A COTTAGE owner has accused broadband providers of “indifference, incompetence and rudeness” after the quoted cost of installing wifi was doubled to more than £3,000.

Kate Slater, 63, a freelance writer, bought a tiny holiday cottage in Middleham at the end of 2019 as a pension, and after redecorating and renovating, applied in June last year to Plusnet to instal wifi internet.

She was shocked at the original quote of £1,312 but reluctantly agreed, however more than six months later there is still no internet and now the quote has been increased to £3,087 because of a “human error”.

She said: “Both Plusnet and Openreach have been diabolical. For over six months I’ve had nothing but excuses, mistakes and promises that they will escalate the problem to the highest level, which of course means nothing, and indifference, incompetence and rudeness.

“The reason they have to do this work in the first place is that they attempted to place a wire over a neighbour’s garden without permission.

“I have offered to meet them over halfway. If I made mistakes like this in my tiny freelance business, my company would not exist any longer. Large organisations like these shouldn’t be allowed to get away with this disgusting treatment of small customers who are simply trying to survive. Rishi Sunak our MP and Chancellor of the Exchequer, has also been involved in this case on my behalf and has written to Openreach, but unbelievably it seems they are fobbing him off.”

Ms Slater is concerned people will cancel bookings for later in the year because of the situation. “I know it has been a terrible year with the pandemic and this is a small problem compared to what so many people are suffering but these large companies should be challenged.”

After being contacted by the Darlington and Stockton Times, Openreach agreed to abide by the original quote, which in total was £1,312.

The company said: “We’re very sorry for the inconvenience caused to Ms Slater and the length of time taken to resolve this issue. An error was made when processing the original survey costs which meant the costs were substantially lower than they should have been.

“But as they had already been agreed with the communication provider it’s only right that we honour the original quotation. We’ll work with the communication provider to get service up and running as quickly as possible should Ms Slater want to proceed.”