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Chronicle Live
National
James Rodger & Aaron Morris

Martin Lewis issues £1,000 warning to people who have a specific e-mail address

Martin Lewis has given warning to Virgin Media customers to change their email address if possible, to help save a small fortune should circumstances change in the long run.

Taking to ITV's This Morning on Wednesday the financial guru fielded callers where he met a viewer called Pauline - who was looking to switch broadband providers. She was currently with Virgin Media but wished to change over to Vodafone.

However, she was told that Virgin would close down her email accounts following the move - in-turn losing access to all of her data in the process.

Read next: Martin Lewis issues urgent advice of how to avoid Amazon Prime price hike

Martin said: "On Virgin you get 90 days after giving notice. Some providers let you keep it, some don't. This is the classic reason for not setting up your own email address with your provider. You are going to have this issue forever."

Birmingham Live reports that he continued: "You're always going to find it difficult to move so here is my tip. Decide today that you're going to set up, let's say a Gmail account. Start telling everyone you know to email you on Gmail. Auto-forward your current email address to Gmail so that it sends it to your new email address and you should always reply from there.

"Do that for a couple of months until you're pretty sure about everything and then leave Virgin. That gives you an extra 90 days, and you do need to check that. After that you then have the flexibility to move."

Martin also pointed out that changing providers could save you up to £300 per year, rising to £1,000 within a few annual periods. He added: "It can easily save you up to £2-300 a year. After a few years you could easily be up to £1,000 gained by going to the cheapest provider each time.

"You need to break that habit of allowing them to lock you in by keeping your email. It will be a pain to do so but I suggest you take the time."

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