses are working (accessed via Webmail, as discussed), and have even started receiving external mail.

I'm now really hopeful that we will see the old emails restored soon.

I look forward to hearing from you on Wednesday.

Thank you again for taking the time to attend to this during the festive period! I really appreciate it.