UNWANTED e-mails have caused a row between a computer user and the owner of the bermuda.com web site, which has culminated in an investigation by the Ministry of Telecommunications.

Curtis Dawson said he had received a string of promotional e-mails, apparently from bermuda.com, that he had tried repeatedly to stop without success.

Several requests to stop the e-mails were sent by Mr. Dawson to Tony Brannon, owner of bermuda.com, who replied by telling Mr. Dawson that his e-mail address was not on the web site's database and therefore he could not be receiving the e-mails direct from bermuda.com.

Mr. Dawson said after several blunt exchanges by e-mail, the unwanted e-mails had continued to appear in his in-box and so he had complained to the Ministry of Telecommunications and E-Commerce.

An e-mail printout supplied by Mr. Dawson showed one of several complaints to bermuda.com, dated August 14.

Mr. Dawson's e-mail read: "OK, it seems clear to me that your staff is just too stupid to remove my address from your mailing list. It must have occurred to someone that I'm receiving bothersome correspondence at this address. Not to worry, I'll fix it myself."

The response from bermuda.com was: "You are NOT, I REPEAT NOT in any bermuda.com list. We have checked all our hard drives. Unless you have another e-mail address that is forwarded to your personal. So do what you want PAL."

Assistant Director of Telecommunications Paul Gibbons visited bermuda.com this week, accompanied by a technician and found no record of e-mails being sent by the web site to Mr. Dawson.

Director of Telecommunications Gregory Swan said: "Mr. Dawson filed a complaint and we did make a visit to bermuda.com. Based on our findings, there was no direct evidence of these e-mails being sent to Mr. Dawson's address.

"However, that does not mean it did or did not happen. We are still trying to help Mr. Dawson find out where the e-mails came from and I don't want to make any premature assessment of how what happened here."

Mr. Swan added this was was the first complaint of its kind he had had to deal with.

Mr. Dawson said: "I don't want these e-mails bunging up my system and wasting my time. I don't want to know what special offers the hotels have.

"The name at the top of the e-mail is bermuda.com, so why can't they stop them coming to me?"

Mr. Brannon said: "Paul Gibbons and a technical guy visited us and they could not find Mr. Dawson's e-mail address in our database.

"There is still a possibility that he could have a previous e-mail address and things are being forwarded from that one to his current address."

He added that this was the only such complaint he had received.