A phoneline ”fog” descended on an Angus village over the weekend, but its people and businesses felt ignored by their telecoms provider.
Since Saturday afternoon there have been serious problems with telephones in and around Edzell. None of the local businesses have been able to carry out electronic business credit/debit card payments, electricity top-up or dispensing cash.
Heavy static on phone calls into Edzell made conversations impossible for several businesses. Shop owner Dianne Timony said a BT technician came out on a domestic call and was besieged by passing villagers who assured him it was a village-wide problem.
She said: ”Their inability to co-ordinate a response after two whole days of complaints is frustrating. The main priority of the customer service person I spoke to was getting me to agree to a call-out fee if it was just my problem.”
It was claimed that people who reported the problem were told there was no fault with their line and that BT would charge £130 £220 for a business to send out an engineer if he found a fault on the premises.
Ms Timony said: ”Despite the problems becoming apparent on Saturday afternoon, by 6pm on Sunday BT were still telling people reporting a fault that the problem was on their own premises and by that time, the soonest they could get an engineer to you would be Wednesday because their engineers are all already booked on other calls.”
A BT spokeswoman apologised for the inconvenience and said the £130 fee disclaimer is a standard response to line problems. She said repair teams had been out on Sunday night and Monday morning and a fault was diagnosed at the exchange.
While problems should have been eliminated, customers have been advised to reset modems/card machines and contact the firm should problems persist.