World Online users' phones cut

Hundreds of customers of World Online, now owned by Italian internet giant Tiscali, have had their phones cut off over the weekend.

World Online on Saturday pulled the plug on phone services it was offering in a joint surfing-and-voice package, which has been withdrawn following the firm's integration into the Tiscali empire.

The move prompted about 1,000 angry customers on Sunday to ring Servista, a telecoms firm World Online had promoted as an alternative phone service provider.

World Online offered to complete the transfer of customers choosing to transfer phone services to Servista.

'Lost records' claim

But Servista said many of Sunday's complaints came from callers who had opted for the transfer, but nonetheless found their phone lines cut.

"World Online has lost a whole lot of customer records," a Servista spokesman told BBC News Online on Sunday.

"World Online were doing the calls notifying customers about the changes and sent out confirmation letters but we never received the customer details from World Online.

"If we had, they would not have been disconnected. People think we are the providers, but we're not. We were just recommended. World Online has cut these people off," he added.

Legal threat

World Online has denied Servista's claims, and asked lawyers to demand a retraction from the telecoms firm.

"It is simply not true that we lost customer records," a spokeswoman told BBC News Online on Tuesday.

"We passed over all the records which were due to go to Servista."

There were a number of World Online customers the firm had not heard back from concerning the switch-off, despite warnings communicated by phone, post and e-mail, the spokeswoman said.

Warning call

In early July, World Online had said one third of the people who had signed up to a joint internet-and-phone package, about 20,000 subscribers, had not switched telephone line providers, a month after being warned of a service shutdown.

The 60,000 customers who had signed up to the deal were sent letters warning that, following World Online's takeover by Italian internet giant Tiscali, the telephone part of the deal would be withdrawn on 12 July.

A letter dated 18 May said that if customers decided to switch to Servista, they would just have to tell World Online and "we will arrange it all for you... we will provide them with all your customer details to enable a smooth transfer of your telephone service to Servista."

The cut-off represented a major opportunity for Servista to acquire new customers. Servista held talks with World Online in April and set up a special unit to deal with switch-overs.

The firm was founded two years ago as an internet-based provider of gas, electricity and telecoms services.

BT was not allowed by watchdogs to actively target World Online customers or offer them preferential rates.

A BT spokesman said on Sunday the firm had only received a "couple of dozen" calls about loss of service.

Under pressure

Tiscali has come under pressure to make savings after spending more than 4.1bn euros (£2.5bn) becoming one of Europe's largest internet service providers.

United Business Media and British Telecom sold LineOne, one of Britain's best known ISPs, to Tiscali in April for a fraction of its valuation at the height of the internet boom.

Tiscali, now the second biggest ISP in Europe and the fourth largest in the UK, paid £62.5m in cash and shares for a business once valued at more than £1bn.

Tiscali acquired LibertySurf, a French ISP, in January this year and World Online in December 2000.