One theft leads to another
Dear Claudienne
I live in St Catherine. Since early December whenever the electricity goes, even for one minute, my landline LIME phone does not work for days. At other times, I have no telephone service for an afternoon or night.
When the telephone line is not working, the security alarm signals in my house cannot be monitored by the security company. When this happens the company will call my cell phone and inform me that they are not getting the signals. They then send extra patrols into the community. My house has already been burglarised and this situation is very stressful.
If my house is broken into when the telephone line is not working, would LIME take responsibility?
Here are a few of the dates that I have been without phone service, but I have only just started to record them: March 28 and 29, 2013. April 3, 4, 5 and 12, 2013.
I would be grateful if you could find out the cause of the problem. I live alone and I need to have a reliable landline phone service.
GD
Dear GD
According to LIME, the interruption in the telephone service in your area is the result of theft of their generators.
The following is the LIME response on May 15 to the query from Tell Claudienne.
“To a large extent our equipment is powered by the public power supply, so when the power goes, service is sometimes interrupted. To provide backup power, we have installed generators at many of these installations. However, these are frequently vandalised, and batteries, fuel and spare parts are stolen from them, rendering them inoperable. Very often as soon as they are replaced, they are stolen again.
“Several of these locations are unmanned and in remote areas, making it very difficult for us to effectively “police” them.
Our Facilities and Security teams continue to work to see how we can better secure these installations.
“We sincerely regret the inconvenience these customers experience and advise that these occurrences are also very costly to our company, because not only do we lose revenues but we are saddled with the repeat complaints despite our efforts.
“Since service was restored to the area, we again lost equipment by theft last week. Our engineers are working to restore service in the shortest time.”
Good luck.
Dear Claudienne
I am an NIS pensioner. Through no fault of mine, the NIS listed a wrong year of birth for me. They listed me as being born one year later than I actually was born. However, last year they corrected it.
What I would really like to know is, am I entitled to a back payment as a result of the error?
I wrote to them six months ago but they have not replied.
Could you kindly help me with this problem. I would be more than grateful.
CC
Dear CC
The NIS advised us that your claim for pension was submitted on August 15, 2003. They said that the lump sum payment you received at that time included a three-year retroactive payment that dated back to August 15, 2000. The year of birth error that showed your year of birth to be 1936 instead of 1935 would therefore not attract a retroactive payment, as you have already received it.
The NIS said that by law you can only receive a retroactive payment to August 15, 2000.
Good luck.
Have a problem with a store, utility, a company: telephone 936-9436 or write to: Tell Claudienne c/o Sunday Finance, Jamaica Observer, 40-42 1/2 Beechwood Avenue, Kingston 5; or e-mail: edwardsc@jamaicaobserver.com. Please include a contact phone number.