Telstra has encouraged residents to report faults following an incident at Good Shepherd Catholic Church in Kelmscott last Thursday.
Phone lines at the church had been down for four weeks but Telstra were unable to deal with the issue as no report had been filed.
The parish secretary alleged the Telstra website said there would be a power outage until March 6.
“March 6 came and went,” she said.
“I was then told March 12 and so on and four weeks went by.
“It was because of this information which we kept receiving that we didn’t think to contact Telstra.”
The secretary contacted The Examiner about the phone lines being down and following advice from a Telstra spokesman the parish secretary was told to file a report and the line was fixed within 24-hours.
Good Shepherd parish priest Pavol Herda said the church could not provide any aid to parishioners when the phone line was down.
“We could not call anyone and they could not call us,” he said.
“Nothing worked for four weeks and it was difficult to do any work.”
Father Pavol said he was pleased the line was fixed and dealt with promptly but raised some concerns.
“I wonder if Telstra will charge the church for the four weeks when the lines were down,” he said.
Gosnells resident Marianne Clark said she had been in a similar situation some time ago.
“Looking back now the hassle could have been avoided,” she said.
“My land line just wasn’t working and I had no idea why and it was really frustrating.
“In the end I finally called up and filed a report, got my reference number and it was fixed.”
Telstra area general manager Boyd Brown said it appeared the fault was not officially received by Telstra from the church.
“When the fault with the phone line was officially registered our crews restored services within 24-hours,” he said.
“It is a timely reminder for customers to ensure they have properly logged a fault and been given a reference number so that we can take immediate action to resolve any issues.”
