GREENSBORO, N.C. — Ben and Eloise Morgan love spending time at their ranch style home in Greensboro. The home sits on a large piece of property surrounded by trees. The living room has a fireplace, comfortable recliner and a huge window, “We love looking out at all the trees and birds,” said Eloise Morgan.
The other nice part of the home is that’s it’s about a stone’s throw from their son’s home. Steve Morgan lives right behind his parent’s down a dirt road, “It’s nice to be so close so I can help them if needed,” said Steve Morgan.
His parents do well on their own but when you’ve been around almost a century, “He’ll be 91 and she is 88,” said Steve Morgan, there are times you tend to rely on people.
Part of that “need” for help includes the ability to call a friend or Steve if something goes wrong or there is an issue they can’t handle on their own. The problem lately and really for a couple years has been the phone line inside the home, “Every time you pick up the phone instead of a dial tone it goes uhhhh, you get growling sound,” said Steven Morgan.
Morgan admits the phone does work a lot of the time but will often go dead or be useless during bad weather. The problem has been going on a long time and Morgan says AT&T service crews have come out to fix the problem but soon after the fix the line goes out again, “They (parents) need the phone to work, they pay for it and not get the service,” said Steve Morgan.
After Steve Morgan reached out to our Call for Action we contacted AT&T about the issues. A spokesperson told us it would investigate the problem and get back to us soon.
We then went out to the Morgan home to see for ourselves what was going on with the phone. After meeting Steve Morgan at the home, he took us up to the utility box where he says he has been told the problem originates from. The utility box contains a spider’s web of small wires and connectors that provide service to customers, “The amount of money they (parents and customers) pay and for it to be left this way, it’s stealing from people,” said Steve Morgan.
The metal utility box that protects the wires was broken and according to Morgan had been like this for months. An AT&T service person who recently came to service the lines wrapped the wires with a plastic tarp and electrical tape, “This is not a solution,” said Steve Morgan.
After seeing the tarped utility box, we then reached back out to AT&T who assured us it was in the process of sending out a service technician to provide a permanent fix to the line and the metal box itself.
It only took a week before Steven Morgan called News 2 to tell us that AT&T came out and fixed the line and the utility box, “Works fine now,” said Ben Morgan. “Sounds good.”
AT&T sent us a picture of the repairs to the utility box that show a new metal cover. Steve Morgan thrilled his parents phone line is now working and hasn’t had any problems since the repairs, “I’m glad it’s working,” said Steve Morgan.
We reached back out to AT&T but the spokesperson declined to comment any further on the issue choosing to direct us to a previous statement that said in part, “I believe the box with the tarp on it has been repaired.”