Email addresses stopped with no notice

[#1]

I have been a Plusnet customer for almost 20 years, and have two email addresses which are the main contacts for myself and my wife.  We live in a relatively remote rural location, so we are still reliant on the copper telephone line, which used to be provided by BT, (now the parent company of Plusnet), but they transferred the telephone service to Shell Broadband and then TalkTalk.

I received the normal email from Plusnet support on 23rd Feb  to say the charge for the Plusnet broadband service would be taken as usual by direct debit on March 3rd.

At 0040 on 1st March there was an email in my own mailbox to say that my wife's mailbox had been "suceessfully closed".  From then on we could no longer connect or get into our mailboxes and my 'member login' was not recognised.

I raised a complaint later that day, and was eventually told that 'managment' would call me on Monday 3rd.  No-one did, but I received a text to my phone to say the matter had been 'resolved', and if I wanted any further action, to text back "CALL", which I did.  Nothing has happened.

I've had to raise another email address on gmail, and am in the process of trying to contact people who have been getting messages bounced back to them.

One person in Plusnet support in Leeds said they had never heard of this happening before, but presumed that it was because Plusnet/BT are not supporting copper-line connections.  We have no chance of getting fibre to our property in the near future.

Is it reasonable for Plusnet to do this with no notice or warning? So much for their "excellent service".

[#2]

We live in a relatively remote rural location, so we are still reliant on the copper telephone line, which used to be provided by BT, (now the parent company of Plusnet), but they transferred the telephone service to Shell Broadband and then TalkTalk.

Is your phone still with Talktalk ? and have they changed something on your phone service ?

It sounds like a change on the phone service has ceased the Plusnet broadband and closed your account...

[#3]

Hey @JOHNO2,

I’m sorry to hear that your old account was closed without notice. From your message and my review of the account, it appears you were on a Legacy ADSL broadband-only product, with your landline provided by a separate company. When changes were made to your landline, it resulted in our broadband service being automatically ceased, which led to your account being closed.

When it comes to getting your Legacy ADSL broadband only product back unfortunately this may not be possible however I will raise a task with our network operations team to see if it’s possible to restore your email service. I should have an update within 5 working days, and I will be in touch once I have more information.

Please keep an eye on this ticket for updates: https://www.plus.net/wizard/?p=view_question&id=246390116

[#4]

But surely it must be possible for us still to access our mailboxes through webmail while we are resolving this?

[#5]

Not if the account has been closed - this results in it effectively being 'destroyed', although as you have caught it early, @Marsh 's attempt to get your mail account back MAY succeed, but  there are no guarantees.

[#6]

Hey @JOHNO2,

I’m afraid that once an account is closed, the mailbox component and associated inboxes are removed. However, I am checking to see if there are any backups of the emails and inboxes and if we can create a mail-only account. Please note that this is not a guarantee, as I am not sure if there is a backup on our systems. I will be in touch once I hear back from our operations team.

[#7]

@JOHNO2  When a Broadband account is closed the e-mail service is also cancelled,  Plusnet may be able to restore it if you are lucky. 

What have TalkTalk done to your phone line to cause the cancellation of the Broadband account? Is your phone still functional?

[#8]

I don't know.  I've not been notified of any change in their service, there is still a dial-tone on the line. I'll have to chase up with them.  Is it possible it's part of the "switch off" of the analogue network?  It still seems strange for the change to happen with no notification. And I still can't see why P?lusnet should cancel our service without 30 days notice to give us a chance to make other arrangements

[#9]

Wow, what a mess.

@JOHNO2 

If TalkTalk have ceased the analogue phone line, then there will be no way of getting that back (because of Openreach stop sell rules after 5th September 2023).  If you want to continue to have a house phone using the number that was associated with your landline,  then you probably have less than 30 days (before the number becomes lost) to migrate the number from TalkTalk to a VoIP phone service provider (such as A&A), and buy an "ATA" adaptor to convert your existing phone handset from the BT plug, to an ethernet connection so it can be plugged in to a LAN socket on your broadband router.

With regards to the broadband, if TalkTalk have ceased the analogue phone line, then an ADSL broadband connection won't be available to you (again because of Openreach stop sell rules after 5th September 2023).

What you can get instead is "SoADSL" - which is ADSL without the analogue phone service.

As I understand it, Plusnet don't support SoADSL connection, so you'll likely need to find an alternative ISP that does.

