NZ Herald
  • Home
  • Latest news
  • Herald NOW
  • Video
  • New Zealand
  • Sport
  • World
  • Business
  • Entertainment
  • Podcasts
  • Quizzes
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Travel
  • Viva
  • Weather

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • New Zealand
    • All New Zealand
    • Crime
    • Politics
    • Education
    • Open Justice
    • Scam Update
  • Herald NOW
  • On The Up
  • World
    • All World
    • Australia
    • Asia
    • UK
    • United States
    • Middle East
    • Europe
    • Pacific
  • Business
    • All Business
    • MarketsSharesCurrencyCommoditiesStock TakesCrypto
    • Markets with Madison
    • Media Insider
    • Business analysis
    • Personal financeKiwiSaverInterest ratesTaxInvestment
    • EconomyInflationGDPOfficial cash rateEmployment
    • Small business
    • Business reportsMood of the BoardroomProject AucklandSustainable business and financeCapital markets reportAgribusiness reportInfrastructure reportDynamic business
    • Deloitte Top 200 Awards
    • CompaniesAged CareAgribusinessAirlinesBanking and financeConstructionEnergyFreight and logisticsHealthcareManufacturingMedia and MarketingRetailTelecommunicationsTourism
  • Opinion
    • All Opinion
    • Analysis
    • Editorials
    • Business analysis
    • Premium opinion
    • Letters to the editor
  • Politics
  • Sport
    • All Sport
    • OlympicsParalympics
    • RugbySuper RugbyNPCAll BlacksBlack FernsRugby sevensSchool rugby
    • CricketBlack CapsWhite Ferns
    • Racing
    • NetballSilver Ferns
    • LeagueWarriorsNRL
    • FootballWellington PhoenixAuckland FCAll WhitesFootball FernsEnglish Premier League
    • GolfNZ Open
    • MotorsportFormula 1
    • Boxing
    • UFC
    • BasketballNBABreakersTall BlacksTall Ferns
    • Tennis
    • Cycling
    • Athletics
    • SailingAmerica's CupSailGP
    • Rowing
  • Lifestyle
    • All Lifestyle
    • Viva - Food, fashion & beauty
    • Society Insider
    • Royals
    • Sex & relationships
    • Food & drinkRecipesRecipe collectionsRestaurant reviewsRestaurant bookings
    • Health & wellbeing
    • Fashion & beauty
    • Pets & animals
    • The Selection - Shop the trendsShop fashionShop beautyShop entertainmentShop giftsShop home & living
    • Milford's Investing Place
  • Entertainment
    • All Entertainment
    • TV
    • MoviesMovie reviews
    • MusicMusic reviews
    • BooksBook reviews
    • Culture
    • ReviewsBook reviewsMovie reviewsMusic reviewsRestaurant reviews
  • Travel
    • All Travel
    • News
    • New ZealandNorthlandAucklandWellingtonCanterburyOtago / QueenstownNelson-TasmanBest NZ beaches
    • International travelAustraliaPacific IslandsEuropeUKUSAAfricaAsia
    • Rail holidays
    • Cruise holidays
    • Ski holidays
    • Luxury travel
    • Adventure travel
  • Kāhu Māori news
  • Environment
    • All Environment
    • Our Green Future
  • Talanoa Pacific news
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Property Insider
    • Interest rates tracker
    • Residential property listings
    • Commercial property listings
  • Health
  • Technology
    • All Technology
    • AI
    • Social media
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology
    • Opinion
    • Audio & podcasts
  • Weather forecasts
    • All Weather forecasts
    • Kaitaia
    • Whangārei
    • Dargaville
    • Auckland
    • Thames
    • Tauranga
    • Hamilton
    • Whakatāne
    • Rotorua
    • Tokoroa
    • Te Kuiti
    • Taumaranui
    • Taupō
    • Gisborne
    • New Plymouth
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Dannevirke
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Levin
    • Paraparaumu
    • Masterton
    • Wellington
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Blenheim
    • Westport
    • Reefton
    • Kaikōura
    • Greymouth
    • Hokitika
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
    • Wānaka
    • Oamaru
    • Queenstown
    • Dunedin
    • Gore
    • Invercargill
  • Meet the journalists
  • Promotions & competitions
  • OneRoof property listings
  • Driven car news

