The Minnesota AG’s office is committed to landline issues in the Twin Cities

Wayne McCuen is worried about his father, Gerald.

“My father has a defibrillator that is connected to a telephone line,” he notes. – You know this concerns us.

Their phone is a CenturyLink landline that has been out of service since Dec. 17 – the same day McCuen’s father, who wears an implanted defibrillator, turned 90.

“Now the defibrillator monitors his heart and if any arrhythmia occurs, it will shock his heart and get it beating normally again,” he explains.

The McCuens, who continue to receive bills for the service, say they have gone through a frustrating cycle of making repair appointments and then having them canceled.

“We contacted them four times at the times they indicated and I had to schedule a service call again,” notes McCuen.

A South Minneapolis family is not alone.

5 EYEWITNESS NEWS received emails from seniors, people with disabilities and others, including 76-year-old Steven Freund, a Riverside resident we spoke to over the weekend.

“December 12:00 I got up, reached for the phone to make a call, but there was nothing,” he recalls. “Every time you talk to (CenturyLink) they tell you your phones will be on at 11:59, and 11:59 never comes.”

“It’s more than just frustration,” adds Liz Elkholm, owner and manager of Brittany Apartments in St. LouisPark. “It’s a communications company. There is no contact with these people.”

It says it uses seven CenturyLink landlines to connect with 113 tenants, vendors and people interested in renting an apartment.

The lines on her office phones are flashing… But there’s no dial tone or service.

Even the telephone in the elevator doesn’t work.

“I was told that people were stealing cable TV all over town; you have to wait your turn,” Elkholm explains. “I was told it was probably construction. Sometimes when there is major construction work going on in the area, it causes lines to break.”

CenturyLink did not respond to our requests for comment on Tuesday.

However, in an earlier email, the company said Freund’s power outage was due to “multiple incidents of copper theft” that caused “extensive damage.”

Freund’s neighbor, David Dusbabek, told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS his girlfriend talked to their carrier about the copper thieves.

“They said they would go down into the sewers, lift the manhole cover and just clean up everything that was hanging under the streets and so on,” he says.

Police in Minneapolis and St. Paul says she conducted separate investigations into the theft of copper wires.

Under state law, phone companies are required to restore service with the “shortest practicable delay” – to resolve issues within 24 hours of being reported.

The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission also requires utilities to adjust customers’ bills so they are not billed for any outages longer than one day.

The AG’s office says the commission has enforcement powers, but it’s unclear whether it has taken action on any complaints.

An order issued by the PUC in 2024 states that “the Department of Commerce suggests that CenturyLink’s decline in performance was due to the decision to lay off some field technicians in Minnesota, which resulted in increased workloads for each of the remaining technicians beginning in 2021.”

Elkholm says it is contacting tenants and vendors via email for now.

“I just want simple answers,” he declares. “I think I would like to be told what’s going on, why it’s taking so long and why (CenturyLink) isn’t working on it.”

The McCuens say they hope to resolve the issue soon.

“We have to address this issue,” says Wayne McCuen. “Because I’m sure my father and his neighbor, who is 88, rely on it to contact people in case of an emergency.”

You can contact the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office HERE. You can contact the Public Utilities Commission HERE.