Chesterfield restaurant left out of pocket after BT phone line blunder

Chesters on Sheffield Road switched over to BT in February but an error by the telecommunications giant resulted in the fish and chip shop’s business line being cancelled which it has had for the last five years.

The blunder has meant Chesters has had to be issued with a new number and the food outlet says it has been left with around £30,000 of stock carrying the old one.

Manager at Chesters, Chris Ioannides, 34, said: “It has hugely affected us as a business because about 50 per cent of our customers are elderly.

“We have had to personally write down the new number for them because they don’t use the internet so they aren’t aware of the new number.”

He said the mix-up had also impacted on his health.

He said: “It has been terrible. I have been to the doctors and I had to have two days off work because I had the shivers and I could not get out of bed.

“It has taken us five years to establish the business and the answers we have been given are not good enough.”

Mr Ioannides said that Chesters has a business line, an emergency line and a residential line.

He asked BT to take over the residential line but an error led to the business line being seized so the restaurant could not take any orders.

In response, a spokesman for BT said: “We are really sorry for the disruption and we’re doing everything we can to sort this situation out.

“We’re setting up a call forwarding service so any calls made to the old number will still get through, and doing our very best to recover the original number.

“We’ll keep the customer informed about progress and to answer any further questions he may have.”