Charter deletes customer e-mail in error

Charter Communications Inc. executives believe a software error during routine maintenance caused the company to delete the contents of 14,000 customer e-mail accounts.

There is no way to retrieve the messages, photos and other attachments that were erased from in-boxes and archive folders across the nation Monday, said Anita Lamont, a spokeswoman for the suburban St. Louis company.

“We really are sincerely sorry for having had this happen and do apologize to all those folks who were affected by the error,” Lamont said Thursday when the company announced the gaffe.

Charter, one of the nation’s largest cable TV operators, also provides telephone and high-speed Internet service. It has applied a $50 credit to the bill of each customer whose account was affected by the mistake, Lamont said.

Charter gives each new Internet user a free e-mail account, but some customers opt to use other accounts instead. So every three months the company deletes inactive accounts, Lamont said.

“During this maintenance we erroneously deleted active accounts along with the others,” Lamont said. “It’s never happened before. They are taking steps to make sure it never happens again.”

Charter has 2.6 million high-speed Internet subscribers.