BT WEBMAIL WOES

Uncle Fester

Uncle Fester

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Danny
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Yes
I seem to having on going hassle accessing my BT web mail.

I used to be a BT broadband customer; but moved to Plusnet a few years ago. However; I kept my BT premium e-mail as so many of my contacts have my BT e-mail address and I like the layout of BT web mail. I particularly like the fact that I can create folders for individual contacts. I did look at Hotmail and Gmail but could not see a way of doing this.

A few times over the last few years I’ve not been able to login to my e-mail; instead getting a message saying that ‘because of suspicious activity’ we’ve locked access to your e-mail please reset your password. I’ve done this and carried on as usual.

Last night I had the same message. I reset my password and had access to my web mail. However after about ten minutes; I was locked out again and was asked to reset my password. I tried to do so; but could not log in with my new password.

I then tried the ‘forgotten password’ option. However when I answered the security q questions; I was told that I had answered them incorrectly (I had not) and could not proceed.

This morning I went onto the BT support page and started a webchat with a fellow from BT. He called me back and reset my password. He suggested that I log in whilst he was on the phone and change my password.

I did this and was able to login to my web mail. Problem sorted – or so I thought.

After about 90 minutes I could no longer access my e-mail. Once again; I had the message ‘due to suspicious activity’ we suggest you reset your password.

Once again; I went onto the BT support live chat only after about 30 minutes to be called back to say I was being put through to premium mail support. Eventually I was given another password. This seems to be working – at the moment.

I was told that I should not change my password for at least 2-3 days.

I was also told that I should allow a minimum of 40 minutes before changing the password on any of my mobile devices.

The lady I was talking to even suggested that I could keep my new password permanently if I wanted to.

I’m a little uncomfortable with this as a) It’s been allocated to me by someone else b) its fairly short.

So; to my questions:

What’s happening to cause these access problems and how to make sure it does not happen again?

I did wonder if my mobile devices were trying to access mail with an old password that made BT think there might be suspicious activity. I’m not sure if that’s a plausible idea though.

It’s probably about time; that I moved from BT onto another provider. But who? Is there a web mail provider that allows me to file my e-mails into separate folders? I have hundreds (probably thousands) of messages that I’d like to sort out into folders and not have all of them in a long list in my inbox. Also can I import my old e-mails to any new web mail provider?

I’m a bit of a techno dunce; so please keep any replies clear and simple!

Thanks.




TL:DR – I keep getting logged out of my BT webmail. Despite resetting my password this keeps happening. Why? How can I stop it?

If I move my webmail to someone else; is there another webmail provider that allows me to put my messages into folders? Can I import my old BT e-mails to another provider?
 
i suspect someone is banging away at trying to get in to your account.
it may be that a site that contained your details has recently been compromised.
 
Mr Bump said:
i suspect someone is banging away at trying to get in to your account.
it may be that a site that contained your details has recently been compromised.
Click to expand...

Thanks.

I'm not sure. I followed the advice given to me by the lady from BT and allowed over forty minutes to elapse before updating my Ipad with the new log in details. The moment I did so; I was logged out of my BT mail account on my PC.

I'm guessing that the my mobile devices ( 2 Ipads & 1 Iphone) are trying to access my mail and that's causing BT to lock me out.

What I don't understand is when and how I can update my devices with the latest password so that I can access my mail on them without causing me to be locked out.

This is now getting really frustrating... :(
 
Do you have any devices, phones/tablet/laptop etc that are trying to check your email that may still have the old password cached? It's possible that one of those could be trying to login with the wrong credentials thus locking you out.

Don't use BT myself so not sure what their email setup is, guessing it's not exchange though.
 
I am with PN as well and use their email services but webmail only rarely so no idea if that would address your reqs? As you have not mentioned PN for webmail I surmise maybe it does not.................but have you asked PN if they have solution???

Edit ~ just had a look and you can create folders but I have yet to see how one can filter the incoming messages (as per message rules in MS Outlook) to ensure the incoming gets dropped into the relevant folder???

