Ooo Webmaster you swore Can you please come round my house and show me what to do ? I haven't a clue what pop3 or imap are, let alone how to direct my mail to it.

Sorry JonCris if my last message sounded slightly terse, it wasn't meant to be, but will give you an indication of how frustrated I am feeling at the moment. I guess the whole point is that if I was made aware of this mad 90 days clause (which as Coniff has pointed out, isn't actually in the t&c's) then I would never had used that email account for important stuff and use my hotmail instead. I also worry, what if I do save onto my hard drive and my computer drive fails and I loose all those emails with it. At least if they are saved in my email account, I can access them still. Which makes me think how much I rely on this whole paperless society we are encouraged to buy into, when in actual fact like many options there are major flaws. *note to self, back up PC regularly !*

Many thanks Conniff. I have emailed VM again tonight, really doubt to get any sense from them though. The importance of the retention, is that this is personal mail to me and that I am old enough and responsible enough to manage my own email account without intervention from big brother. Also, I am not the only person who naively believes that emails are there in your inbox until you decide to delete them. Do you really save all your email onto your computer ?

Many thanks YourBank and Conniff for you hardwork and advice, I really appreciate your help with this, I am so frustrated with the whole thing. How do I know whether I have cable or non cable ? I rang to cancel all the other services, then they hit me with the new contract thing, again they never pointed this out when I signed up for BB. I thought that I would have each service on separate contracts and never agreed to clump them all together. Many thanks again.

Many thanks for your responses. Ok, I've just been on to their totally useless customer services department. And aparently now I'm told that, every time you sign up to a new service you sign a whole new contract for every service you have with them. So for example, if you take the TV package out in Jan 2007, then take broadband in June 2008, you are tied in for both services until June 2009 ! Can they keep getting away with this ? they quote the same old, its in the terms and conditions, but I can't remember seeing any terms and conditions through the post as everything was done over the phone.

Just to warn those of you who have signed up to VM broadband and have an email accont with them in the last 7 months or so, that ALL emails over 90 days old are deleted automatically without your consent. And yes they can get away with it, and no they are not bothered, so complain away and they will deny any calls you have made and never return your calls anyway. Apparently its in their terms and conditions, which I can't see, but keep quoting it time and time again. Don't expect any level of customer service, because it doesn't exist. Does anyone have any knowledge regarding Data Protection ? and whether they can do this, I want out of the contract, but they are threating the usual. Many thanks.