A pensioner claims she was left without a vital landline after her internet provider ‘cut it off’ after upgrading her to fiber optic broadband.
Jackie Foran, 68, claims she is unable to use her upstairs phone at her home in Northenden – which she relies on to call her son as she has mobility issues and has found herself unable to move at times .
She also claims she is now unable to use her landline downstairs if she watches Sky TV, meaning her family have been unable to contact her for long periods of time.
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Ms Foran says her broadband provider, Talk Talk, has since told her she will have to pay £6 a month if she wants to have the upstairs phone line reinstalled. The retiree says she has spent countless hours on the phone with the company, but claims the issue has still not been resolved.
Speaking to MEN, she said: “They called me in March and asked if I wanted to upgrade to high speed fiber. I thought it would just be them with a new router. because no one explained anything to me on the phone.
(Image: Gary Oakley/Manchester Evening News)
“They came and I didn’t realize they were going to remove the landline to hook up everything. Everything worked then but not my Sky Box. They told me that if I wanted to have Sky I would have to unplug my landline .
” When I went upstairs and tried to use the landline it was completely dead. I didn’t know they were going to cut it otherwise I never would have accepted. I phoned them the next day and said I didn’t want any more.”
“They said if I paid £6 a month they could reinstall the landline, but I never asked them to cut it and never asked for this upgrade.”
Jackie has mobility issues in her legs and says she plans to use the phone upstairs to call her son for help if she is unable to descend or needs to be taken to hospital.
“I know a lot of young people now have mobile phones, but they don’t and I need to use my landline,” she said. “Talk Talk said they couldn’t send an engineer because they could only come if there was a problem.
(Image: Gary Oakley/Manchester Evening News)
“For the landline to work now I have to unplug Sky. The other night I looked at it and forgot to unplug it and my kids thought something really bad had happened because they didn’t couldn’t reach me.
“It’s been going on since March. I must have called them hundreds of times since then. I just want to make other people who depend on landlines aware of this.
“People should know about this before they can accept any new upgrades. I know people are going to call me old fashioned and we need to go fiber optic by 2025 but I could be dead by then .”
The Manchester Evening News understands that since contacting Talk Talk Ms. Foran needs to receive additional hardware and has been engaged with an engineer to resolve the issue.
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