Virgin media email accounts blacklisted! Help please!

[Solo2]

Suddnely all the family's email accounts won't send emails as they say the email addresses have been blacklisted. I use email for work as well as personal stuff so spent 2 hrs today trying - and regularly failing - to get through to technical support at Virginmedia.

I was left hanging on the phone for about 1.73 hrs of that time, was cut off suddenly, several times and finally spoke to 3 people - one who had to put me through to another department, in another country, who then told me they couldn't help and put me through to another dept,. who then said no one could help unless I signed up to a 6 month direct debit technical support system!

In the end, I gave up and finally, in an obscure part of Virginmedia website, found a sole message from someone at Virginmedia implying that the entire email IP system was getting blacklisted and they were 'wroking on it' to rectify this. So obviously trying to get me to sign in for paid tech. support was just a money-making ploy!

Anyway, I can receive emails but have had to set up a hotmail account to send emails. Questions - should I just wait and see if this is indeed a Virginmedia nationwide farce and hope they'll rectify this (last time my broadband access went down with them they had me off line for 10 days!). Or is there anything further an individual can do to stop their email accounts being blacklisted?

Virgin media have had problems with one of their servers this week,I think.There were quite a feww people moaning about it on MSE.

VM have been really bad this week according to dh. I've had trouble sending emails yesterday and today.

Mine are OK.

I've just sent from a blueyonder address using the outgoing server smtp.virginmedia.com

Happened to us a few days ago. You have to just wait as it's Virgin's problem and you're not blacklisted, nor can you do anything. It'll sort itself out. We were off for less than a day.

Incidentally, did anyone else get an email from Virgin about higher speed bb? Mine said that as we were getting 100mbps already they would give us a discount instead. Then almost immediately another email arrived saying the first was sent in error!

We got that Jux !
We've not had any trouble with our e-mails though.

I work in the tech support in VM I have been on holiday the past couple of days so don't know any details about the email prob... The higher speeds otoh they are doubling speeds in the next 12 months...

So I'm right and this isn't a problem individual to me? Why didn't anyone I managed to speak to at Virgin suggest this but, instead, ask me to sign up for a 6 month contract for technical support before they'd even investigate? I'm sure they won't pay my 2 hr long BT bill either for calls to Virgin media.

My Virgin media phone line stopped working well over a year ago and there just isn't the time free to stay in for a technician visit nor is it, in any case, possible to speak to the right person or department about this in all the time I tried. But this means that all my calls today to Virgin must be paid from my BT line, rather than being free from Virginmedia!

So do I now just wait passively for Virgin to fix this?

Fyi, gmail will let you "send as"

So if you set up a gmail account you can use it to "send as" your regular email address to avoid confusing your clients.

You do have to send a verification email to your current email and click through a link - but if you have internet access and can receive email ok then this might be a temporary solution?

thats well worth knowing theyoungvisiter. Thanks.

just to give you our update - we've been online with a VM chap who was really helpful, checked it wasnt our settings on the pc (never had someone remote log on to it before, very odd experience). He then went off and came back saying to dh that there was a problem with their smtp server and it is blocked. they are hoping it will be sorted out by tomorrow morning.
Meanwhile I can use their webmail which is fine.

OhyouBad....How on earth did you access a technician on the phone from VM and get himto help out like this? I USED to get that service but, as my earlier posts said, can never ever ever get through to anyone remotely helpful even after 2 hrs trying to get through to anyone at all?? I've been through the general helpling, with loads of optiosn that take ages to get through - and often it cuts off when i fianlly get to the right department and even if I force a human there to get me a direct number to call, in case we get cut off again, all those numbers also go through the general line!

I'm still unable to send emails and will now try to set up a gmail account with send as, in the meantime. Do hope it all gets sorted soon and thyere's never ever any recompense for loss of service or the money you spend on hrs of phoning them!

I have no idea at all. He was lovely, try phoning up 150 this afternoon and see what happens. he spent a good 10-15 minutes with us. Even though we've not got a cure, we now know its not at our end.

oh you cant can you if you are having to go through bt :(

That's right. The VM phone line stopped working in November 2011 and despite several attempts to get through to someone to get it fixed and still being billed for the line each month, it doesn't take or make calls.

This feels like a Kafkaesque nightmare at times!

I know this won't solve your current problem but it's not a good idea to use an email linked to your ISP, particularly if it's for business, as it will cause all sorts of hassle if you want to change provider.

Theyoungvisitor, how do I do 'Send As' on a gmail account? I've just now set up one so I can send as if it's from my business email address (as I can still receive emails) but can't find anything on the gmail site for emails where you do 'send as'???

I think the exact steps depend on which version of gmail you're looking at, but there should be a cog-shaped icon on the right of your screen, click on that and select "settings".

Then from the menu at the top select "accounts and import". This takes you to a screen with a "send mail as" option about halfway down. Click to add an address and you can then configure it to certain settings, eg you can choose to always send as the other address, or only when the person sent the mail to that address (if that makes sense).

You have to verify this via an email sent to the address you claim to own (to stop people sending as addresses they don't own) but once this is verified you're ready to go.

What you can then do - to make your life easier so your mail is still all in one place - is change the settings on your mail client on your computer so that you receive your mail from virgin, but send via gmail (using the send-as option so it LOOKS as if you are sending via your virgin address as normal). You can then operate all your mail from your computer as normal but circumvent virgin's sending settings.

This is also a good option if you want to send mail via a smartphone for various boring reasons.

Alternatively you can use the gmail account to pick up the Virgin mail and keep it all online - (you can do this via the "add a pop3 account" button)