"My Account" and email issues

A friend of mine was bereaved several months back and has just about come to terms that he needs to close down his wife's email account without losing already received emails. The family PC has two user accounts setup with the hardware and specification reaching the end of its useful life.

So a new PC has been purchased with all user created data of the "live" account being copied into the new PC. Turning to the email side of things it was quickly discovered that the deceased person was the "lead" account holder and had been receiving email statements for the service provided but as funds were been drawn from the joint current account no arrears were building up.

I can't see any way forward to close the lead account down but still retaining my friends email address. Also a mechanism to transfer the ownership of the broadband service to my friend. IMHO there could be a real danger of loosing my friends email address by closing the deceased persons email account down, and also the probability of a Broadband service break to transfer ownership.

This is a sensitive issue and I need to come up with a cast iron plan that preserves my friends email address and also ensures no break in the broadband service. What advice can any readers of this message give please to have a smooth transition?

BT Tech support will be able to deal with this ... but to be honest you will need a UK based office to deal with it and understand the sensitivities.

They can set up a new account with a new user name and have that running in parallel with the original. Then they can migrate the individual email addresses across to it before arranging for closing down of the existing account and they can - if so desired also move the email address of the deceased to become as subsidiary of the new account.

It might be that you call the UK based Business support desk - in the last evening when they are quiet and ask them for advice and if they can provide contact details for a suitable person/team to speak with on the residential side.


I had to investigate and partially implement something similar a little while back - although it was on BT Business.

Thank you for your response, much appreciated, but of course your opening sentence says it all. The prceedure you outlined for BT support is excactly what we want.

I hope that someone reading this we say "give me your contact details and I will sort it out for you". Now that would be wonderful.

When I did something similar, Business support kept me on the phone and gave a commentary. "I am about to move [email protected] from account [email protected] to account [email protected] is that OK and so on." Once the understood the needs, it was easy ...


As I suggest, call Res Support and if you get no joy, call Business support and explain - they may not be able to help directly but might get the right contact details.

In reply to a post by trolleybus:

Thank you for your response, much appreciated, but of course your opening sentence says it all. The prceedure you outlined for BT support is excactly what we want.

You could try this team which were very helpful when my friends Mum died - don't know if they do broadband.
http://bt.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/c/345,352,...

Hi trolleybus

I can glad look into this for you and your friend, just send me over the details via http://bt.custhelp.com/app/contact_email/c/4950

Regards David

In reply to a post by BT_Care:

Hi trolleybus

I can glad look into this for you and your friend, just send me over the details via http://bt.custhelp.com/app/contact_email/c/4950

Regards David

Excellent, much appreciated. I think I will now stand aside and allow a family member to complete the simple form found at the URL given.