PS unless such filtering is on/done via the email settings on the member portal???
 
Last edited:
PaulF said:
Do you have any devices, phones/tablet/laptop etc that are trying to check your email that may still have the old password cached? It's possible that one of those could be trying to login with the wrong credentials thus locking you out.

Don't use BT myself so not sure what their email setup is, guessing it's not exchange though.
Click to expand...

Yes; I think this is the problem.

The trouble is; when I try to change the password - I am locked out of my BT mail.

EDIT: I have just got back onto BT and had a new pass word allocated (must be the 6th one today...) and I was back in.

I also opened a gmail account and have found that I can create folders. Its a bit cumbersome as it appears you need to have an e-mail in your inbox so can then create a folder for it. You cannot just create a folder for 'John' @jim' etc.

I imported my contacts into my google account and have just tried to import my e-mails and guess what - I'm locked out of my BT mail yet again!

Arrghh!
 
Box Brownie said:
I am with PN as well and use their email services but webmail only rarely so no idea if that would address your reqs? As you have not mentioned PN for webmail I surmise maybe it does not.................but have you asked PN if they have solution???

Edit ~ just had a look and you can create folders but I have yet to see how one can filter the incoming messages (as per message rules in MS Outlook) to ensure the incoming gets dropped into the relevant folder???

PS unless such filtering is on/done via the email settings on the member portal???
Click to expand...


Thanks for your input.

I did look at Plusnet webmail awhile ago and decided it wasn't for me. That said; I didn't know you could create folders.

I'm afraid your second sentence is beyond my understanding as I don't know what microsoft outlook is / does. Nor am I sure what you mean when you say "unless such filtering is on/done via the email settings on the member portal" - sorry to be so thick!
 
BT webmail has a very chequered history in terms of reliability.
I still have a BT email address, but do not use it for anything important (due to past problems). I find Gmail very reliable and access it (and BT mail) via a Mozilla Thunderbird interface.

You may find the BT Community forum helpful.
 
arclight said:
BT webmail has a very chequered history in terms of reliability.
I still have a BT email address, but do not use it for anything important (due to past problems). I find Gmail very reliable and access it (and BT mail) via a Mozilla Thunderbird interface.

You may find the BT Community forum helpful.
Click to expand...

Thanks.

I'll investigate this 'Thunderbird' thingy and try to find the BT community forum.
 
David_H said:
@Uncle Fester Danny have a look at this site https://haveibeenpwned.com and check if your email address has been compromised.
Click to expand...

Thanks for that.

According to your linked I have been 'pwned' - I have suffered four 'breaches' apparently.

Obviously this is not a good thing.

I'll happily use my Gmail (or another) e-mail account instead of my BT account. But for the moment I still need access to the BT account.

What I need to do is to figure out how to import my e-mails from my BT account into Gmail (or another account) without it locking my BT account...
 
I would delete your accounts for this email address on your android devices so they cannot sync and provide password etc.
run with just accessing from your pc for a while and see if the issue stabilises.
then setup one of your android devices.
 
Mr Bump said:
I would delete your accounts for this email address on your android devices so they cannot sync and provide password etc.
run with just accessing from your pc for a while and see if the issue stabilises.
then setup one of your android devices.
Click to expand...

Thanks.

I don't have any Android devices. I do have some Apple ones ( Original Ipad, Ipad Pro and Iphone) - does the same thing still apply?

Cheers.
 
Uncle Fester said:
Thanks.

I don't have any Android devices. I do have some Apple ones ( Original Ipad, Ipad Pro and Iphone) - does the same thing still apply?

Cheers.
Click to expand...

yeah take them out of the equation, the password thing might be a rogue device presenting a bad password.
 
Thanks.

I'm taking a break from this now.

I've been trying to sort this out since 7:00AM....

:mad:
 
neil_g said:
BT mail sucks.

Their forum is littered with people having issues signing in, or passwords being rejected using imap.

Just switched my family to Gmail and not looking back.
Click to expand...


neil_g said:
Generally all freebies provided by isp are terrible. Plus how many let you keep them if you move to another provider.
Click to expand...

