Nancy Tomhave, who lives in St. Paul’s Hayden Heights neighborhood, won’t be taking calls from loved ones on Thanksgiving, and not for lack of trying. Carolyn Ross, who lives across the city near Dale Street and Interstate 94, is largely in the same boat. The two women, both in their 70s and 80s, still use CenturyLink landlines, and both have had no access to their phone service for weeks.

“At first you think, ‘OK, it’ll be a couple days,’ but it’s been since early November, and this is the end of the month,” said Ross, who uses a cellular phone sparingly. “They’ve given no explanation. None whatsoever. And they just sent me a bill.”

Charlie Olivera, who runs Discount Auto Glass at 510 University Ave., usually takes customer calls on three business lines. All have been down since Nov. 9, though he’s set one of them to now forward calls to his cell phone.

“I was given five dates the phones were to return,” Olivera said on Wednesday. “None of those dates were ever met. …. I was told somebody from the local area would contact me, and nothing like that has ever happened. Every time I call customer service, it’s 45 minutes before you can talk to anybody. I’m missing calls left and right.”

If you’re a landline phone user without access to your landline for the holidays, you’re in good company.

Copper wire theft

CenturyLink blames the two extended St. Paul outages, and others, on multiple cases of copper wire theft throughout the Twin Cities. The outages have had disproportionate impact on older subscribers who may not use cellular phones, and come at a difficult time for senior shut-ins and families trying to reach elderly relatives as the holiday season opens and winter sets in.

“These crimes have severely hampered our ability to restore service due to the extensive damage caused during the theft,” said Mark Molzen, a CenturyLink spokesperson and global issues director based in Phoenix, in an email Wednesday.

“In some instances, we have repaired service only to be the victim of copper theft again in the same location,” he said. “Crews are working as quickly as possible to restore service. We recognize the inconvenience this causes and appreciate our customer’s patience.”

Ross, a Summit-University resident in her 70s, said she’s received multiple notices from CenturyLink over the past three weeks promising phone service will return shortly.

“Every other day they send a note and a message, and it pushes out further and further,” Ross said. “I just got one that said it won’t be on until Nov. 30th.”

No service after weeks

CenturyLink customers said they’ve received reduced phone bills after weeks without phone service, but the discounts — which only arrive after complaining to an out-of-state call center operator — come as low as the single digits.

“I did receive my bill from CenturyLink and called them about getting credit for the two weeks we had no service,” said East Side resident Cheryl Hanzlik. “They ended up giving me a $7 credit when I should have received much more than that, but when you deal with people outside the U.S., I took what I could get.”

Tomhave, in an email, said she’s been without landline service since Oct. 22 and her phone bill was discounted $20 for the inconvenience. Her neighbor at the end of the block was also still without service as of a week ago.

“I get so angry that CenturyLink does not contact us,” she said. “How hard is it to inform us? I have had people worried about me as they just hear a busy line.”

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