A HOMEOWNER has hit out at BT after he was offered just £20 in compensation for not having a landline or internet service for three weeks.
Hundreds of homes and businesses in Charlton Kings and Prestbury were left without phone lines in recent weeks after vandals cut cables.
But Kit Braunholtz, who lives in Crippetts Road, Leckhampton, has pointed to his own experience in January as evidence that recent victims should "count themselves lucky" that they didn't lose out for longer.
Many people in Shurdington were cut off at the start of the year after a cable was accidentally severed at a building site in Leckhampton Lane.
And after three weeks Mr Braunholtz asked BT for compensation to cover the cost of mobile phone usage and "hassle". He was offered £20.31.
It was only after further complaints he was offered an additional £60, which he accepted.
Mr Braunholtz described the amount of time it had taken BT to fix the problem in January as "ridiculous".
"It was almost impossible to contact anybody who knew what was going on," he said.
"They just said they would do their best and they transferred our incoming calls to our mobiles so we had to top up our mobiles a number of times and my broadband wasn't working either because it uses the phone line.
"The way they dealt with it was terrible and the worst thing was that when I said about how much hassle I'd had and about the mobiles and asked for compensation, they said they would let me off the line rental."
A spokesman for BT said the £60 was a "goodwill gesture".
He said: "The length of time it takes to repair a damaged underground cable depends on many factors, including the nature of the damage and local conditions, and it isn't possible to provide precise times.
"However, engineers did everything in their power to reconnect lines as quickly as possible following the damage in Shurdington."