A MOBILE phone provider has apologised to residents in Box Hill after customers were left without a signal for more than two months.
Sarnia Poat, of Headley Heath Approach, told the Advertiser she had spent many hours on the phone complaining to Orange since access to its network disappeared in mid-November.
The 62-year-old retired secretary said: "I need my phone and I'm worried to leave the house without it because I've got heart and breathing problems.
"This has made me housebound and I haven't wanted to go anywhere by myself.
"Orange have made lots of excuses and it costs you an awful lot of money to get through to them. At times I have been on hold for more than an hour."
Retired chauffeur Dave Collier, of Warren Park, said the lack of signal had left him stranded when his car broke down at Headley last week.
The 73-year-old said: "I had to flag another gentleman down and borrow his mobile. If I hadn't done that I would probably still be sitting there. There's quite a few people up here who have been having the same problems. Orange still owes us money and apparently there's no way of getting it back.
"When you ring them you can't get through. I think it's terrible."
Gary Ayling, owner of Boxhill Country Stores in Box Hill Road, said many of his customers had complained about the problem.
He said: "It's affecting everybody who is on Orange up here.
"Quite a lot of people tell me they have switched to Vodafone because Orange just doesn't work."
Mrs Poat said she had been told she would not be refunded her £25 of unused pay-as-you-go credit or be compensated for expensive calls to Orange customer services department.
"They're insisting the only way I can get that money back is to use my mobile," she said. "But I can't use it.
"I told them, 'Orange does not work on Box Hill any more', and they said, 'Yes we know, but you could use it somewhere else'."
She added: "They have been telling me the problem was the mast in either Brockham or Betchworth and it was because of being joined to T-Mobile and it was going to be fixed. Then about two weeks ago I was told they weren't actually repairing the mast and in fact it wasn't there any more because they have taken it out."
A spokesman for Orange's parent company EE said: "We have identified a technical error, and we're working to fix the problem and return coverage to customers as quickly as possible.
"We apologise for the inconvenience caused to our customers."
