More than 200 people lost emails they hadn't downloaded after a failure with telecommunications provider Orcon last night.
Orcon chief executive Scott Bartlett told NZPA 266 of its customers lost their emails when the server with those customers along with its back-up failed.
"It was anything that hadn't downloaded to their PCs. Some people had only one or two emails, others may have had 50 or 60 plus," he said.
Mr Bartlett said he knew of about six customers who had stored a number of emails online and were quite severely impacted.
"We're working with those six customers to see how we can help them out. We can't retrieve their mail but we're definitely looking at what we can do to help those customers both improve their own back-up procedures, because we think that's important, and additionally what financial compensation we can offer them."
He said $100 credits had been offered to all 266 customers, and further compensation was being considered for the six badly affected ones.
Mr Bartlett said the people were from random locations and not confined to one geographic location. Most of its 220,000-plus customers were not affected.
He said the most unfortunate thing was that the error that caused the server to break also broke the back-up server as well.
"We're reviewing the processes obviously around how we do back-ups but it's still extremely disappointing," he said.
"It's important that we make sure that this can't ever happen again."
Mr Bartlett said it was the first incident Orcon had with its mail in 14 years and even though most of its 220,000 mail customers had not suffered it was still disappointing.
"It's a small amount, but we've let down 266 customers, which is just not acceptable," he said.
Mr Bartlett said Orcon had been the fastest growing telecommunications company in New Zealand in the past four years and it hurt to let people down.
NZPA