An email sent from a Virgin.net address in the UK to my Xtra email address took a week to arrive in my inbox. The postmark on a recent letter proves snail-mailed letters get here faster than that. Friends are complaining about similar problems with mail sent via various European ISPs, and my web hosting company tells me a number of its NZ clients claim to have lost high volumes of email. Upon complaining to Xtra, these business users were told there was no problem, but mysteriously, following their complaints, they received a backlog of delayed email. I complained to the broadband help desk team leader at Telecom and have just received this official response, which I am posting here because I suspect some Xtra customers may still be unaware that there are mail delivery problems. If you think you might be losing important email, I recommend you to do the same.