AOL Australia suffers email failure

Australian AOL users suffered an email holiday last month as a Primus billing glitch locked them out of their AOL.com email accounts.

The problem started in late December, according to a statement put out by the company, after Primus Telecom, which bought AOL|7 in 2004, carried out an upgrade of its billing system. The upgrade "threw a few people off the side", a spokesperson for the company said.

ZDNet.com.au readers first flagged the problem in early December, expressing frustration at what they said was a lack of information coming from AOL on the issue.

The spokesperson maintained that only a small number of users were affected and that the problem should have now been rectified for most customers, with no calls on the issue being fielded this week.

Any customers who were still experiencing problems accessing their account should call the PrimusAOL call centre on 1800 265 265 to have their access restored, the spokesperson said.