A Warwickshire businessman has branded British Telecom as a bigger threat to business growth and economic recovery than all the banks put together.

Expat Pension Providers Ltd has been cut off by British Telecom since midday on Tuesday, September 6, and by late pm on Thursday, September 8, staff at BT still could not give any indication when the service would be resumed.

The problems began when a planned changeover from analogue lines to digital did not happen. Last week a BT engineer turned up, announced he had the wrong paperwork and left.

On Tuesday, September 6, at around 1pm, BT turned off the analogue lines, leaving Expat Pensions high and dry.

Expat Pensions provides independent financial advice to UK residents who have moved abroad from its base in Warwickshire and on the Costa Blanca in Spain.

Andy Skinner, a director of Expat Pension Providers Ltd, said that since they moved from Astwood Bank in Worcestershire to newly-purchased offices in Temple Grafton, near Alcester, in Warwickshire, they had experienced one problem after another with British Telecom.

"We had endless problems getting them to commit to installation dates. Engineers turned up, announced they had the wrong paperwork and would disappear," he said.

"There were then endless billing problems and BT staff seemed unable to understand that we had moved, although they sent us dozens of letters for our various businesses in this office, including Expat Pensions, Magna Wealth Management and ASAP PR.

The latest problems with BT come just one day before Stratford-upon-Avon MP Nadhim Zahawi will formally open the new offices at 10am on Friday, September 9, at 10am.

Mr Skinner said: "My colleagues and our managing director Angela South have spent hours on the phone since midday on Tuesday trying to get some action out of BT but all we have been told, time and time again, is that they have put in a request to BT Openreach to attend our offices and have repeated endlessly that the problem has been 'escalated'.

"At the time of writing no action has been taken and BT still will not commit to telling us when our lines will be reconnected.

"The problem is particularly crucial for a financial services business.

"If you were instructing a Warwickshire financial adviser to handle your pensions and investments from your retirement home in the Spanish costas, France or Dubai, how would you react if you suddenly found out that the phone number had been disconnected?

"You could be forgiven for being extremely worried that the business had gone under, the IFA had done a runner or, at the very least, that the business had failed to pay its phone bill.

"None of which is the case. The entire episode is down to BT's incompetence and failure to take action to remedy the mistake that their staff made.

"We have tried emailing as many clients and contacts as we can, and are using mobile phones in the meantime, but this has brought our business to a standstill. We are dead in the water.

"Unless we can get our telephone lines up and running again, BT will have effectively put us out of business.

"This is a business that has gone from one adviser with a laptop and a phone in February 2010, to a firm with its own purchased offices now employing seven full and part time staff.

"We did have plans to create more jobs in 2012 as we grow our UK brand Magna Wealth Management, but our business plan is now on hold until this nightmare is resolved."

He said that every time Expat Pensions staff ring British Telecom chasing a reconnection they are repeatedly told that the issue "has been escalated"..

"In business terms, this is not only extremely rude but is inadvertently very revealing of BT's approach to customer relations.

"The fact that rather than speak to customers and try and resolve their issues, any complaint is passed to something called an 'Escalation Team' tells us more about BT's attitude to customers than any corporate statement or flash website," he said.

He said they would, in time, be examining all legal options to obtain maximum compensation, if Expat Pensions managed to remain in business, but in the short term they had been driven to despair and decided to attack BT as best they can.

"Having exhausted all the usual routes in trying to achieve what we want, a working telephone system, we have taken the decision to launch an assault on BT on all fronts.

"As well as legal action, this will include a sustained assault across all forms of media.

"It is almost certain that BT's mandarins in London will think it unlikely that one customer, and one in rural Warwickshire for that matter, can make a material difference to their company's reputation, branding and Stock Market performance, but that is the task to which I will now be applying myself."

Mr Skinner is also owner and managing director of ASAP Press & Public Relations, one of the West Midlands' most respected business-to-business news agencies.

He said: "It is not our wish to take these kinds of draconian steps, but BT's total lack of customer service and concern for any discernible customer relations has driven us to take a stand on behalf of all the businesses that BT serves, or clearly fails to serve, across the UK."