New ire over Facebook e-mail change: Messages, contacts lost

— -- Facebook is giving some people grief in the form of misplaced "Messages" and erased e-mail contacts on smartphones after the company made changes to its e-mail.

The unintended consequences come in the wake of the social-networking giant's move to migrate members to new @facebook.com e-mail addresses. The abrupt and unannounced change ignited user outrage.

Because of a "bug," the company says, the mobile app synced the @facebook.com addresses while removing existing addresses on some users' smartphones.

Additionally, some users expressed confusion after finding that not all of the one-to-one "Messages" are going through. Instead, some are landing on the "Messages" screen under a tab labeled "Other."

In the past few weeks, Facebook generated an @facebook.com e-mail address for all users and publicly posted it under the "contact info" section. But users on some platforms complained that e-mail address contacts they had synced to their mobile phones were replaced by the new addresses, a malfunction caused by the bug, according to Facebook spokeswoman Rebecca Hahn.

"For people on certain devices, a bug meant that the device was pulling the last e-mail address added to the account rather than the primary e-mail address, resulting in @facebook.com addresses being pulled," Hahn said. "We are in the process of fixing the issue, and it will be resolved soon."

Facebook user Matt Brezina, a San Francisco resident and CEO of mobile app company Sincerely, said that he was unaware of e-mail being sent to his new @facebook.com address. Then he read reports about where to find it — in the "Other" folder below the "Messages" folder — but by then the unannounced change kept him out of touch with some people.

"They changed my e-mail address that people were e-mailing me at — it's infuriating," Brezina said. Once he opened the "Other" folder, he discovered important e-mails he was previously unaware of. "I had three that I cared about; it was from people that wanted to partner with my business."