Two Terrigal businesses in farcical phone disconnection dramas

A LAW firm and a fish and chips shop that share a building have been embroiled in saga that sees one business’ phone and internet being disrupted or disconnected when the other’s was fixed. Read on to experience their telco pain.

The Terrigal businesses have different phone providers but share a premises, which has been at the heart of their connection problems. Picture: Troy Snook

DEALING with phone companies over a service complaint is so convoluted and complex, if you are not a lawyer, don’t bother trying.

That was the advice from leading criminal law firm Panwar Legal after its phone, email and internet were disconnected three times in the space of a month.

The Terrigal legal firm switched its phone lines to Telstra in May when it signed up to the NBN but things went haywire last month when all of a sudden their phone lines and internet were disconnected without warning.

The law firm shares a building with Terrigal Beach Fish and Chips, which uses a different phone and internet provider and was also experiencing difficulty when its telco Spintel “lost” its telephone number.

Spintel `lost’ Terrigal Beach Fish and Chips’ phone number.

In a scenario that bordered on farcical, every time the law firm or the chip shop got their phone line fixed it disrupted or disconnected the other.

“Like many businesses, all of our phone, email, internet and other systems are interconnected,” a Panwar Legal spokesman said.

“Our NBN and phone lines were disconnected three times in the one month for days at a time.

“We spent literally every day being transferred between the various Telstra complaints departments, with each typically blaming someone else and none taking responsibility.

“Legally, our contract is with Telstra and the buck stops with them.”

He said it cost the firm “tens of thousands of dollars in lost revenue and good will” and got to the point where clients remanded in custody were unable to contact them to discuss important legal issues ahead of looming court appearances.

Like many businesses all of the law firm’s phone, email and internet were interconnected.

He said Telstra’s “only laughable offer of compensation” was one month’s free service despite still billing the law firm for the period when it had no service.

“Their business compensation procedure is so complicated and costly, I doubt any non-lawyer could possibly work out what to do or afford to do it,” he said.

“We feel for those small businesses who simply don’t have the resources to take Telstra on, and face potential bankruptcy as a result of Telstra’s failures.

“We have no intention of letting this go, and hope that our campaign assists others in the same predicament.”

It was a scenario that bordered on farcical for the two companies involved.

Meanwhile a staff member for the takeaway, which was recently named the number one fish and chip shop in NSW, said the phone line and internet had been down for three weeks.

“It’s been a huge pain,” she said.

“We get a lot of phone orders and even now some of our customer say they can’t get through.”

Telstra meanwhile blamed Spintel.

“The issue was the result of a processing error by a third party unrelated to Telstra,” the telco said in a statement.

“Once the issue was reported, we were able to work with our customer to have their services restored quickly.”

MORE CUSTOMERS FACING NBN DELAYS

Efforts to contact Spintel’s customer service number were unsuccessful with a call taker telling the Express Advocate she could only handle sales inquiries.

A message to the company’s Facebook page seeking a response produced a slightly more thorough result.

“i’ve (sic) spent a bit of time trying to work out the complex issue. I can’t give out any specific information due to privacy reasons. but the issue is in hand to be resolved,” the company told this newspaper.

Complaints to the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman increased, for the first time in four years, by a staggering 41 per cent last financial year.