Engineers at 3 are busy rebuilding the firm's pay-as-you-go top-up database after the server carrying it fell over on Sunday.

Customers were left unable to add new credit for several hours, either over the phone, online or in 3 stores. A 3 spokesman said today that it took action to ensure that pay-as-you-go users were able to make calls if they had run out.

Billing systems are now back up, and the work being carried out to restore the database means no credit will be lost. The actual 3G network was unaffected by the downtime, the spokesman said.

3 sent us this apology and some more details:

We experienced problems with our ThreePay billing systems on Sunday which meant customers were not able to add credit to their accounts, send some messages and call some premium-rated and international numbers. Customers were able to make and receive normal calls throughout.

Our core top-up systems have been restored and we are now updating the information on our billing systems. There may be some impact on customers calling in to top up for a short time, while the systems are updated. We apologise for any inconvenience to those prepay customers that were affected.

Angry Reg reader Mike Benso got in touch to say he hasn't been able to contact anyone, including 3 customer service, by phone or text since the system went down. "I'm sitting on £50 credit. It's inexcusable," he said. ®

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