General Chat

I have had several contacts who seem to change providers very frequently ........... as I said 5 this past Christmas had changed from only a year ago. I'm 95% certain that at least one of each couple is still alive!

We keep a list from year to year of both snail mail addresses and email addresses, and as I said in the OP, some have changed every year.

It just seems so strange to me that it really is only the UK ones who change, not the many contacts we have elsewhere.

We do have one couple in an African country who use a different email address every year so we have to wait for them to contact us by email. That is for their own safety and security.

We have not yet heard from them this year.

But I don't think safety and/or security is the reason for the others ............. at least, I hope it doesn't!! :-D

I've wondered if it has been to find cheaper deals ............are blueyonder or tiscali, for example, expensive?

I had t change mine a few years ago when Virgin decided they didn’t want to keep any old fashioned copper wire customers which we were. They sold us all to TalkTalk and were discontinuing the Virgin email addresses. It was an absolute pain to have to inform everyone of a new email, so I chose to use a gmail one which is not tied to any provider. That way if I wanted to change providers to get a better deal in future I wouldn’t have to alter my email again. I also have a couple of Hotmail’s which I use

It was TalkTalk charging £50 pounds if you wanted to keep your old Tiscali address. I thought they had gone years ago.

Not sure that I've noticed this recently.

In the 1990s it seemed as though if you changed provider your email address indicated whichever provider you were with so every change of provider meant a change in an email address. More recently (the last few years at least) the majority of providers have enabled you to keep your old email address when you switch provider.

My OH and I have two email addresses - one very old one set up by me many years ago and OH set up his own on his ipad about seven or eight years ago, however, his was set up so all messages to both email addresses can be seen on both computer and ipad as we use whichever means is handy wherever we are, eg computer upstairs and ipad in kitchen.

We each have a separate one on our iphones which we have kept separate. We only tend to use these if we are away anywhere and want online maps and information.

Sometimes it is the provider that stops providing.
One of them has just done that - I can't remember which one but I think you had to have a telephone account with them or your email would stop working.

I have had the same one for many years. I think it may be because for some things the 'user name' is your email address and they do it for security reasons. Most of my friends have had the same one for years as well. Some may have had an email that they used for work and changed it when they retired. I do have an old blueyonder address, that provider stopped many years ago but the email address still works. Some of course may change if they are 'hacked'.

Do they change providers, and have to change it because of that?
My initial email was a nickname, and with 'Hotmail'.
When that became Outlook, things changed, it wouldn't accept my password etc etc. I can only access that one using a silly search engine now.
My Facebook page has that name, which I'm pleased about - and my 'genes' account is also linked to that. Occasionally my sister sends emails to that account.

After that, I created a gmail account, with my proper name.
Much more 'responsible' when looking for work and contacting 'officialdom'.

I'm contemplating setting one up in my maiden name, just for ex schoolmates to stalk me :-D

Dunno, I've not really noticed this. I've had my email addy from the beginning, many many years now, so has OH. We have other addys too, for different purposes.

..... change their email addresses so frequently??

It is annoying enough when we have to answer queries on here from someone complaining about no response to pms sent through Search.

But I now get it at home every flippin' Christmas!

This year 5 out of about 20 emails sent to family and friends came flying back to me under the Daemon message. So we had to send snail mail ......... knowing full well that it will be just like previous years ................ they will reply to my email address, giving their new one.

I've already had 2 like that.

Several of them already have at least 3 email addresses showing in our previous records, none of them has been usable for more than 2 years.

We only have one contact living in another country who changes his email so often ................ and even he was born and raised in the UK.

Why???

What is so different in the UK vs other countries???