A York business owner has spoken out after his business phone line and broadband was ‘stolen’.
Christopher Wilson runs Parlormade Café and Scone House on Little Shambles. He came into work last Thursday to discover the business had no internet because the phone line had been cut off.
He revealed what had happened on BizMix, the business show on YorkMix Radio.
“When we phoned Plusnet they said that another company had applied to take over the line, and our own account had all been closed,” he told show host Phil Pinder.
“And because our account was closed, we couldn’t access it. Due to data protection, they weren’t able to discuss the new company that had requested the takeover of our phone line.”
It emerged an email had been sent to Parlormade saying someone had applied to take over the line. But it arrived while the business was closed for three weeks after Christmas and was missed.
Christopher said he would have expected the company to get in touch by phone or letter to double check before the number was cut off.
A bit frightening
“The thing that was of interest to us is, according to Plusnet, anybody could apply to take over any number. We don’t know how true that is. But it’s a little bit frightening,” he said.
“We don’t know if it was malicious. We probably expect is it’s a mistake.”
After a few “marathon calls” Christopher managed to get the phone number back.
But they still have problems. “We’ve got the phone number back. We’ve had to apply for a new account so we don’t have any broadband – we have issues with contactless sales, playing music in the facility and obviously all our CCTV is monitored remotely,” he said.
Phil, who is vice chair of York Retail Forum, said: “It’s great to bring this to the attention of other business owners – because to be honest, it’s the last thing that’ll be on your mind, losing your entire phone line because someone’s requested to take it over.”