After John Anthony’s Unanderra business Just Bathrooms had its phone and internet cut off by mistake on May 5, he thought it would be fixed soon.
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But seven weeks later, he’s still being told it could be up to “20 working days” before the problem is fixed.
In the meantime, he has lost business, missed calls for work, and his customers have been worried he’d closed down – and he has had to keep paying bills for non-existent service.
Mr Anthony has joined a disturbingly large number of people discovering that even if their telecommunications are disconnected through no fault of their own, they can be forced to wait months for a telco to fix the problem.
He said many Unanderra businesses went offline on May 5, with NBN work nearby fingered as the culprit.
After a week his phone was diverted to another line, with mixed results. A week ago it went dead again. And since May 5, he has had to buy prepaid mobile internet access.
“It’s just terrible for business – I lost jobs over this,” an angry Mr Anthony said.
He called Optus a “baby Telstra” that was not doing its job for paying customers.
An Optus spokesman said another diversion had been put in place.
“Optus is working directly with Just Bathrooms to help resolve this issue as quickly as we can,” he said.
“We apologise for any inconvenience that has been caused.”