Freeserve gets its lines crossed

Customers who sign up with Freeserve, Britain's most popular internet access provider, for its flat rate £13.99 a month AnyTime service can find themselves with telephone bills that reach £800.

Alex Psirides, a freelance locum doctor, was shocked when he received a BT phone bill that totalled eight times his usual amount.

He contacted Freeserve many times over several months but was unable to find out what had gone wrong. He wanted to talk to someone, but he says staff told him to contact head office at its PO Box number. He wanted to email his complaint, yet Freeserve had no facility for accepting emails. Eventually, he wrote to the company threatening legal action.

"I am a doctor who works solely as a freelance locum. I rely on my internet connection to communicate with my agency and my telephone line to provide me with work. I use computers all the time," he says.

"My complaint is simple: I signed up for AnyTime. I downloaded the installation file provided by Freeserve. I installed it following the instructions to the letter. Three months later I received a phone bill for £800 - £700 of which was due to my dial-up access number being incorrect."

The company offered him compensation of £100, which after deducting his monthly payments adds up to only £55.

Jobs & Money asked Freeserve head office to intervene. A spokeswoman for the company said: "We have still not received any evidence to show that Dr Psirides successfully downloaded the AnyTime dialler when completing the registration process. Whilst Dr Psirides did send over the INS file, our subsequent investigation did not show it to be an AnyTime dialler. It therefore seems likely that Dr Psirides did not fully complete the registration process as per our initial correspondence with him.

"Whilst Freeserve cannot accept liability for the costs incurred by Dr Psirides, we do appreciate this has been a lengthy and involved investigation. As a gesture of goodwill and without prejudice, we would like to offer Dr Psirides £200 for any inconvenience caused."

Dr Psirides is not the only one. Jobs & Money featured the case of Andy Beckingham earlier this year. Mr Beckingham also works in the health field, as a researcher. He considers himself computer savvy after a long stint as a computer analyst. He initially made the mistake of trying to connect to Freeserve through his third party phone supplier Eurobell - Freeserve only operates across BT lines run by BT, not third parties. He tried again via BT and thought he had succeeded in connecting to AnyTime, but the following month he found he was paying huge bills again.

In all, he spent an extra £300 on extra phone charges. Like Mr Psirides he found the customer services staff on Freeserve's 50p-a-minute helpline anything but helpful and only received a response after Jobs & Money intervened.

A spokeswoman says the company sent him £100 as a gesture of goodwill without prejudice, towards costs incurred. "The initial problem was caused by Mr Beckingham attempting to connect via a non-BT line, but it has proved difficult to ascertain what may have happened subsequently. However, it clearly states in our terms and conditions and throughout the Freeserve AnyTime registration process that it is the customer's responsibility to ensure they dial in using the correct dial-up number."

Felicity Roughead, of South Shields, was charged £245 by BT for calls made via Freeserve. Freeserve has offered her £73.33 as a goodwill gesture, which she has refused to accept. She says the wrong connection number was stated on her registration form and it was the company's fault she signed up using the wrong number.

"Given that me and my husband are pretty computer literate, I fear for anyone who doesn't use computers very often trying to sign up."

Freeserve says: "Very occasionally, customers to our AnyTime service connect using the incorrect dial-up number. It's usually because members haven't successfully completed the registration process, during which the AnyTime dial-up number is automatically installed."

Felicity Roughead says she felt sick when her phone bill arrived - and instead of the usual £40 it read £300.

She and her husband had recently signed up with Freeserve for its AnyTime flat rate service and believed they were paying £12.99 for internet access with no extra call charges (the charge has now risen to £13.99).

Mrs Roughead received several emails addressing her as "Dear Freeserve AnyTime Member" and was also billed for the flat rate service. She received quarterly phone bills, so it wasn't for almost three months that she found out that her internet access was costing 1p per minute as well.

"I wrote to Freeserve saying it had a moral obligation towards its customers. It's not like we are dimwits or computer virgins. But it has only offered £73.33 as a 'gesture of goodwill'."