Transferring email addresses from one account to another

Question

I'm not sure if this is a good place to post this but after spending a good bit of time on the phone with FiOS customer service and technical support I just feel like venting my frustrations and hope that maybe someone could give me a valid explanation of why this cannot be done.
To give a brief (hopefully) summary of what's going on...
My wife and I are currently in the process of moving from Florida to Maryland because of the current job market and economy situation.  As always...the moving process has been a "blast".  For at least a few months we will be "between" homes and will be staying with friends.  Because of this we had to cancel our FiOS service (which I did last week and it will be shutting off sometime today).  Since we've been very please with the actual service FiOS provides we have (or maybe I should say "had") every intention of signing back up with Verizon once we're in a new home in the Maryland area.
So here's where the trouble comes into play...I contacted Verizon to see if it would be possible to somehow transfer our existing Verizon.net email addresses from our account to my friend's account (the person I'm staying with).  You would've thought I was asking for a year's worth fo free service.  Initially I was told by customer service that this can't be done.  They explained that an email address is like a phone number and two separate accounts cannot have the same email address.  Thanks for the newsflash!  I explained again that what I wanted to do was move my email addresses so they would now be associated with my friends account.  This didn't seem like such a horrible request considering my friend pays for FiOS service and with that gets 9 available email addresses....and was only using 2 of them.  She ultimately just told me it was something that couldn't be done.  But she did inform me of the "Verizon Your Domain" service that would allow current FiOS subscribers to associate their Verizon.net email account with a new domain name that you create.  It would cost $20 per year and would allow you to keep your Verizon.net email if you canceled FiOS service.  This sounded like an ok option.
But still -- I was curious why I couldn't transfer email addresses.  So I then contacted technical support.  This time it was explained to me that an email address was like a social security #.  It couldn't just be given to another person.  Great analogies in use at Verizon....I give them that.  I told the guy I was a fellow "techie" and asked him for a more detailed explanation.  That's when it got good.  That's what killed me.  He spent all this time talking about ACL's and routing and how email addresses couldn't be moved because "you're talking about 2 million addresses".  Long and short he was trying to say the Verizon email system was just too complex.  Finally I told him that it had to be something that could be done....and his exact words were "well sure it can be done...but we're not going to do it if you're not paying for a service".  Wow!  Great response!  I've been a paying customer of FiOS for about two years.  I've had some form of service with Verizon for about 15 years (from phone service to mobile service with V-Wireless).  I fully understand that I'm no longer paying for FiOS service.  But my friend is.  And he has 7 email accounts he's not using.  So why couldn't they be moved?  Because the system is too complex?  Give me a break.  Like this guy finally admitted...it boils down to money.
Finally I gave up.  I told my wife that we'd just have to deal with switching to a new email address.  Life will move on.  She wanted to try the "Verizon Your Domain" option though.  She started doing the process online...had some questions....and decided to call customer service.  She got transferred around to three different people...the last of which told her "you need to call a different department" and then CLICK. 
Great, great job Verizon.  All I ask is if someone could give me some sort of response that makes sense.  If you just don't want to offer the transfer option then tell me. 
I expect to be in a new home within a month or two.  And suddenly Comcast is looking very good.

Answer 1

spacedebris wrote:
Well, CS was right when they said that Verizon cannot transfer your email to another account. In order to do that they would have to overwrite the email of your friend ( I dont think your friend would apreciate that ). This is due to a limitation on the email system.
However, you may have another option. If you are going to be getting Verizon service again in the realitivly near future (4-8 weeks or so), Then after your acount is closed, contact tech support. If you get the right agent they will "enable" your email. That way you can continue to use it even though you dont have service any more. Now they cant do this for long but for temporary it can be done. Then once you get your service back, they can then move your existing email to your new account. (this can now be done as they will overwrite your new email with your old).
Now if your going to be without Verizon service for more than a couple months, you may be out of luck but this is one option
umm, oh bhoy!
In fact, a "repoint" of an email address CAN be completed onto another account AND it does not overwrite anything on the receiving account.    Each acount, whether its a FiOS account or a copper account, has an account number.   The email address is assigned to the account number.    The email address can be "repointed" from one account to another, as an 'add-on' to the new account, then it can be 'repointed' back to another account later.    HOWEVER, the contract does say that you must have a valid account.  AND, Verizon cannot (no company can) allow you to manipulate someone else's account.  
as to the "after your acount is closed, contact tech support. If you get the right agent they will "enable" your email", well, the fact is that the account has to be provisioned to an address.   So, though I have come accross accounts that seemed to still be "on" after the listed close date, it was not something that verizon's tier 1 tech support can effect (that's who you get on the phone when you call tech support) (note that 'sales' could not do this for you, either)   So good luck with that.
What happens is that Verizon will not allow anyone to take your email addresses for at least 6 months. 
  Before you cancelled you may have had an option to have a notice auto-replied to any email that gets sent to your email address, for a limited amount of time, like they can do with a telephone number ("this number has been changed to . . . . . ")  that "this email address is temporarily suspended, or something. . . . I said MAY have had the opportunity. .. .   but if it was me, I would get to where you are going and make sure they have Verizon internet account already   and have them call verizon tech support (so they can verify their account info)  with you standing there so that you can verify your old account info and immediately and plainly ask if you can have an email "repoint" done for you.   
my .02
cjacobs001