WENATCHEE — LocalTel Communications, an internet service provider, among other things, is facing backlash following a widespread disruption in its email services.
The outage began Dec. 19 and lasted several days, or longer, customers said. Customers lost access to previous emails and weren’t receiving new emails.
“Emails before Dec 19th have been temporarily removed by our mail vendor,” LocalTel wrote on a Dec. 25 Instagram post. “We are currently implementing a phased approach to repair and restore previous emails. There are over 10 million emails. This process is meticulous, ensuring the integrity and security of your data. You can expect your old emails to be progressively available to you over the next 30 days.
“New emails dated December 20th and newer are currently queued and being processed for delivery to your email inbox.”
LocalTel did not respond to a request for comment from The Wenatchee World.
Customers told The World they would not be compensated for lost emails, refunds or discounts, and they were having difficulty reaching someone at LocalTel.
“As you probably know, thousands of people in our area (besides me) were affected when their email server LocalTel went down recently,” wrote Alan Moen, a World freelancer, in an email. “The outage lasted for about five days, a problem for many working from home, getting medical information, and other vital communications. Even though that service has now been somewhat restored, LocalTel has not returned about 10 million old messages to customers online, including contact lists. They say that this may take months.”
He added LocalTel wouldn’t give him a refund or compensation. And, he was considering dropping LocalTel. On Thursday, he said the company was still losing his emails.
“The unprofessionalism of the company and of the people with whom I have talked is truly unbelievable,” Carolyn Johnson wrote in an email. “I actually had to go into the office on 12/26 (day 8 of the outage) to get someone to actually talk with me about the details of the situation.”
She added a supervisor told her “it was a maintenance guy’s fault (unplugged two machines at once and plugged them back in immediately which caused the meltdown).” She also wrote LocalTel said it “is not responsible for the loss of email service and emails because it is a ‘courtesy service’ for internet subscribers, and they are sorry.” She added she started receiving a few emails on Dec. 25.
“We understand the critical role that email communication plays in your daily personal and professional lives, and we are deeply sorry for the inconvenience this disruption may have caused,” LocalTel wrote on its Instagram page.
LocalTel services Chelan, Douglas, Adams, Lincoln and Grant counties, according to its website.
