why am I unexpectedly prompted to enter my username and password when checking email?

If you've never been able to send or receive email, and are prompted to enter your username and password when checking email we suggest that you check your email settings.

If you're unexpectedly asked for your username and password when you check your email using Outlook Express, your account has probably been suspended or expired because of inactivity.

Alternatively, if you access your email online using our Webmail service you'll receive the error message below if your username has become inactive:

“Your email address or password is not recognised. Please try again.”

If this is the case, (and you've not changed your password online) the username is likely to have suspended.

A Dial-up Pay As You Go account must be dialled into every 219 days, and not just used to send and receive email.

this may have happened if:

• you previously used our Dial-up Pay As You Go service and upgraded to Dial-up Any Time or Broadband as a 'new user'. As such you were given a new email address but your old email settings were not removed from Outlook Express.

• you and a friend, or family member share one of our unmetered internet connection packages, e.g. Broadband however, both use a separate email account

• you changed Internet Service Provider, but continued using your original email address

If you want to keep the email account, you can find out how to retrieve your account here.

If you decide you don't need the email account, follow the link for instructions in the articleremoving an unwanted email address from Outlook Express.