Richmond Furniture Scheme has apologised to customers after a three-week faulty phone line connection made it uncontactable for three weeks.

Following a change of service provider, the store in Twickenham was not able to use phones or computers and noticed a drop in sales as a result.

Manager Linda Robinson said: “If it could go wrong, it has gone wrong. There was no way of anybody contacting us at all.

“We have lost so much money because customers were not able to phone us and check we are open.

“It has had a detrimental effect on sales and donations.”

To make matters worse, the company’s laptop broke and the team asked anybody with a spare computer to donate it.