Unfortunately, there are very few ISPs that now sell SoADSL, but here some that I listed in another post.

Good luck with getting your email back with Plusnet !

Let us know what you discover on your unfortunate journey, as I think you are the first of many to come this year.

.

[#10]

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@JOHNO2 wrote:

I still can't see why Plusnet should cancel our service without 30 days notice to give us a chance to make other arrangements

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If TalkTalk ceased your analogue phone service, then the associated broadband on the same wires would also cease.

Plusnet would have no warning that this happened, because TalkTalk would have made the change via Openreach.

It would appear that when the broadband disappeared from Plusnet's control, it automatically triggered an account closure.

I believe the reverse is also the case, if broadband is removed from and ADSL line, then the analogue phone service ends.

.

[#11]

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@JOHNO2 wrote:

At 0040 on 1st March there was an email ... From then on ... 'member login' was not recognised.

That sounds a bit odd, there has been a recent discussion here about how long it takes for Plusnet to finally close a customer's account after they've left.  There are many people (including me) who left Plusnet years ago, but can still login to our accounts.

@JOHNO2 

The fact you've been here for 20 years, were you with Force9 ?

If so, in your panic did you forget to select "Force9" from the 'Provider' list ? (as the default of Plusnet would cause the result you saw).

.

[#12]

@JOHNO2 

Have you checked on  https://www.broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com/#/ADSL/AddressHome 

whether you can get SOGEA broadband ?

Can you post a screenshot here of the results page, from just under your address, down to the bottom of the screen.

.

[#13]

@JOHNO2 

You should check the Ofcom Broadband Availability checker, to see if there are any other "Networks in your area"

If there is an AltNet FTTH provider nearby,  then that would be the least bad option right now.

.

[#14]

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@JOHNO2 wrote:

I have been a Plusnet customer for almost 20 years, and have two email addresses which are the main contacts for myself and my wife.  We live in a relatively remote rural location, so we are still reliant on the copper telephone line, which used to be provided by BT, (now the parent company of Plusnet), but they transferred the telephone service to Shell Broadband and then TalkTalk.

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Something is not ringing right here ... 

It is one thing to have broadband with Plusnet and the phone service with a third party, such as BT or any number of providers using the BT network.  However two points of detail in the above puzzle me...

1. Neither BT nor Plusnet have transferred service to anyone
2. Talk Talk usually provide their services over LLU ... which would preclude Plusnet providing broadband over the circuit

Is there confusion here between POST OFFICE broadband and telephone services and BT.  The PO telecoms services were indeed moved to Shell Broadband in 2021, which were in turn bought out by Talk Talk in Feb 2024.

Has there really been zero communication from Talk Talk about their intentions to change the service provision for ex-Shell phone users?

What I suspect has happened here is that Talk Talk has advised that they are moving the ex-Shell users to their own infrastructure and the local LLU circuit has been snaffled across to their equipment thereby severing the Plusnet ADSL service.  I further suspect that TT has not advised adequately or clearly the consequences for any other service provided over the circuit.

There needs to be two go forward plans here...

1. Attempt to restore / recover the emails on the crippled Plusnet broadband account as @Marsh has initiated
2. Establish an alternative broadband connection

If TT have unilaterally slammed the circuit over to LLU, then only they can deliver anything down that line.

[#15]

I'm sorry for not responding earlier, and am very grateful for the collected wisdom and advice of users on this forum.  When there is suddenly no internet at home and I'm not a smartphone user either, conducting modern 'business' becomes challenging.

  To Townman, yes, you are absolutely correct, my fault for forgetting I switched from BT to Post Office and then they sold on as you describe.  It transpired that TalkTalk had switched off my phone line without warning, because I was late with payment.  So, my bad. But it's clearly not worth trying to re-establish anything with them, as the excellent information from outcast makes clear.  I have done the broadband line check that was suggested, which is in the attachment. I will research the suppliers that are mentioned. 

Marsh and others have communicated with me regarding the plusnet email accounts.  I was told that the service would  be resumed, and received an email from PlusNet support on 5th March to say that the accounts had been re-opened and thus the support question 246390116 has  been closed.  Since then, nothing.  My webmail account login has been restored, and a good number of email messages were thankfully recovered, for which I am  very grateful, but no more  emails are coming through since then, including several that I have sent to myself from other email addresses. 

It's clear, at least, that this community is a very useful way of getting help when needed, so many thanks.  Trying to deal with the 'bots' on the suggested helpline was atrocious.