Apart from the inevitable Hotmail account, my first proper email account was with UK Online. This was created as a way of accessing webmail when dial-up connections were the only options, some time in 1998, and at a penny a minute the service was acceptable.
With the rise of Yahoogle, and the advent of broadband, services such as UK Online have become less important to most users, unless of course you use them as an ISP. Since acquiring GMail and Yahoo addresses, I have used my UKO address as a forwarding address, mainly to filter out unwanted spam.
For the last few days I have noticed that my forwarded messages have been bouncing, so today decided to look into it. I was unable to log on, apparently supplying the wrong username and password.
Subsequently I contacted UK Online with an enquiry, and they responded in under five minutes (!!!) with the following:
Quote:
UK Online accounts are designed as an Internet connectivity solution for UK residents. They are not designed as, or intended to be, a free email account such as that provided by Hotmail and similar organisations. Please refer to the UK Online web site and in particular the Product Terms 8.4 and 8.4.1
UK Online
We appreciate that you have been using your account for some time, but we are now having to enforce these terms and conditions in order to improve the quality of service on our mail servers to our active subscribers.
As you have not been connecting with us your account has been disabled in accordance with our terms and conditions. If you wish to retain the use of your UK Online email address, you will need to upgrade to a ‘Mail’ account, which costs £14.99 per annum, for each UK Online email address that you wish to use.
If you wish to proceed, please contact our customer services department on 0845 333 4600 and they will be able to assist you. Can you please have your bank account details to hand before calling customer services.
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So, without any notice that I was aware of they have effectively closed my account. No prizes for guessing what they can do with their £14.99 per annum...UKO is advert supported, and I fail to see why anyone would willingly pay £14.99 for something that is free almost everywhere else.
That said, if UKO are your ISP then I guess your user experience will be improved, and as long as you regularly log in then your account is safe. My main gripe is that I received no notice of cancellation, and I put this sentiment to them in no uncertain terms.
So...if you have a "free" webmail account with UK Online, don't expect it to be available for much longer...
UK Online 
