A PENSIONER from York who spent £6 on a premium rate phone call to a prizeline fears his gift could end up costing him more money in the long run.

Like hundreds of other York prizewinners who rang the number set up by Disbursement Claims of High Wycombe, Stanley Holmes, 66, from Dringhouses, won a lifetime personal telephone number.

He has now received a letter giving him details of his prize, saying that it also includes access to an automatic answerphone service and to a call-diversion system, under which phone calls to his home would be diverted to other numbers of his choice.

The letter, from Personal Numbers Direct of High Wycombe, says that as an introductory offer, new subscribers do not have to pay a series of running charges amounting to £340.

"They tell you what you have free initially but there is an annual service charge of £90 and £90 message charge fee. After two years it looks like these will be costing."

Personal Numbers Direct spokesman Colin Butler said subscribers would not be liable to charges at any time for either the answerphone service or the call diversion system.

"We make our money from calls made to people using the service," he said.

Trading standards officers, who recently arrested a man during inquiries into the prizeline, have warned people to treat the telephone number offer with great caution.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.