A telephone operator giant is not getting a warm reception in the Colne Valley from a community that has been hit by signal failure.

Dozens of Marsden residents have complained about the fault, which has left some of them unable to use their Vodafone mobile devices properly or even at all.

And they are angry at the slow progress which is being made to fix the problem, which has hit left some customers in a communications black hole for 11 days.

Vodafone said that the service has developed a configuration fault, which has led to intermittent signals for those on the 2G service.

Taking to Facebook, people said that phones both of pay-as-you-go and monthly contracts have been affected, leaving them unable to make calls or send texts.

One resident, Wendy Castano, said: “This is more than annoying. I depend on use of mobile daily and it has been very expensive to use land line only. 10 days is too long and we should consider change of service provider.

Meanwhile, Susan Hall, complained about a lack of information for those affected.

She said: “I’ve been in touch with the head office and they cannot tell me what the problem is in Marsden and how long it is going to be before the service will be resolved.

“I think company of this size should take more care of their customers and have a better knowledge of what is going on with problems. This is not the first time this year we have had no signal in the village.”

A spokeswoman for Vodafone apologised for the issues and said that some refunds will be available for those on a pay monthly contract but gave no comment about those with Pay as You Go phones.

She said: “We’re sorry some of our customers in Marsden have been experiencing signal problems locally.

“Our site in Marsden has developed a configuration fault on our 2G service which has resulted in an intermittent signal. 3G services are unaffected.

“Our engineers are working on the problem and we hope to get the site up and running normally as soon as possible.

“We cannot guarantee a fault free service. As with all technology, things can go wrong and sometimes the cause is beyond our control. This the same for all mobile operators.

“As the mast covers a relatively limited area, as soon as you move into the footprint of another mast, the service resumes. However, if any customer has been unable to make or take calls for three days or more in a row, we will reimburse that proportion of the line rental.