HOLBROOK traders have been left tallying up losses in the thousands after phone services and EFTPOS were out for days during one of the town’s busiest retail periods.
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It is the second Border town to be hit by Telstra faults in the past week but this time the outage wasn’t for a few hours — it was six days.
Holbrook IGA owner Roger Geddes will be seeking compensation after his phone, internet and fax went dead at his store last Wednesday, with the problem continuing through Henty Field Days and the weekend.
He said his efforts to run an EFTPOS machine through a 4G wireless system proved frustrating.
“Eventually I said I wouldn’t hang up until they fixed it and I was on the phone for two hours,” Mr Geddes said.
He said he expected to spend another four or five days chasing credit given to locals, while he estimates he lost thousands in other sales.
“Most people understood but some people didn’t and walked off in disgust,” he said.
“We saw people not buying things and putting things back on the shelf because they rely on EFTPOS.”
Telstra said the problem was caused by water leaking into a 300-pair cable, originally affecting just a handful of customers, before a complete outage on Thursday.
Area general manager Chris Taylor said workers were on the scene that day and worked until Sunday to fix the problem.
Russell Dyer, who owns the Holbrook Settlers Motel with wife Christine, said it was by far the worst service outage he’d experienced in 40 years in business.
The week is one of their busiest of the year, but with their phone lines down, customers were unable to book.
“It was probably 30 per cent down on last year,” Mr Dyer said.
“There didn’t seem to be an urgency to fix it.”
Earlier this week Telstra apologised to customers in Bethanga when they were left without a phone service for 12 hours on Sunday.