Bermuda Cablevision has had its knuckles wrapped by Government - again - after being caught issuing misleading bills.

Two months ago the company was warned to rectify their bills by Government after people complained they were not giving customers a full month to pay.

One subscriber told The Royal Gazette the company had wanted the bill paid by the tenth of the month but the letter had arrived ten days later, meaning she had to pay a late payment charge of $5.

The customer said: "It was absurd.

"I have a good mail person and everything else arrives on time."

When the customer tried to call the company and complain, she found she could not get through via Cablevision's tricky phone system.

After writing to complain she was surprised to find the company had merely changed the due date to "due now".

She said: "That's a very relative term. When is now?

"You could mail it whenever. It's grossly unfair."

Department of Consumer Affairs Inspector Marisa Sharpe said the company had been asked to change this too because it still did not give people a month to settle their account.

She said the company was not breaking any law, but added that she did not know of any other firm which billed clients in this manner.

The customer said she was surprised Cablevision were still keen to court bad publicity after the World Cup debacle which saw the firm pull the plug on ZBM's coverage and earn the wrath of football fans across the Island.

She said: "That's what surprised me. Why they did this, I honestly don't know.

"It could be sloppy bookkeeping - rather than get in trouble for putting the wrong date just put 'due now'.

"People are stupid and do stupid things."

"It makes you wonder how many people don't complain.

"Old people who sit at home and watch a lot of cable might see the late fee and think they are to blame and that's not fair."

Ms Sharpe said of Cablevision's billing system: "We met with them and discussed it and agreed it could be a little confusing and clients weren't given a full month.

"Cablevision were told to fix it and - and they did - but it's still confusing. It used to say 'past due' now it's saying 'due now', you don't automatically get the penalties but you still might get the penalty.

"It's so confusing. And what period are you paying for?"

She said it was not clear from the bill whether you were paying in advance or for the previous month.

Bermuda Cablevision general manager Jeremy Elmas said the company had been fine-tuning its monthly bills since November, 2001, after moving from a system where customers had to turn up to pay.

And he said the firm would take into account what Government had said and regretted any confusion caused to customers although he denied getting any customer complaints.