keeping email address when changing ISP

[wendyl]

Advice needed please My sister has had considerable difficulty after BT installed a new telephone line (in error) to her property that should have been 3 doors away (on 21st July) because of that she has had no internet connection since and is still waiting for this although she has at last had her correct telephone line reinstalled She has had to open an account with BT to get this far. One of her main concerns, should she also move her broadband, is losing her email address and she has a contract with Timico which has a penalty of £130 if she breaks it BT have promised to contact her on Monday regarding her contract with them. To get this far has taken all this time nearly 30 days via BT complaints forum Warrington India you name it we've been there and all the internet contact has been through as she has had no service

[AlBags]

You won't be able to keep the old email address .. unless it is a free webmail type email service used.
Your old ISP will terminate the account and dump the email profile after a while.

[nannybooby]

I changed isp and still use my old aol email address

[Postdog]

So instead of sorting out what you say was an error you are just accepting it!!

Is it just me who cannot understand why, if the original telephone line has been put back, the original email set up should no longer apply?

[wendyl]

I have suggested to my sister it would be advisable to have a webmail address in addition anyway but nothing is of use while she is offline.
Believe me Postdog we have not accepted it. We have both been on phone and internet to all and sundry virtually every day. When the phoneline was eventually restored we expected that to include the broadband connection. No such luck ISP blame BT and both keep making promises to fix several days ahead Friday it was all supposed to be sorted but passed backwards and forwards again all day and now saying 5 more days!!! and we'll be chasing them yet again after the weekend

[Old_Geezer]

My sympathies with your BT experience. From my own experience I know their customer service has fallen through the floor so far in recent years that it must be nearing Australia by now. I'm unsure why I still with them. Quarterly bills and no DD I suspect. And apathy I suppose. But they are terrible.

So your sister had a line and it was erroneously replaced by BT. I don't see why she had to open an account with BT in order to get that far. Presumably the other company was providing the line before.

You mean she was persuaded by BT to open an account with them ? I'm not sure I'd have gone down that path, it means she will be dropping her contract with the original firm. Not bad for BT eh ? They screw up and get a new customer.

Aye, e-mails provided by an Internet supplier will remain open for a short while for the ex-customer to move any e-mails they doesn't wish to lose, then the account would be closed. After all if you aren't paying to get broadband from them why would they continue to supply the e-mail service ?

Third party provided e-mails aren't going to care which ISP you are with.

So your sister was happy to pay Timico £130 to get away from them. I guess they must have upset her badly.

Meanwhile she can go on-line at a library or Internet Cafe.

To be honest it looks to me for all your attempts to straighten this out, all you are doing is swopping Internet Providers, and rewarding failure; at cost to yourselves. In your shoes I think I'd try to nip all this in the bud as soon as possible. Maybe get the ombudsman onto it ?

[wendyl]

thanks for your interest Old_Geezer but thing are not as you describe. When my sister first lost her line the replacement number went with the account for the new neighbour and she had difficulty speaking to anyone as she was not the account holder according to their records. Eventually when advised to set up an account to get number back (held by BT) with 14 days to change her mind it was the only option and she could cancel anyway. Sadly nothing progressed within this time scale and to date her broadband has not been restored. I have tried to contact Tony Hazell of the Daily Mail to take on BT for her with no luck so far and we're running out of ideas. She has spoken to the ombudsman but it seems unlikely they can be of help until it is all sorted!!!

[Old_Geezer]

What sort of ombudsman will only get involved when the situation is already sorted ? Seems they're in the wrong job.

[wendyl]

To nannybooby I gave up on AOL years ago but in their favour they are the only ISP I know allows permanent use of email. Also some years ago I was with Netscape and when they were taken over by AOL I learned my old netscape email would stay available and although I seldom use it is still available
It seems you could have better luck than my sister

[wendyl]

Quite so Old_Geezer

[kawakiri]

I take it you have spoken to Ofcom.

[wendyl]

I haven't but my sister has