• by Ray Schultz , November 9, 2017

Spirit One, the Oregon Internet service provider, claims to be back up and running following a “catastrophic” loss of email service in October. But the degree of restoration is in question.  

Anyone who links to the firm’s site receives this message: “Customers please be advised our migration has been completed and email servers are running. 

“Many customers are fully up and running with their email for spiritone.com and aracnet.com.”

But a call to the service number listed in the service announcement says: “The person you are trying to reach is not accepting calls at this time. Please try your call again later.” And consumers have complained that the company is “inaccessible,” according to a report in The Oregonian. 

The firm’s email and web services “abruptly ceased on Sept. 29, wiping out subscribers’ email accounts,” The Oregonian writes. This harmed both consumers and businesses. 

For example, Irvington Music, a small firm, had not received invoices for the service since last November. But Spirit One continued hosting its site. "All of our inventory and business management records were there," Irvington Music’s owner Larry Sturz told The Oregonian.

Spirit One’s service announcement states, “During the migration emails have been stored in a default queue for email addresses that don’t exist and are being permanently stored on a dedicated POP3 for eventual forwarding to reconnected addresses.”

Why did consumers use a small provider like Spirit One? Many wanted to support a local business, The Oregonian writes.