BAFFLED businessman Graham Harris couldn’t quite work out why business was so slow for his Colchester skip hire firm.

The phone in his Bromley Road office didn’t ring for days – and that, it turned out, was the reason things were so quiet.

When Mr Harris tried dialling AAB Cheapskips’ TalkTalk landline number himself, all he got was a recorded “number not in use” message.

And when he phoned TalkTalk to ask what what was going on, he was staggered to be told the number his customers had been dialling for seven years “had never existed”.

He said: “I’m losing hundreds of pounds a day.

“I have more than a hundred skips for hire and the business has been using this number without any problem for seven years.

“People who have my mobile are calling to ask where we were and what’s going on.

“The line seems to have just disappeared and I’ve been sitting around and losing a lot of business.”

Mr Harris said his business relied on calls to the number in ads and painted on his skips and vehicles – 01206 231886.

He also has documents proving he has paid bills for the number for the past seven years, but TalkTalk still refuses to accept the number exists.

He added: “I now find out it has been off for about three weeks.

“As well as losing business, I’m worried about not getting calls about collecting skips I have out there with customers – or worse still, about another company repainting them and stealing them.

“It is so frustrating and TalkTalk won’t listen.

“It’s making me feel ill because it’s just so incredibly frustrating.”

The Gazette called TalkTalk’s advertised press office number – and got a “number unavailable” message.

Repeated attempts to contact the company by leaving messages with its main switchboard also failed to get a response.