Veterans aid team in limbo

A TOWNSVILLE service which helps veterans is stranded after its phone and NBN internet lines were cut without warning.

The Vietnam Veterans Federation ( VVF) Townsville Inc has had no internet to communicate with clients or the Department of Veterans Affairs since Thursday last week.

VVF secretary- treasurer Chris Mills said the cut was as confusing and frustrating as cuts at Donna Sands Boutique Property, which had their services cut this week due to a mix- up of addresses.

“I really have sympathy for that real estate agent, and a lot of people don’t have any sympathy for real estate agents,” Mr Mills said.

“We haven’t had any changes of any kind in our building so I don’t know what’s happened.

“I’ve been on the phone to ( Telstra) every day since last Thursday trying to fix it.

“It’s a real cost to us, and it’s an argument that I’m going to have with Telstra because I’m not going to pay the bill.”

Telstra area general manager Rachel Cliffe said the telco was attempting to sort out the problem.

“We have identified a configuration issue with this customer’s modem and we are working with him to rectify it,” she said.

“We apologise for the inconvenience this is causing and we are working as quickly as possible to restore his services.”

Mr Mills said the communications cut- off, which may have been the result of a security breach or hack, was causing problems.

“We’re unable to help veterans,” he said.

“I had a client in here this morning who we were unable to help because the information from the Department of Veterans Affairs is in our emails.

“Telstra seem unable to fix it. “We can’t function. “We’re doing things manually but we can’t finalise anything.”