Register.com in seven day mail Fail

Register.com says it completed an upgrade to its email system more than a week ago. But for some of its small-business customers, the upgrade is better described as a downgrade.

On June 29, after spending several months migrating users to a new email system, the well-known domain name registrar and net services outfit announced that some customers were experiencing problems with their accounts, including an inability to log in, general account slowness, and missing messages. Eight days later, users are still battling much of the same.

"We are aware that some customers continue to experience intermittent service issues," the company said in a post to its website at 11:30am EDT Monday morning. "We are deploying every available resource in the company to address these issues and greatly appreciate your continued patience."

The company did not immediately respond to our requests for comment. But our voice and email messages were left just before 5pm east coast time. Meanwhile, Register.com customers continue to complain of problems via Twitter.

"It would be great if you could find my lost e-mails, my credibility w my clients is hemorrhaging non-stop," one customer told the company at about 3:30pm EDT, before telling the world "Register.com e-mail completely unreliable, apologies to my clients -don't use register.com e-mail."

Initially, at about 1pm on June 29, Register.com said that some customers were experiencing "intermittent login issues and general slowness with their accounts." Then it warned of missing and delayed messages. Then it warned of duplicate messages.

By the night of June 30th, the company had shutdown first POP/IMAP access and then web access for approximately fifty percent of its customers "in an effort to improve the stability of the email system." At 4:15 the next morning, it said that maintenance had been completed and that all services were operational. But problems continued through the rest of the day. And the rest of the week. And the weekend.

At 11:30am today, the company said that some customers were still having trouble logging into their accounts via POP, and though it seemed to indicate it had solved the problem with delayed messages, it also left some room for doubt.

"During the migration period messages sent to you from 6/29/09 through 7/4/2009 were held at your old account and did not appear in your inbox," the company said. "Now that the migration has completed these messages will appear in your new account. The message date associated with these emails will reflect the date we completed migrating your account."

Twitter confirms that as recently as three hours ago, some messages were still missing.

Register.com said it expected to resolve the log-in issues "shortly" and that it would keep customers informed of the situation "throughout the day as new information is made available." But it did not update its status page after 11:30am.

The company continues to provide customers with updates via its own Twitter account, however, so you can easily follow the back-and-forth. "Still waiting," another customer said about four hours ago. "Very hard to be on vacation with no faith email is working. I know emails aren't coming."

"We gave you a week to clean things up with the new Email stuff," a third customer tells the company. "We have a business to run...Bye Bye!"

Meanwhile, if you visit the Register.com homepage, the company will tell you - in bold letters - that its email upgrade is complete. "We have completed the upgrade of our email services," it says. "All accounts are now operating on the new platform."

Register.com is not be confused with The Register. ®