Posted on 01/24/2008 4:14:36 PM PST by rawhide
ST. LOUIS — Charter Communications officials believe a software error during routine maintenance caused the company to delete the contents of 14,000 customer e-mail accounts.
There is no way to retrieve the messages, photos and other attachments that were erased from inboxes and archive folders across the country on Monday, said Anita Lamont, a spokeswoman for the suburban St. Louis-based company.
"We really are sincerely sorry for having had this happen and do apologize to all those folks who were affected by the error," Lamont said Thursday when the company announced the gaffe.
Charter, one of the nation's largest cable TV operators, also provides telephone and high-speed Internet service.
It has applied a $50 credit to the bill of each customer whose account was affected by the mistake, Lamont said.
Charter gives each new Internet user a free e-mail account, but some customers opt to use other accounts instead.
So every three months the company deletes inactive accounts, Lamont said.
"During this maintenance we erroneously deleted active accounts along with the others," Lamont said. "It's never happened before. They are taking steps to make sure it never happens again."
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
"You f***d up, you trusted us."
No backups?
How do you not have a backup of your email server data?
Idiots.
And people wonder why I don’t like depending on webmail systems like Gmail.
I guess they’re working on a disaster recovery plan now.
Charter cable has the worst customer service , that I have ever experienced. I think they have a bunch of monkeys running the place.
Charter is controlled by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen. He hasn't done anything right since he bought PC-DOS. Everything he touches turns into a disaster.
That is for sure...having the misfortune of being a customer of theirs for years...they are the worst! Random outages...billing mistakes....customer service people who read from a script. They are horrible!
What a brilliant idea!
His “Experience the Music” museum in Seattle, with a heavy Jimi Hendrix component, is pretty worthwhile. Otherwise, no arguments.
You can not get a straight answer from customer service by phone. One time, they had transfered my call a few times to those who they thought might help me, at Charter, and after a long wait, I heard a kind woman’s voice on the other end of the line, we both said hello, and I found out that she was also a customer who was on hold for customer assistance at Charter. I was on one side of the United States, and she was on the other side of the United States. Fortunately we were able to comfort each other. :-)
Hey, they did one thing right!
LOL....oh my. Haven’t had that happen yet...but not surprised at all!
That’s pretty funny. Even for such a thing to be possible, someone must have screwed up. It sounds like part of a TV sitcom plot.
No, this is what they call Damage Control....
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