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Several viewers reached out to WRAL after we told you about
a man who says he nearly lost his foot after stepping on a utility box in his
yard.
“Unfortunately, suffered a quite catastrophic injury to my
leg… almost to the point where my foot was no longer attached to my leg,”
Matthew Privette explained to 5 On Your Side in July.
After that story aired, viewers started emailing 5 On Your
Side saying they have potentially hazardous utility boxes near their homes that
are either damaged or missing covers. Viewers told us they’ve tried requesting
repairs from the utility box owners, but nothing has been fixed.
5 On Your Side checked into a couple of the complaints and
confirmed a damaged box cover in New Hill and a missing cover in a Clayton
neighborhood.
“We had a flood a few months ago. The cover came off and we
found it down the street in pieces,” Shannon Sharrock said about the
missing box cover in Clayton.
Other neighbors told 5 On Your Side off-camera, they’ve
reported the missing cover multiple times to AT&T, but it’s still not
fixed.
So, we figured we’d try requesting repairs the way AT&T
tells customers to.
We called the number on AT&T’s website to report
unburied cables or exposed wires, but we were told to call another number.
The person at the second number said it wasn’t
AT&T’s equipment, despite the wires in the box being labeled
AT&T. They told us the box was leased by CenturyLink and we needed to call
them.
When we called CenturyLink, we were told Brightspeed
serviced that utility box and we were given another number to call.
But that number went to the wrong department of Brightspeed.
Finally, after calling 5 different numbers over 45 minutes,
Brightspeed opened a service ticket and said they’d send out a technician to
make repairs.
The technician arrived ahead of schedule, looked at the
equipment and told us it was 100% AT&T’s box, and because of that, he
didn’t have the parts needed to repair it.
We went through the entire process again, calling AT&T,
who sent us to CenturyLink, who sent us to Brightspeed.
We called AT&T one last time, but the customer service
representative our producer spoke with was adamant the company didn’t
have service in that area, and it wasn’t their box despite wires in the
box being labeled AT&T and multiple neighbors confirming to us they
are AT&T fiber customers.
It was clear the recommended process for reporting a damaged
utility box wasn’t working, so we contacted AT&T’s media team for answers.
Within a few hours, they sent someone to put a new cover on
the box in the Clayton neighborhood and sent 5 On Your Side a statement:
“Our technicians have assessed the utility boxes at both
locations and are working to replace the damaged pieces of equipment. We
appreciate the patience of the public and expect to complete this work
soon. We encourage residents who notice open boxes or exposed wires to
contact us at 800-288-2020.”
But that statement didn’t answer a lot of questions.
We followed up, asking if the 800-288-2020 was really
the best number for residents to call, considering that was the first number we
called and we were told to call a different number to report damage.
We also asked why anyone should trust that AT&T will
repair boxes when we’ve demonstrated that company representatives won’t even
take a damage report.
Our team also asked AT&T why their customer service
representative claimed the company did not service the area where this box was
located.
An AT&T spokesperson refused to answer any of those
questions.
“AT&T just needs to take care of their stuff, be
responsible,” neighbor Shannon Sharrock said.
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