A BOURNEMOUTH phone company has been fined a staggering £650,000 after unwitting customers were charged £3.60 a minute to call well-known companies.

But the firm is no longer at its address and there appears to be little prospect of the fine being paid.

DK Call, which was based in Poole Road, breached rules established to protect consumers from being misled into calling 09 numbers, it was found.

Customers attempting to contact organisations including Sky and HMRC directly accidentally called premium rate numbers.

They were then connected a cost of £3.60 every minute, plus their network’s access charge. Some were charged more than £100 for a single phone call.

The Phone-paid Services Authority (PSA) has now issued DK Call with a £645,000 penalty for breaching the code of practice after consumers said the service was misleading and they weren’t aware of the costs.

Over the course of three months, the PSA received 69 complaints. Nearly 85 per cent of customers had been using their mobile to search online before calling the number.

Jo Prowse, CEO of the PSA, said: “Where we find breaches of our rules, we take robust action. In this case, our investigation found that consumers were calling these numbers as a result of the company’s failure to provide key and clear information about the service.

“Consumers searching for organisations’ contact details clicked on links unaware that they connected to a third party and not the organisation they wanted.

“As a result, the company has been fined £645,000 and refunds have been ordered for all consumers who seek one.

“We encourage anyone using a search engine to look for a number to be aware that the first results are not always the organisation you are looking for.

“Be particularly wary of numbers for well-known companies that seem to be operating on 087 and 09 number ranges. There is likely to be a cheaper alternative.”

David Hickson of the Fair Telecoms Campaign said new regulations have led to a “vast reduction” in the number of premium rate 084 and 087 numbers being used inappropriately.

He said: “Many of the people who become victims of this scam may never realise that they have been scammed.

“However, even if they do, they may not understand that it was a third-party call-forwarding service that benefitted from the generated revenue - as opposed to the organisation they actually spoke to.”