A friend complains that he has been asked to pay £90 a year to continue using a btinternet.com e-mail address. I discussed this with him. I was sure he had been scammed by someone in Nigeria. Turns out BTinternet, together with Virgin, talktalk and Sky are charging those who have moved to another supplier if they want to use their former e-mail addresses.

Rip-off Britain.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-51571275

Indeed. That sounds more than greedy. Your friend would be far better served by a gmail address, which will work wherever you have an online connection. I use mine for personal mail, and I have my own .com address for business. Your friend could register a domain and use it for mail, including hosting, for a fraction of £90 and it would their own, not something with btinernet or virgin in the address.

I told him just that. "Get a free g-mail address." Like many other male agemates of mine, he used to depend on his wife for accessing and sending e-mails. When she died he was left helpless with all this new technology. I try to encourage him to move forward. Hard with these old bu****s.

£90 seems excessive, but a small fee would not be unreasonable. At that price point I would assume that the owner of the email server is trying to discourage people from hanging on to old email addresses, which makes me wonder if the regulations governing the operatiions of BT/ Virgin/ tlaktalk/ Sky actually prohibit them from discontinuing email service to an existing customer.

I also told my buddy to go and complain to his MP. He is one of the few Tory MPs in Scotland. i suggested that my pal hint that he tell the MP "I want you to fix this or I will never vote Tory again !"