how do i fix my phone?

Hi, We have have had an NTL VS2002 DECT phone/answer machine for some time - without any problems. However, just returned from holiday and noticed that although 7 messages had been counted, we could only retreive a few seconds of the first one? Thinking that the memory was full, I tried clearing the message box, and tried to record another incoming message...but that also only recorded the first few seconds. Also, the outgoing message has now somehow been shortenend to only a few seconds, when it should be around 20 secs? Also, after listening to either messages, the phone screen now displays a row of dots for a few seconds, and then the word 'AUTO'...then returns to the TAD menu. Other than this problem the phone works well, and the batteries are still OK. Can you help us?? Hope so!.