No new messages: Travel-Net closure shuts down client email, internet
Travel-Net communications customers were left with questions but no access to internet, email or web hosting on Wednesday, after the Ottawa-based internet service provider shut down without notice.
Several customers say they tried to contact the business and have yet to receive a response.
Jean Daniels uses her email to stay in touch with family in England and her relatives in Ottawa and King City, Ont. Daniels said her cousin received an error message when he tried to tell her his granddaughter had been born.
"I feel very sad... I feel cross that all this happened and I was given no warning," she said. "When I phoned [Travel-Net] to find out what was going on, the line—it would ring out and then go dead."
Now, Daniels has lost access to all her previous emails and the address book with her contacts.
She said prior to this sudden cut-off, she had been a Travel-Net customer for 20 years and could call them for technical support whenever she needed help.
"They have been so wonderful over the years and this is just so unlike them to just drop everything and leave all their clients wondering what on earth is going on," she said. "No, that's not like them at all."
CBC News has attempted to contact Corey Jarvis, the general manager of Travel-Net, but he could not be reached for comment.
The Travel-Net office located at 805 Industrial Ave. in east Ottawa was closed Friday afternoon. A notice had been posted on the building earlier this week from Skyline Commercial Real Estate Holdings indicating they had terminated the lease with the tenant on June 19 and that the tenant was behind rent to the tune of $3,745.93.
Kiwanis Club, Legion branch websites down
André Ouellette, a webmaster who is also a Travel-Net customer, said he has never seen such a sudden shutdown of a web hosting company.
"When this happened, Travel-Net's website went dark, [their] telephone stopped working," Ouellette said. "Email didn't work... It was like a communications blackout between me and Travel-Net Communications."
He said a total of 14 sites that he manages, including those belonging to businesses and several Royal Canadian Legion branches, were down for 30 hours while he found new hosts.
A handful of clients and former clients described Travel-Net service as unresponsive in recent years, they also said there were intermittent periods where they'd lose service.
The Kiwanis Club of Orléans lost 30 email addresses and several websites in the midst of organizing its Canada Day celebration on Petrie Island and other events.
"Essentially, [the shutdown] put everything that the Kiwanis Club is involved with—including the Canada Day project, the Haunted House Screamers project and it also put the Capital Fair website—in jeopardy," said Harley Bloom, club president.
The club scrambled to find a new service provider.
Bloom said the Kiwanis Club was getting free web hosting for several websites as well as email service from Travel-Net—it even listed the company as a sponsor.
As one of the first investors in Travel-Net and a client for nearly 25 years, Bloom said he finds the company's apparent end difficult.
"I know the owner and I'm quite shocked that there was no notification, that he didn't reach out to me to see whether we could find some help for him. He was a good-hearted man and he helped a lot of organizations."
Bloom said he has not been able to contact Jarvis since services were cut off.
