23 November 2006
Brian Crews took matters into his own hands when he staged sit-in at his local Carphone Warehouse shop to protest about the fact that he had been cut off from his Talk Talk landline service for ten days.
Mr Crews, of Beckenham in Kent, told the Bromley Times: "I got there and said I had been disconnected and wasn't moving until they had put the phone back on.
"Staff phoned head office and tried to do something. They said it couldn't be done right away so I said I'll wait then. I laid out my sleeping bag and pillows and got on with a puzzle."
Eventually, Mr Crews was escorted off the premises by the police, but his vigilante episode prompted quick results, with Talk Talk contacting him within four hours.
The protracted problems that Mr Crews experienced with his landline meant that both he and his wife had to resort to their mobile phones to contact friends, family, work and of course, the Talk Talk helpline.
He is now demanding that Talk Talk reimburse him and his wife for the money they've been forced to spend on their mobiles.
A company spokesman said: "Over the past 12 months TalkTalk has been installing its own equipment in BT's exchanges and have now begun a process of transferring TalkTalk customers onto this new network.
"The work requires the physical movement of the piece of copper wire that carries your phone calls and broadband from the BT network to TalkTalk's network," he continued.
"We apologise for the inconvenience that has been caused as a result to Mr Crews and we are pleased to confirm that the fault on his line has now been resolved," he concluded.
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