KEY POINTS:
Disgruntled ihug customers are demanding to know why they are still having problems with their email service despite assurances from the internet provider that "things are back to normal".
The company said about 20,000 customers had been affected.
Several ihug customers contacted the Herald yesterday saying they were
still having problems.
Many more expressed frustration on the public address blog website.
Pravin Mudaliar, an IT manager for a media company, said he had been having intermittent problems with ihug for the past four months.
He said he received 6559 spam emails overnight on Wednesday.
"Obviously their spam filter isn't working. We rely on emails daily. This week we didn't receive any emails all day on Monday and then we started getting emails around 5.30pm."
Mr Mudaliar said the company had decided to switch internet providers because of the problems.
"The worst part is that we have people applying for on-going jobs and we don't know how many we've missed. It's been a huge inconvenience."
Another ihug customer, who did not want to be named, said yesterday that he had been having problems with his email for the past month.
"The problem has not gone away ... it's been abysmal."
He said a colleague sent an email to his ihug address on Wednesday afternoon but the system rejected it.
"It was rejected by ihug saying my email address didn't exist in their system even though I've had that address for many, many years.
"Delays are one thing, but to have my email address rejected by the system after many years there is most concerning. What other messages have been rejected like this? I just want to get it sorted."
Spokeswoman Cherie Lacey told the Herald on Wednesday and again yesterday that the company had resolved on Sunday the junk email problem that crippled its system and caused havoc for thousands of customers.
She said she was surprised to hear some customers were still having problems.
"Our message is the same ... everything is back to normal."
If customers were still having problems, it was more than likely that they had changed their computer settings and needed to call the helpdesk for assistance.
The company, which was bought last month by Vodafone for $41 million, decided this week to offer compensation to affected customers in the form of credit on their accounts.
"We will look at each case to determine whether they are eligible."
Consumers Institute head David Russell said ihug was no different from other traders and any service must be of a reasonable standard.
If it was saying everything was fine and it was not, the Fair Trading Act clicked in, and at some point the Commerce Commission could become interested in what was going on.
