I have a BT Premium Mail account which is a paid service. Every single email in my SENT folder (over 3,000 emails) from the last 20 years disappeared in the middle of January 2021 and I am trying to get this folder restored.
This was first noticed on my iPhone (using Apple email App) and I double checked on the PC (using the BT email website), unfortunately it was also missing there too. These emails were not in the DELETED folder either. It was absolutely nothing I had done, no settings could have done this and my account was not hacked.
My first call BT Customer Services was the agent doubling checking settings, rules etc. They offered £10 as a goodwill gesture and to close the complaint. I declined this insulting amount. My advice is not to take any goodwill gesture and keep the complaint open.
After numerous calls to various managers and the Escalated Complaints Team over the course of a month, they all said the emails have been deleted and cannot be restored. They could not answer why this happened and could not tell me how many other BT customers have been affected too. I am currently dealing with the Exec Care Team (Executive Customer Resolution Team) who say emails are backed up on a rolling 7 day basis and they are unaware of this happening before to any other customers. Their fob off reason is that the account has been hacked. However, at my request to investigate which IP addresses have accessed my email account, BT confirmed there were no tracks showing my account has been compromised. Another possible reason from BT is because of an iOS update on the Apple iPhone (Apple confirmed this is not the case). BT are extremely good at passing the blame to others rather than taking any responsibility.
BT are now informing me that my iPhone email App sent a message to the BT email server to delete all the emails from the SENT folder (over 3,000 emails), and then immediately remove from the DELETED folder. BT are refusing to provide proof of server logs evidencing Apple IMAP server messages which Apple needs to further investigate the issue. Apple also kindly offered to be on a call with BT to discuss the issue, unfortunately BT have refused to do this.
Looking at posts on the BT Community dating back years, it looks like this is quite common. Why wasn't anything done when the issue was raised on the BT Community to:
1) Stop this from happening to other BT customers
2) Set up a server to back up future BT customer emails if this continues to happen
With so many people reporting the issue I would expect BT to have a solution available. There must be many others as not everyone will write on the BT Community.
If you are in a similar position, please do let me know as I am setting up a class action against BT as this may have happened to many more customers.
Under GDPR, this is a personal data breach and what is to say this does not happen again to my SENT folder or any of my other folders. I have contacted Apple (who deny this can happen and their legal team are looking into BT's allegation), the ICO (Information Commissioner's Office), Ofcom (BT's regulator) and I am commencing legal proceedings. I have also emailed both the CEO Philip Jansen (p*****.j*****@bt.com) and Global Customer Service Thomas Duecke (t*****.d*****@bt.com) with this issue. If you have experienced similar issues, you may want to email them too.
