A businessman who hijacked a Bermuda Telephone Company truck last year out of frustration over his malfunctioning phone line is still fighting to have problems on his line straightened out.

Richard Powell claimed BTC's practices amount to fraud after he learned his business is paying for the same phone number used by another company.

He said his company, Lines Liquors, has a Centrex line for processing electronic transactions but, after a number of suspect long distance calls turned up on this phone line, he learned BTC has also assigned the line to Bermuda Financial Networks as a trunk line to its offices.

"This is supposed to be an exclusively designated line," Mr. Powell said.

When Mr. Powell found long distance calls to England and the UK on his line, he said BTC told him one of his staff must have unplugged the Centrex line and made the calls.

"They refused to take the calls off the bill."

Mr. Powell said his complaints to BTC led nowhere.

"This borders on fraud," he said. "They are charging me for a computer-designated line and Bermuda Financial Networks for a trunk line, but it is the same line."

Mr. Powell said he was also routinely charged for over-calls which he believes may actually have been made by the other company.

"It isn't very nice," he said.

BTC spokesman Ona Fletcher would only say: "BTC acknowledges that there was a problem with Mr. Richard Powell's line and we are in contact with Mr. Powell as we work to rectify this problem."