Email help needed please

[licquorice]

Post back here if you don't get the promised call back.

[New_To_UK]

Hi, my understanding of this so far...

You only get email from BT for free if you have broadband.

If you have broadband, you should have a billing account number.

To manage that billing account online, you need to use MyBT and need a BTID.

The BTID allows you to access all the extra services free with broadband like BT Email, BT CLoud, Virus Protect etc

The BTID is meant to be a single ID to manage all your services from BT and has its own security question, recovery email and mobile number for forgotten details.

what i understand Bt Yahoo email predates all services and had its own security question, the ones created with the new BT mail dont have this.  

A user with old Bt Yahoo Mail who has not used a BTID to manage their email needs to login to their BTID and go to the email section under MyExtras and then "Add to BTID" by entering the email password.

Until this happens, the email does not have full account management.

Once you have completed "Add to BTID", you use the BTID details to manage the email.

If your BTID is the same as the email address, after you add to BTID and reset the password, only 1 reset is required as it resets both henceforth.

If your BTID is a 3rd party email address like slavi@xyz.ru, you still need to "Add to BTID" but when you reset password, it will ask you what address and you have to specify which one you want to reset.

So life becomes simpler when you have broadband and have billing account number and have created a BTID to manage that billing account and then have added all your emails to BTID. Then make sure for the BTID, you add a recovery email from another provider and mobile phone.

[licquorice]

Yes, that is basically how it works but with a few corner cases and problems.

In the early days of MYBT, the login (subsequently known as BTID) was just a text string and had no connection with email at all. BTYahoo customers were then invited to change their login to their primary email address and sync passwords. Unfortunately I did this some time ago so can't now remember how the security details for the unlinked email was edited, but I believe it may still exist as I think @Andy_N of this parish still uses a text string login. There is also an ongoing situation where the BTYahoo email server doesn't sync properly with the MYBT server.

In my view it would be much simpler if BT kept email password and account management password completely separate as they can only be synced if both are under the control of BT which is obviously not the case if a third party email address is used as a BTID.

[Andy_N]

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@licquoricewrote:

Yes, that is basically how it works but with a few corner cases and problems.

In the early days of MYBT, the login (subsequently known as BTID) was just a text string and had no connection with email at all. BTYahoo customers were then invited to change their login to their primary email address and sync passwords. Unfortunately I did this some time ago so can't now remember how the security details for the unlinked email was edited, but I believe it may still exist as I think @Andy_N of this parish still uses a text string login. There is also an ongoing situation where the BTYahoo email server doesn't sync properly with the MYBT server.

In my view it would be much simpler if BT kept email password and account management password completely separate as they can only be synced if both are under the control of BT which is obviously not the case if a third party email address is used as a BTID.

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Indeed I do have a text string to login to BTID. I will not alter it. It is far far better to have them separate in my view too, not least because of the problems it can cause.

There are various pages to alter the password for email, including forgotten, but as for the security questions that's a bit different.

I would use :-

https://register.btinternet.com/cgi-bin/chpasswdsso

which still works for BTYahoo, or the general :-

https://www.bt.com/btmail/emailmanagement?view=email

which needs a BTID and the email addresses added to the ID in order to change passwords.

What might be useful is this :-

http://bt.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/44847/c/7366#maincontent

enabling the BTID to be separate from a BTinternet email address, as long as the user has something like a Gmail address or indeed anything else.

For the BTID security, it's here :-

https://bt.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/46778

though the page is out of date (typically ) - it's now under MyBT/Your profile dropdown. However going through this needs the BTID to be an email address, and this is where I won't change it.

[june2]

Wow!! that's a huge amount of very useful info and advice, thank you 🙂

My brain is spinning with it all at the moment but I will definitely try some of the options above if BT do not resolve it and call me back tomorrow. I think my head will explode if I try much more today, I am very very grateful for all of your advice though

I do have a BTID and my phone and broadband is through them, so that hopefully will make it easier.

I will report back tomorrow with an update

Thank you all again

[june2]

Apolgogies for the late update.

Well BT did not call me back as promised on Friday afternoon so I called them, they in turn spoke to the people who were dealing with the issue in Calcutta and they promised they would call me. And they did.

A very helpful chat explained that the issue was to do with my 2 accounts. I have 2 lines coming into my house, one for business that has the Broadband on, the other my house phone that my email was originally set up with. They were not linked and therefore my 'free' email was not associated with broadband and had somehow stopped access to the emails. They have now sorted this out, the accounts are both linked and emails are working perfectly. They have also moved my email over from Yahoo to BT so it should be be resolved now. The lovely guy from Calcutta has given me a mobile number and if I have any problems at all all I need to do is text him and he will call me straight back, fingers crossed I won't need it but at least I have some back up there.

Fingers crossed it's all sorted, thank you so much for all of your help

[gg30340]

The migration of email from BTYahoo to BTMail was stopped years ago. You will have had your email account "associated" with your BT Broadband account but this does not involve migrating your BTYahoo email account over to BTMail email system. 

However having said that I will get the moderators to clarify for the avoidance of doubt.

[NeilO]

@june2 thanks for posting your update, I'm glad that the email team managed to sort this for you.

@gg30340 you're correct there's no migration between email platforms.

[june2]

I'm only relaying what I understood from the very helpful guy, maybe I got it confused but i'm sure that is what he said. But to be honest as long as my emails are working I don't care!!! ha ha ha

[gg30340 · Accepted solution]

I was not saying what you said was wrong, I was pointing out that what you were told was wrong.

The CS keep saying that they will/ have moved email from BTYahoo to BTMail when it is not possible for them to do that. This only causes problems for the customer if there are problems with their email and they mistakenly believe they are on the BTMail system when they are not.

In any event it is good to hear that your email is now working.