Frontier outage could mean life-or-death in emergency

TAMPA (FOX 13) - Frank Coleman is well-acquainted with Frontier's customer service line. The 72-year old said he's had the trifecta of troubles: television outages, internet outages and an unsolved issue with his home phone line.

However, Saturday's interruption in his phone service could have become a life-or-death situation.

"I have 46.2 hours in with them since April 1," the Sarasota man said Tuesday. "I'm wearing a heart monitor. I had it all last week, I have another week with it. I had an incident on Saturday where I had to push the button. I had a call, I guess, moments after I pushed the button. [The call] went straight to voicemail; phone didn't ring, I had no idea Metronics was calling me," Coleman explained.

Thankfully, he was okay, but it's a predicament shared by many seniors. Ed Solomon, 82, had to buy his first cell phone and resorted to building a homemade billboard last month, after two weeks without home phone service following the switch to Frontier.

"If I had an emergency, I couldn't get 911. So I guess that's why I built a sign. To get attention, really," Solomon said.

These examples on top of more than 120 additional complaints have caught the attention of Attorney General Pam Bondi.

"My concerns were based mainly on our senior citizens. We have a large senior population in our state and many seniors, of course, rely on their service to call 911. A lot of seniors don't have cell phones," Bondi said Tuesday.

Bondi publicly asked Frontier to fix the problems and issue refunds to all consumers who've experienced interruptions, without customers having to ask for it.

Frontier representatives said they plan to meet with Bondi soon. In the meantime, they apologized for customer troubles, but report less than 1-percent experienced outages due to the conversion.

Coleman's not buying it. He said he's not giving Frontier a penny.

"If that was my business, I would not be in business," he said.

Frontier set up a phone and email account to better assist customers. You can email them at consumer.affairs@ftr.com or call (800) 921-8101.

Any Frontier customer experiencing unresolved issues with the company is encouraged to file a complaint with the Florida Attorney General's Office by visiting myfloridalegal.com or calling (866) 9NO-SCAM (66-7226).