A SUFFOLK business has been left reeling after BT failed to restore.The farm shop near Stowmarket has been forced to rely on mobile phones – and has been unable to process credit cards since its phones were cut a week ago.

A SUFFOLK business has been left reeling after BT failed to restore.

The farm shop near Stowmarket has been forced to rely on mobile phones – and has been unable to process credit cards since its phones were cut a week ago.

Peter Wolfe, who runs the Low Road Farm Shop, Brockford, near Stowmarket, has been unable to make or receive calls since November 16, when a stolen van was set on fire outside his property and damaged overhead cables.

Despite his mother Audrey Brown getting in touch with BT every day since he reported the fault, Mr Wolfe has been told the line may not be fixed until December 10.

He has been forced to take every call using his mobile phone at great expense and has been losing business because customers cannot use credit cards.

Mr Wolfe said: "The business is really hurting at the moment. I cannot use my credit card machine and that is the worst thing.

"In the last two months I have opened a pine furniture shop and I spent a lot of money to get interest free credit facilities.

"Using the mobile phone is also absolutely horrendous and it is far more expensive than an ordinary line. I have put £50 of credit on the phone and I have used £40 in the last nine days. I normally only buy £50 a year."

Mr Wolfe has also criticised BT's customer service for failing to give him enough information about the fault.

He said: "I think the service has been diabolical to put it bluntly. The people you speak to are polite and nice but they don't actually tell you anything.

"Four days after I lost the phone they had not even allocated the job, even though they arrived on Sunday when I first called within an hour.

"The more this goes on the more money I will lose and I have no idea how much business I have already lost."

A spokeswoman for BT apologised to Mr Wolfe but could give him no indication that the problem will be fixed before next month.

She said: "We would like to apologise to our customer for the delay in restoring service.

"This work will be done as soon as possible, however recent adverse weather conditions have led to a higher number of faults being reported.

"Teams of engineers and contractors have been working across the region to restore service as soon as possible, unfortunately this extra work has had an impact on service restoration for customers not related to the weather."