South Africa’s number 1 online credit-card prepaid airtime provider, Big Time Airtime , suffered suspended sales for four days, before service resumed today.

The company sent out an email apology citing “payment gateway hosting failure” to all users when the service was re-activated after lunch.

Company president, Graham Flashman, expressed concern.

“Of course it hurts. Not because of sales, but because the users out there rely on us to sell them discounted airtime online 24/7. And they know we care. When we let them down, it upsets us. And it’s not just your casual users out there taking a knock, it’s businessmen in town with prepaid phones; sometimes whole teams sent over from companies in Europe and The States. It’s families on holiday, it’s parents buying for their kids. That’s a lot of people you’re letting down. It kills us to be so powerless against technological failures like this.”

Fair enough.

Bigtimeairtime.com continues to offer discounted airtime for cellphone airtime sold on their website www.bigtimeairtime.com.