Puzzles & Quizzes

  • Puzzles
    • All Puzzles
    • Sudoku
    • Code Cracker
    • Crosswords
    • Cryptic crossword
    • Wordsearch
  • Quizzes
    • All Quizzes
    • Morning quiz
    • Afternoon quiz
    • Sports quiz

Regions

  • Northland
    • All Northland
    • Far North
    • Kaitaia
    • Kerikeri
    • Kaikohe
    • Bay of Islands
    • Whangarei
    • Dargaville
    • Kaipara
    • Mangawhai
  • Auckland
  • Waikato
    • All Waikato
    • Hamilton
    • Coromandel & Hauraki
    • Matamata & Piako
    • Cambridge
    • Te Awamutu
    • Tokoroa & South Waikato
    • Taupō & Tūrangi
  • Bay of Plenty
    • All Bay of Plenty
    • Katikati
    • Tauranga
    • Mount Maunganui
    • Pāpāmoa
    • Te Puke
    • Whakatāne
  • Rotorua
  • Hawke's Bay
    • All Hawke's Bay
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Havelock North
    • Central Hawke's Bay
    • Wairoa
  • Taranaki
    • All Taranaki
    • Stratford
    • New Plymouth
    • Hāwera
  • Manawatū - Whanganui
    • All Manawatū - Whanganui
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Manawatū
    • Tararua
    • Horowhenua
  • Wellington
    • All Wellington
    • Kapiti
    • Wairarapa
    • Upper Hutt
    • Lower Hutt
  • Nelson & Tasman
    • All Nelson & Tasman
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Tasman
  • Marlborough
  • West Coast
  • Canterbury
    • All Canterbury
    • Kaikōura
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
  • Otago
    • All Otago
    • Oamaru
    • Dunedin
    • Balclutha
    • Alexandra
    • Queenstown
    • Wanaka
  • Southland
    • All Southland
    • Invercargill
    • Gore
    • Stewart Island
  • Gisborne

Media

  • Video
    • All Video
    • NZ news video
    • Herald NOW
    • Business news video
    • Politics news video
    • Sport video
    • World news video
    • Lifestyle video
    • Entertainment video
    • Travel video
    • Markets with Madison
    • Kea Kids news
  • Podcasts
    • All Podcasts
    • The Front Page
    • On the Tiles
    • Ask me Anything
    • The Little Things
  • Cartoons
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / Business / Companies / Telecommunications

Spark apologises after man’s Xtra Mail blunder loses 30 years of family tree research

Chris Keall
By Chris Keall
Technology Editor/Senior Business Writer·NZ Herald·
18 Apr, 2024 07:57 PM3 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

Tech veteran Phil Sheehan says it took Spark three weeks to respond to his query - and he still wants questions answered.

Tech veteran Phil Sheehan says it took Spark three weeks to respond to his query - and he still wants questions answered.

Former IBM cloud computing executive Phil Sheehan has a message for others leaving Spark’s Xtra Mail, the formerly free web mail service that will incur a $5.95 per month fee for those who want to stay after May 16.

“Don’t do what I did!”

In a LinkedIn post, the tech industry veteran said, “I am my family’s resident genealogist. For nearly 50 years, I have been accumulating family history and stories in anecdotal, paper and digital forms.

“For almost 30 of those years, I have been an Xtra Mail customer, diligently saving much of my research and correspondence in a family history email folder. Effectively, I was using Xtra as a cloud storage service, well before that term became popular. Xtra was managing multiple megabytes of my family tree content for most of the time I had been an Xtra customer.

“And then the unthinkable happened.”

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Sheehan recounted that as he tried to move his Xtra emails to Microsoft Outlook, he clicked “Move Folder” at one point when he should have clicked “Import/Export.”

Decades of emails were gone, and neither Spark nor behind-the-scenes Xtra partner SMX could help him get them back.

