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Plusnet email password rejected on all platforms overnight

Toffee15
Newbie
Posts: 3
Registered: ‎27-08-2020

Plusnet email password rejected on all platforms overnight

Hello, I hope someone can help me, as I've been unable to get through to tech support, and all other avenues lead to email, which I'm unable to use. Basically I have been accessing my Plusnet email via an app on my phone, Outlook and Mail on Windows 10, and on webmail. Since yesterday morning, all have been rejecting my password. I thought that changing my password might help, but the link I requested has been sent to the email I can't access. Broadband and wi-fi are working normally.

 

Any thoughts on how to get to my email, or on why/how this has happened would be very gratefully received.

6 REPLIES 6
Townman
Superuser
Superuser
Posts: 22,916
Thanks: 9,534
Fixes: 156
Registered: ‎22-08-2007

Re: Plusnet email password rejected on all platforms overnight

Reset email password

Which ISP are you with, Plusnet or one of the other / legacy vISPs?

If you are not able to login to the email address using webmail, then it is likely that your email address has been identified as being compromised and has has its password changed. Where email address passwords have been changed to protect the integrity of the service, the account password is left unchanged.

Plusnet / Force9 / FreeOnline users can only change the password on the DEFAULT email address by changing the password on the user ACCOUNT through the user portal. You can change the password on a secondary mailbox using the Manage My Mail options in the user portal.

Brightview users (Madasafish / FreeNetName / GlobalNet / IC24 / ICScotland / Dialstart / Totalise) logging into webmail should use their full email address. Use the MAAF user portal to update the password on the default email address (change the account password) and use this MAAF guide to change the password on a secondary mailbox address. If you cannot recall the account password, you will need to contact support ... because the account password change process sends an email to the mailbox you cannot now access.

DO NOT USE THE SAME PASSWORD AGAIN for that would allow the continued exploitation of the account. The new password should be cryptic and not one used before.

Note that changing the account password will change the password used for logging on to the relevant user portal. If your email service is NOT a retained legacy service (one associated with a retired internet service account), then the password required by the router to connect to the internet will be changed too. If the router is a Hub Zero or a Hub One supplied by Plusnet it should update automatically. If not, you will need to log into the router, drop the connection, change the password yourself and reconnect.

On the assumption that the email address password has been compromised, I strongly recommend that wherever you have used that email address / password combination as access credentials to services such as Amazon, Netflix, eBay etc., that you also change the passwords on those service as well.

 

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.

Toffee15
Newbie
Posts: 3
Registered: ‎27-08-2020

Re: Plusnet email password rejected on all platforms overnight

Hi Townman, this is very useful, thank you. I'm with Plusnet, to answer your first question. I've followed your instructions and managed to access the primary mailbox in webmail by changing the main Plusnet account password. I'm now trying to change the password on the alias account in order to access it, but I can't find a change password option in the manage my mail section. If you're able to give me one last bit of guidance on this, I'd be very grateful indeeed.

 

Many thanks

MisterW
Superuser
Superuser
Posts: 14,572
Thanks: 5,408
Fixes: 385
Registered: ‎30-07-2007

Re: Plusnet email password rejected on all platforms overnight

Hi @Toffee15 You can change passwords for the other mailboxes by selecting the 'Mailbox' tab in Manage my mail.

next to each mailbox listed there is an 'edit' link, click that and you will have the option to input a new password.

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.

Toffee15
Newbie
Posts: 3
Registered: ‎27-08-2020

Re: Plusnet email password rejected on all platforms overnight

Hello, and thank you. I did go there, but there was no option to change the password, so after days of fiddling with this archaic system, I deleted them all and started again. I will try once more to persuade my client to move from Plusnet email. I get the feeling Plusnet would like to get shot of it themselves, judging from the chat with tech support I've just had Smiley

MisterW
Superuser
Superuser
Posts: 14,572
Thanks: 5,408
Fixes: 385
Registered: ‎30-07-2007

Re: Plusnet email password rejected on all platforms overnight

Are we talking additional 'mailboxes' or 'aliases' ?

There is no password for an alias , its just another name to route incoming mail to an existing mailbox

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.

Townman
Superuser
Superuser
Posts: 22,916
Thanks: 9,534
Fixes: 156
Registered: ‎22-08-2007

Re: Plusnet email password rejected on all platforms overnight


@Toffee15 wrote:

I did go there, but there was no option to change the password


To be clear there are three types of email addresses available to Plusnet users

  1. Real email boxes
    1. The default email box
    2. Secondary email boxes
  2. Alias addresses
  3. Redirect addresses

When looking at the MANAGE MY EMAIL page, the initial display shows a summary of all email addresses, which indeed does not offer an option to change the password or any other characteristic of the email address.

The MAILBOXES tab shows those email addresses of type (1) above.  The password of 1a mailbox can only be changed via changing the ACCOUNT password.  1b type mailbox passwords are changed by clicking the EDIT link as described by @MisterW .

The ALIASES tab shows a list of the real email boxes (1) with the other names which have been assigned to that mailbox, for example consider someone called "William", they might have the following aliases on that address...

  • Bill
  • Will
  • Billy

Against them, there is an EDIT option, which allows the 'target' mailbox to be changed.  The user will access mail sent to the ALIAS by accessing the real mailbox William@ using the user ID of useraccount+william

The REDIRECT tab shows those addresses which have been directed to some other email address.  Here EDIT allows the target email address to be changed.

Any given email address can be only one of the three described above, so for example, an email address cannot be both a real email box and a redirect address.

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.