Yahoo Finance 'Tesco is closing its email service, leaving me cut off'
I was always aware that the unexpected closure of an email service would require getting all contacts to update address books with a new email address, including banks, insurers, retailers, doctors, newsletters, utilities, subscription services, etc, many of which I might no longer have a record of.
The email address will probably have been the logon username on many other internet services, including some that may have been forgotten about but which may still matter to the user.
The email address may also have been the security backup contact for various sensitive sites. If it changes, stationery may have to be replaced.
To avoid being caught out in such a situation, I have used an email account provided by a company that I was confident would stay in business for the long term: Tesco.
Tesco used to provide an internet service for customers of its broadband business. However, in 2015 it decided to give up this business. It nonetheless maintained the email service so that previous customers could remain in contact with people and organisations they had provided with their Tesco email addresses.
Now though Tesco has announced that it will shut down its email service completely on June 27 without providing any forwarding arrangement for former customers who are still dependent on it after October.
David Cox, London
A Tesco spokesman confirmed: “We are closing Tesco.net on June 27 2018 and have been contacting affected customers since March.”
If customers set up email forwarding on their account now, their emails can be forwarded to a different address but only until October 10.
I understand that they need to let Tesco know the forwarding address before June 27. If this isn’t done emails will be lost. You have given your Tesco.net email address to hundreds of people in your Tesco.net address book.
You have also used it for countless logons and security back-ups, many of which you will be unable to track down. You say you have been fobbed off by Tesco and I feel for you.
Until March, Tesco had given no inkling that Tesco.net would be finite. Like you, I found Tesco to be cavalier around this issue.
I was told it should have been obvious that Tesco.net would close sooner or later as it was no longer providing the other services that had gone with it.
I felt this foreknowledge was likely to be based on the benefit of hindsight over what is happening with Tesco.net now. You say it will put you off using a Tesco supermarket for a very long time.