“I trusted my email provider to have an efficient and effective backup and recovery process. Oh how wrong I was!” wrote Sheehan, who has also held roles at tech firms 9Spokes, Trade Window and Ingram Micro before retiring last year.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

After three weeks of “frustration levels go through the roof”, he finally got a response from Spark support via a chat account.

It wasn’t worth the wait. “I came to the realisation that while Xtra possibly do backups of their email data, they cannot do a recovery of an individual mailbox,” Sheehan wrote. Decades of family tree research, and other emails, were lost.

Spark responds

The Herald asked Spark for comment.

“We apologise for the poor customer experience Phil has received from our team, and we will improve our processes to ensure we can respond more quickly and effectively to these types of concerns in the future,” a spokeswoman said.

Discover more

Telecommunications

NZ’s most embarrassing tech disasters, Part 1

02 Jan 01:00 AM
Business

NZ’s most embarrassing tech disasters, Part 2

03 Jan 01:00 AM
Telecommunications

Watchdog takes One NZ to court, alleging 111 breaches

15 Apr 09:12 PM
Business

Being AI defends criticism of its AI branding, investment banker stands by ‘calling it out’

18 Apr 12:00 AM

“Unfortunately, we are not able to recover Phil’s emails due to the fact he moved them off the platform.

“While customers can regain access to their Xtra Mail within 90 days of their account being closed, we are unable to recover data that has been moved off our platform by a customer.

“We understand emails can hold important information and recommend that customers refer to our help page with instructions on how to back-up emails for safekeeping – this can be found here.”

Sheehan said he found the telco’s response “staggering” He was incredulous that the telco did not have a backup of his individual mailbox. He continued to be frustrated he could not reach anyone at Spark to discuss his issues.

Brought home

Spark originally launched Xtra Mail as part of an early 1990s partnership with Yahoo! But after a series of security, outage and spam issues, it switched to the NZ-based, Sam Morgan-backed SMX in 2016.

In March this year, the telco said free Xtra Mail was no longer financially sustainable. From May 16, it would cost Spark broadband customers $5.95 per month and others $9.95 per month.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

The spokeswoman said: “We would also like to clarify that customers who choose to close their Xtra Mail will not be charged a disconnection fee and will only be charged until the end of the subscription month they cancel in.”

Chris Keall is an Auckland-based member of the Herald’s business team. He joined the Herald in 2018 and is the technology editor and a senior business writer.

Save

    Share this article

Latest from Telecommunications

Premium
Technology

‘Huge upheaval’: Big Govt department's tech team to be cut

11 Jul 04:00 AM
Technology

Top 5 takeaways from Samsung's super-slim foldable phone and watch event

10 Jul 05:00 AM
Business|companies

Tech Insider: Consumer NZ wants 3G phone refund; Council on Amazon site pause

30 Jun 07:00 AM

From early mornings to easy living

sponsored
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from Telecommunications

Premium
‘Huge upheaval’: Big Govt department's tech team to be cut

‘Huge upheaval’: Big Govt department's tech team to be cut

11 Jul 04:00 AM

The Ministry of Social Development says most of those affected will be redeployed.

Top 5 takeaways from Samsung's super-slim foldable phone and watch event

Top 5 takeaways from Samsung's super-slim foldable phone and watch event

10 Jul 05:00 AM
Tech Insider: Consumer NZ wants 3G phone refund; Council on Amazon site pause

Tech Insider: Consumer NZ wants 3G phone refund; Council on Amazon site pause

30 Jun 07:00 AM
Premium
Air NZ tech boss tipped for top job, Amazon’s huge Auckland construction site silent, Chorus’ multi-billion rural grab, more DIA cuts - Tech Insider

Air NZ tech boss tipped for top job, Amazon’s huge Auckland construction site silent, Chorus’ multi-billion rural grab, more DIA cuts - Tech Insider

24 Jun 10:22 PM
Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky
sponsored

Solar bat monitors uncover secrets of Auckland’s night sky

NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • NZ Herald e-editions
  • Daily puzzles & quizzes
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Subscribe to the NZ Herald newspaper
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • NZME Events
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP