Moving - downgrade account to email only

[#1]

Hello,

I will be moving soon and will no longer need phone and fibre services from Plusnet (I'm moving to somewhere that already has phone/fibre via Plusnet), however I do wish to retain my current email service.

Could a member of the Plusnet Help Team please advise me of the correct procedure necessary in order for this change to be efficient and (hopefully) problem free.

What is the cost of an email only account?
What other fees will be incurred with cessation of phone & broadband service.
Are there any actions I can take to guarantee uninterrupted access to email?

Many thanks for all advice.

Cheers,
Tony

[#2]

Hi there, 

There's no charge for an email only service with us after downgrading from a broadband account. 

It would be best handled over the phone, I'd give our customer options team a call on 0800 432 0200.

Adam

[#3]

Many thanks @adamwalker for the extremely prompt reply.

There's no charge for an email only service with us after downgrading from a broadband account.

That's unexpected, but extremely welcome.
Just to confirm, my account will remain open (I may well want to return as a customer in the future) and email will work exactly as it does now (POP, SMTP, sending from non-Plusnet connection etc.).

(It just sounds too good to be true! )

When is the quietest time to ring the COT? (I've got a lot of phoning to do and would like to cut the wait times to a minimum.)

Thanks again.

Cheers,
Tony

[#4]

Good question It's difficult to say as the busier times vary but having checked there's no wait at present so I don't think you'd have a wait to get through. 

[#5]

I've just gone through the process of downgrading my account with customer options, and have 14 days before it takes affect.

I was very clear in stating that I wish to keep my account open as an email only account.

However, I've just received a confirmation email which states:

We're sad to hear that you've requested to cancel your Plusnet services, but we've done as you asked and placed your cancellation request.

The cancellation will take place on 26th July 2019.

What happens next?
 
Once your services have been cancelled, you'll no longer have access to your Plusnet services, or our award-winning customer support.

Hopefully it's just an inexplicit standardised email; but please could a Plusnet Help Team member confirm that my account will indeed remain open and I will still have access to Plusnet email services going forward, as I requested.

Also, please could it be confirmed that email will continue to function exactly as it does now.

Many thanks.

[#6]

HI @toggie101

Thank you for getting in touch. 

The email you have received is part of the standard process as you have cancelled your Phone and Broadband services so you receive notification of this. 

We're more than happy to check over this for you if you can please PM your account username? 

Kind Regards

[#7]

Hi @toggie101 

I have received your message but your username doesn't bring up any account up. 

Unfortunately, I was unable to reply privately as it stated you are not set up to receive such messages. 

Please PM your: Full name, address, postcode

Kind Regards

[#8]

Thanks @OllieC 

Well that's just a tad weird!

I just logged into my account so I'm still there.

I've switch PMs on and also PM'd the information you've asked for.

Many thanks for your help.

Cheers,
Tony

[#9]

Thanks for getting back to me @toggie101

I have checked over your account and the notification is just regarding your request to stop phone and broadband but you will be receiving mail only moving forward.

I'm sorry that I was unable to track your account with your username as what you provided is correct but it informed me that it didn't exist. 

If you have any further queries, please feel free to get back in touch as we are more than happy to help. 

Kind Regards

[#10]

Thanks for your help @OllieC 

One question is still to be answered:
Will the email continue to work exactly as it does now ie. no need to modify settings, use different protocols, change username/email address, receive reduced functionality etc?
(I see no reason why anything would change but I just want to be certain before the switch off.)

Also, I've just this second received an email wrt another opened question 192054516, which states:

This is to confirm I have raised a task with the relevant team to re-open your account as a mail only account following the completion of the cancellation that is currently processing. Please note, you will temporarily be unable to use their email service in the brief period between the account being closed and re-activated.

Roughly how long should the downtime be; minutes, hours?
Will I lose any email during this downtime?

However, if you experience problems with your emails for an extended period following the cancellation completing, please drop us a message over on the community forums and we'll get that picked up to investigate further for you.

I appreciate the offer of assistance but it doesn't instil confidence in the reliability of the procedure.

Apologies for all the questions, I just want to have everything nailed down before the downgrade.

Unfortunately while I like the service Plusnet provides (I've been a customer for around 17 years) whenever I've made significant changes (upgraded to ADSL, moved home, upgraded to fibre etc.) there's always been a problem or two. Fortunately customer service always get it sorted, but I'd prefer it to be entirely trouble free.

Many thanks.

[#11]

Hi @toggie101, in theory you shouldn't lose the service for too long, however the reason I'm unable to advise how long it'll be down for is as it's dependant on someone picking up the task to change the account to email only following the closure.

I've seen these tasks be picked up in less than 10 minutes, however I've also seen them take a couple of hours to get picked up. It's also somewhat dependant on when the account closure finalises which would be an automated process.

You'll lose access to webmail, however the mailbox will be restored just as it was at the time of cancellation when the account is changed to mail only.

If you give us a nudge here if you're without emails for longer than a couple of hours, we'll try and chase that up for you.

I have no reason to believe that the process should fail, however the reason I asked you to drop us a message here if things do go wrong, is to keep it within our department to chase it up and save you from waiting on the phone, to be told a chaser email (Or comment on the task) has been sent off.

If you don't currently use our outbound mail server, you shouldn't need to make any changes to the config you have, as far as I'm aware.

I hope this helps.

[#12]

Thanks for following this up @HarryB .

Understood I'll keep an eye on the process at the time, thanks for the detail and heads-up.

If you don't currently use our outbound mail server, you shouldn't need to make any changes to the config you have, as far as I'm aware.

I use the standard SMTP server relay.plus.net for outgoing emails, and the POP server mail.plus.net for incoming emails (as I have for all the time I've been with Plusnet).

How will I be affected by the upcoming changeroo?

Many thanks again for all the patience and information being provided by the Plusnet Help Team.

[#13]

Actually, as the place you're moving to has Plusnet, it should continue to work fine while connecting through the Plusnet connection (I'd missed that point in your original post)

If connecting from a non-Plusnet connection, you may need to use another providers SMTP settings to send emails, however I wouldn't be able to advise what exactly you could change these to, other members of the community may be able to advise you further on that.

[#14]

I can send emails over a non-Plusnet connection at the moment, by authenticating with my username & password.

Why would this change?

If I'm indeed unable to send email via non-Plusnet connection (I sometimes tether to my phone), I guess I'll have to plan to dump Plusnet entirely and maybe temporarily go with the privacy nightmare that is Google.
(One advantage with Google would be the fact I could connect with a TLS authenticated connection, something Plusnet said would be offered around a decade ago!).

It would be a shame to cut all ties after 17 years, but I've been informed that if I were to return to Plusnet for broadband etc. I would have to create a new account anyway. Plusnet really don't want to encourage people to stay or return.

Thanks again for your informative help.

[#15]

Hey Tony

In theory you should be able to send mail from a non-Plusnet connection using our outgoing server relay.plus.net once your account has been downgraded. In the past we didn't used to allow this for free email accounts although sending from Webmail still worked, but since we made all email accounts free of charge, some settings were changed to allow this. 

It would be a shame to cut all ties after 17 years,

Hopefully it doesn't come to that.

but I've been informed that if I were to return to Plusnet for broadband etc. I would have to create a new account anyway. Plusnet really don't want to encourage people to stay or return.

Unfortunately due to the way our systems work it's not possible to reactivate an account back to a full broadband account although I get why it may be nice to sometimes. I'm personally quite sentimental!