A 74-YEAR-old charity fundraiser had his phone line and number taken away from him by his service provider after he received a letter stating another customer wanted it.

Barry Snell from Luckington received the letter from BT on Wednesday, April 27 and has had a nine-day ordeal to have his number returned to him.

Mr Snell said: “Out of the blue they sent me a letter saying another BT customer would like to take over my number and line.

“At the bottom of the letter it said I had two days to object before they changed anything but lo and behold they switched my number over on the same day which I thought was really naughty."

The semi-retired pensioner relies on his phone to speak to people about fundraising for a number of charities including Cancer Research.

He said: “After a lot of hard work, it took about nine days for them to get my number back and every time I contacted them, they fobbed me off with different tales.

“I waited in one day for about six hours for a technician they told me was coming to fix the problem. When I rang again, they told me it was Openreach’s problem but when I called them they told me it was BT’s. I didn’t know what to say.

Since the line was restored, Mr Snell said he has only had a quick apology over the phone for the hassle he endured.

When contacted for a response, a spokesman from BT said: “We would like to apologise to Mr Snell for the problem he experienced. We had an order for a phone line and broadband at his address and, as is usual in such cases, we wrote to Mr Snell as the existing customer to say we had a request to take over the line.

“As soon as we became aware that a mistake had been made, we worked to recover Mr Snell’s original number as quickly as possible and prevented it being given to another customer.

“Mr Snell now has the correct number again. He continued to have a working phone service throughout this period, but with a different number.”