RESIDENTS have been suffering from a mysterious phone problem with some having their land lines crossed with other users.

Residents in Pinvin and Pershore have reported issues with their landlines over the past fortnight.

Malcolm Roberts who lives in Pinvin said: "I have been without a phone for nearly two weeks. I went online with BT and they did a line check and it said everything was working. So I went out and bought a new phone. I came back and it still doesn't work. I raised a report of a fault and then they came back and said they would come back today or tomorrow."

Mr Roberts who runs a cafe in Pershore market said: "I believe quite a few people have a have been affected. It's just not working and it's making some really peculiar noises. I have complained that I have spent £45 on a new phone. But I am more concerned about getting it fixed so I can get the phone back really."

"It has been quite a nuisance, you rely on your phones so much these days."

Mr Roberts added: "Once I reported the fault the response was fairly quick. They said they would fix it by 6 o'clock tomorrow."

Sarah Fox from Redlands in Pershore said: "Our phone has had no dial tone for about a month but our internet has not been affected, so I've not got round to reporting it as we seldom use our land line."

Richard Hobbs said his home has had no phone line for three weeks, and now his broadband provider is trying to charge him to send out their engineer to sort the problem. Mr Hobbs said: "I have refused to pay, so we still have no land line."

One woman tried to contact her mother in Pinvin and found that her line was crossed with someone else and many elderly residents were not able to ring their friends on the same line system. She was concerned that a lot of people in the bungalows have care lines. "This could have been disastrous if help was required and emergency services could not get hold of a person if phones were being diverted to someone else down the road."

An Openreach spokesman said: “We’re investigating a fault which was reported to us yesterday - an engineer is working on it now. We’d urge any other residents experiencing any disruption to their phone service to report it to their service provider if they haven’t already done so.”

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