Pizza company plagued by busy signal

An Ottawa pizza chain claims it's losing thousands of dollars because Rogers phone service customers can't get through to the chain's main phone line.

For nearly two weeks, hundreds of customers who use Rogers phone service have been getting busy signals when they call Gabriel Pizza's 310 phone number.

Gabriel operates nearly 30 outlets in Ottawa with a central phone number for placing orders.

The company said Rogers customers make up about 20 per cent of the pizza chain's business.

"We're not getting as much calls as we're used to, so it's really affecting our business," said André Mayer, who runs Gabriel's call centre. "People feel like they can't reach us.

"Bell is blaming Rogers, Rogers is blaming Bell, so at this point it's just one blaming the other, basically, and we're not getting any answers whatsoever," Mayer said. "We're losing money for sure."

George Hanna, president of Gabriel Pizza Franchise Corp., said he's tired of the run-around.

"We're losing thousands, tens of thousands of dollars in the last 10 days," Hanna said Friday. "We're also losing customer confidence. Our franchisees are also very upset because customers walk into the stores demanding how come we keep getting a busy signal. So I think the biggest loss for us is our customer happiness, more than anything else."

Hanna said that if the problem isn't fixed by Monday or Tuesday, the company will likely get its lawyers involved.

The same thing happened in January, but Hanna said Rogers ended up fixing it.

For now, the company is promoting a backup 613 number.

Rogers officials in Toronto said they're looking into the problem.

"We are absolutely looking into it," said Patricia Trott, Rogers Communications' director of public affairs. "We take these kinds of things very seriously. If it's our mistake then we'll fix it, and as soon as possible."