Thanks. I've pretty much had enough of BT mail. That said; I still need to access my account so I can transfer my contacts and old e-mails over to Gmail or whoever I move to.

BT mail isn't a freebie for me - I'm paying for it. When I had BT broadband I paid a small supplement for additional storage and the facility for more e-mail sub accounts that 'Premium Mail' offered.

It also meant that I could keep the same e-mail address when I switched broadband suppliers. That small supplement has now grown to £5 a month. In light of the 'service' I'm getting' that money is totally wasted.
 
If you setup outlook to the BT account you might be able to download all the mail in the account to a local PST file.
When you setup the pop/smtp details you usually are able to specify an age of email to download.
 
BT email has been getting progressively worse ever since they teamed up with yahoo. I also get occasional glitches and/or error messages where I can't log in but it normally sorts itself out after a few hours.

The one thing I've never been able to do is send an email via my iPhone over BT email, although I can receive emails ok. I just get error messages about POP settings being incorrect, even though they're not. I've got a Hotmail account that works fine on iPhone.
 
I had a Talk21.com account which was free then taken by BT Yahoo first at £1.25 a month or something then cranked up to £5 a month. The same systems as BTinternet and BTmail accounts.
Then they binned my partners account because the payment authority expired, they made no attempt to ask for the money in fact sending a letter about jacking the price to £5 and being told she didn't need to do anything. - first we knew was a debt collection contact.
BT claimed it wasn't possible to have a Premium email account without a BT landline - we are on plusnet, never with BT at this address.

Check they're actually taking the payment - as this is what happened to my partner!

Then my login started to fail. I eventually discovered that logging in through Microsoft Edge on Windows 10 would fail on most attempts with the cryptic errors you saw but Chrome was OK.
My iphone continued to work.

I've now finally managed to get them to post me my BT account number so I can cancel it. The cancellation is the only part of the service that worked properly in the last 2 years.
I had the T21 account since around 2000 so I'm sorry to see it go but it was just impossible to rely on and not worth £60 a year when Gmail is better and free.

I've been archiving out my T21 email using Thunderbird so I still have access to search old email.
I set a vacation response at T21 to let anyone who emails me my new address and when the T21 account will finally stop running in a couple of weeks time.
It bounces back from the robots but humans seem to cope. I had to move about 100 online accounts/services/emails - moving email is a pain.
I now use a Gsuite paid account with a comany domain set up for my consulting work.

boogie man said:
The one thing I've never been able to do is send an email via my iPhone over BT email, although I can receive emails ok. I just get error messages about POP settings being incorrect, even though they're not. I've got a Hotmail account that works fine on iPhone.
Click to expand...
Mine is just set up using the iOS settings for Yahoo! SMTP server and has worked much more reliably than webmail or windows clients!
 
AMcUK said:
I ,
Mine is just set up using the iOS settings for Yahoo! SMTP server and has worked much more reliably than webmail or windows clients!
Click to expand...

So is mine. Still won't send BT emails though. :( Strangely it worked fine for a few weeks when I changed iPhones a while back, but it soon went back to being uncooperative again.
 
neil_g said:
Plus how many let you keep them if you move to another provider.
Click to expand...
I must be one of the lucky (?) ones I've had a pop3 tesco. net email since before Henry VIII was married the first time ( :D )
To give you an idea how old it is, its just "3 characters" @tesco..net
I've changed providers a couple of times over the years and it still works.

neil_g said:
Just switched my family to Gmail and not looking back.
Click to expand...
But since then I've been filling my boots with the @Gmail, if one gets overly spammed ( which is infrequent) I just move onto the next one.
 
when I moved from BT it only took me a around three hours to go through every email ever received into my bt account and work out who I needed to update, and either login to the relevant account and change, or email them to inform the the email address was changing to xxx.

I then monitored it for the 60 day grace period and let it die.

The only issue I have had since was car insurer sending renewal details to old email despite using the other as the login.
 
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