Toaster turmoil as wedding site crashes

FACED with the dilemma of choosing a wedding present, the last thing you need is for the happy couple’s gift list website to crash.

But that’s what happened to those logging on to the popular John Lewis site at the weekend.

Customers received error messages saying the site’s domain registration had expired. Some were even asked to renew the lease themselves.

The retailer’s website is one of the most popular choices for middle class couples wanting to create a formal wedding list.

Many John Lewis customers took to Twitter to complain. Helana Malone tweeted: ‘@johnlewisretail trying to go into your gift list website for a friend’s wedding registry and it keeps telling me the domain’s expired and wants me to pay to renew it? Help! or has it actually lapsed?’

She was given an option to renew the company’s domain name for £84.13.

A user named Rachel added: ‘Hi John Lewis, what’s wrong with your gift list website? It’s been down all day. Getting married in five weeks so would appreciate it working!’ niall Blackburn added: ‘Any news on when the gift list will be fixed? ours was due to go live today, and it’s obviously extremely disappointing when you wake up excited and find that it’s not working!’

A spokesman for John Lewis said the problem was resolved on Sunday.

He said: ‘We would like to offer our sincerest apologies to customers who have experienced difficulties accessing our gift list website.

‘There was an issue renewing the domain name which has been fixed and most customers can once again access the site.’