Certain Virgin Media email customers have been unable to access their mailboxes for more than two weeks, and there is no indication as to when the problem will be resolved.
Complaints began to be lodged from customers on Monday, 19 June.
Virgin Media has announced that users are now able to send and receive emails, though some are still experiencing difficulty in retrieving emails sent prior to the interruption.
A retired IT professional who is a user mentioned to the BBC that he was not totally certain if the emails would be able to be retrieved.
Phil Westlake, who had designed IT systems for numerous large UK companies, no longer has access to his prior emails and noted that, according to what he had encountered, disaster recovery plans in massive organisations should have specified the issue to be solved within a few hours.
He expressed his difficulty, saying that anyone knowledgeable in information technology would find it hard to get the desired result.
Virgin Media expressed earnest regret for the trouble experienced.
It was previously stated that all emails were "safe and secure".
The company provides multiple email services, among them @virginmedia.com, @ntlworld.com, @blueyonder.co.uk and @virgin.net.
The BBC has queried the company to ascertain the number of people affected.
In an email sent on the 23rd of June to customers, Axel Wehrle, director of customer service for Virgin Media, expressed his regret for the technical issue that caused service disruption for some email users. He explained that the incident was due to hardware failure, which overloaded the server.
An anonymous Cambridgeshire customer expressed to the BBC that the protracted difficulties they were experiencing were "irritating" and "disheartening". In her emails were further messages of sympathy in wake of her husband's passing. Moreover, she necessitates access to the email for the purpose of fulfilling her duties as executor of his will.
User Ian, situated in Merseyside, reported that the issues he was having were hindering charity auctions that he was in charge of.
My inbox has all the necessary information on the contributors to the campaign, the donations received, and all other details related to the campaign. It is essential that I do not lose any information, contacts, or emails, as this would be a disaster.
He remarked that his email account had been his for almost 25 years, and his entire life was on there.
Virgin Media informed the BBC that there had been an issue with its email service, but it has now been resolved and all email users are able to send and receive messages without interruption.”
Sadly, a minority of those affected are presently unable to access their past emails in their mailboxes.
We fully recognize that this is an irritating situation for those who have critical emails and documents stored in their inboxes, and we apologize sincerely for the hassle this is triggering.
We had not expected this issue to take so long to rectify, but our staff are making every effort to bring back all past emails without further delay.
The company has informed the Information Commissioner's Office of the email issue, yet they are emphatic that this event was not a data breach and there has been no illicit access to or manipulation of users' data or personal information.
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