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REGINA – With no warning, a cell phone warranty provider has essentially gone out of business and thousands of Saskatchewan customers have been impacted.

“I was really frustrated with them. I was quite angry with them (Global Warranty Group),” said Carlin Wood-Sparrow, a Jump.ca and SaskTel customer in Grenfell.

Beginning earlier this year, customers who submitted claims to Global Warranty Group received slow or no response. Some customers told Global News they’ve lost $900 to the company while trying to file a claim.

“I waited about two months and then I tried calling again because I hadn’t received anything from Global Warranty Group,” said Wood-Sparrow.

SaskTel said 50,000 customers in the province bought insurance from GWG.

On its website, the Better Business Bureau stated its received 711 complaints regarding the agency. The BBB recently revoked the company’s accreditation and demoted it to an “F” rating.

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“Website is down. We tried calling them, same as our customers and found that their lines were disconnected,” said Kris Parker, the director of brand and marketing for Jump.ca. “There was absolutely a period of frustration and it’s certainly something that we recognize.”

The crown corporation said all of its dealers stopped selling GWG in the spring and they’ve all agreed to honour the contracts.

“We indicated to our customers to ensure that they go to the dealer that they purchased their phone insurance from and they would take care of them,” said Darcee MacFarlane, vice president of corporate and government relations with SaskTel.

“We have a number of different options that we can help them with in order to ensure that they get the same coverage that they would have had through GWG,” said Parker.

However, the experience has left some customers jaded: “I would never buy insurance again for my phone. I wouldn’t. It’s too much of a hassle and it just didn’t work out,” said Wood-Sparrow.