He found Page Creators Inc. of Alexandria, Minn., which offered to host his page for $10 a month -- a very good deal, he thought.

At first, it went well. Then, in September, the company sent an e-mail saying that rates were changing, effectively immediately. It charged $2,000 to his credit card, based on a rate of $1 per kilobyte per second for use of bandwidth

Ahmed called the new rates and policies ridiculous.

``It could cost thousands and thousands of dollars -- you could do your own Web hosting for that amount,'' he said. He fought the charges.

Ahmed wasn't alone. More than 30 people -- some from Scotland, Bulgaria and New Zealand -- also complained about Page Creators to the Better Business Bureau of Minnesota and North Dakota. Disgruntled clients also complained to the Alexandria police department, the Minnesota attorney general and the Federal Trade Commission.

The complaints were so numerous and from so many places around the world that the BBB did something unusual: It issued an international alert to other BBB offices and the media to warn consumers about the company's practices.

``This is an instance of e-commerce gone awry. Pagecreators.net is a company that is unwilling to respond to its customers complaints received by the BBB, and unwilling to fix its problems,'' said BBB president Jay Pfaender in the alert.

No criminal charges have been filed against the company but several law enforcement agencies have received complaints against Page Creators.

Page Creators own creator, Bryan Kruchten, who registered the name with the Minnesota Secretary of State, could not be reached for comment. The telephone number listed for the company belonged to his parents, who have disconnected it and gotten an unlisted number. A toll-free number for the company does not answer nor take phone messages. A message to the company contact e-mail went unanswered.

His attorney, Matthew Franzese, of Alexandria, did not return telephone calls for comment on the complaints.

A rare type

The Justice Department reports that Internet fraud cases can be as small as someone scamming fistfuls of dollars here and there via phony auctions to as large as one San Diego investment scheme that allegedly defrauded more than 3,000 people nationwide of nearly $3 million.

But allegations of fraud against Internet services are rare. Complaints about all professional services made up only 1.2 percent of the complaints filed with the Internet Fraud Complaint Center, while complaints against Internet access services were just 2 percent of the Top 10 Frauds filed from January through September 2000 with Internet Fraud Watch, a program of the non-profit National Consumers League.

The rarity of complaints about Internet services could lend a false sense of security to people. Ahmed admitted he didn't bother to check out Page Creators. ``It's not like it was too good to be true,'' he said. ``I read the contract and it didn't seem too bad.''

New policies

But on Sept. 27, Ahmed said he received an e-mail from Page Creators telling him of a new policy to charge for traffic to the site at the rate of $1 per kilobit per second of peak sustained usage per month.

``For example, if you use 24 kbp/s within a one month period of time, your bandwidth bill will be $24 that month,'' the e-mail told Ahmed. ``These fees are not refundable even with account cancellation.''

Ahmed was billed the next day for 2,512 kilobits per second for $2,000. He was incredulous.

``I do not accept your new policies,'' he e-mailed Page Creators on Oct. 3. ``I signed up with your service for $10 per month fee. You may not charge me based on your new policy. Close my accounts. You have made unauthorized charges to my card. I want these charges credited back immediately.''

Page Creators fired back the same day: ``It is your responsibility to keep track of our usage for overages. We will fight this with the credit card company along with filing a theft by swindle complaint in your place of residence as we have sufficient proof of overage use that can be verified by third parties.''

Ahmed found the claims hard to believe. He said his site contained only its name and no other content -- he hadn't decided yet what to do with it; he simply threw it up to reserve the name. No one knew it existed, he said. No one would have a reason to go there.

But to rack up the bandwidth overages Page Creators claimed, it would have had to attract traffic similar to the volume that online auction giant eBay receives daily, he claimed.

Ahmed managed to convince his bank to refund his $2,000 and the $2,000 that Page Creators charged his friend's online magazine on Ahmed's card.

Wendy Hutchinson, of Sewell, New Jersey, wasn't as lucky. She signed with Page Creators in July to host her candle party site, athomecandleparties.com . She said she agreed to buy three months of service at $45, plus the domain name for an additional $50.

But when Page Creators didn't send her an e-mail or paper confirmation or receipt, she checked with her bank in August and found the company had charged her $140 for six months of service plus a domain name and another $120 for an extra year of service.

She said she managed to convince her bank to refund the $140, but it refused to refund the $120. ``Being there is no receipt, it was my word against theirs,'' she said.

Page Creators refused her request for return of her money even though she never loaded any Web pages with it, Hutchinson said.

Catch-22

The BBB, a 90-year-old private non-profit organization that tries to promote good business practices, tried to mediate between company head Kruchten and his angry customers, who were demanding refunds totaling $76,000, but to no avail, spokeswoman Dara Rudick said.

``He was very belligerent...it left a sour taste in our mouths,'' she said.

The BBB had its own complaint with Page Creators. It said that the company had posted an unauthorized BBBOnline Reliability Seal on its site without meeting the program's standards and earning approval from the BBB. The BBB often tells consumers to look for its seal as a sign of a company in good standing with the BBB. The company removed the seal at the BBB's request.

The BBB also found Page Creator's contract to be confusing, Rudick said. For instance, it offered a 30-day money-back guarantee, but only if the customer did not pay for the service upfront.

But another part of the contract said that no service was possible unless a customer paid in-full upfront -- a Catch 22, Rudick said.

``It was spelled out, but it was confusing to the customers,'' she said. The BBB usually tries to convince businesses to change practices that could lead to disputes ``but this guy did not want to work with us,'' she said. The BBB began forwarding complaints to the Minnesota attorney general.

Pfaender, the Minnesota BBB's president, said the problem with Page Creators was unique because it was the only situation involving a Web hosting business and one of the largest involving the Internet the BBB has handled.

It also was odd because none of the complaints involved anyone from Minnesota, though complaints rolled in from California, Wisconsin, Idaho, Illinois, Nebraska, Florida, Ohio, Michigan and Oklahoma, as well as from countries as far away as Jordan and Turkey, he added. As of last week, the number of complaints has grown to 75, Pfaender said.

The lack of local complaints may have allowed the company to escape action from local law enforcement, who might pay more attention to Minnesotans alleging fraud than someone from outside the state, Pfaender said.

``If you can figure out where everybody's radar line is, well, you're doing well,'' he said.

Complaints trickle in

``A victim is a victim, whether they're from Alexandria or Italy,'' he said, citing another country where someone called his office to complain about Page Creators.

Wyffels said the case fell into a ``gray zone'' because it was hard for local investigators and the Douglas County attorney's office to determine if the company had violated any criminal laws or if these complaints were simply civil disputes.

The technical intricacies involving bandwidth, page size and other Web hosting details were beyond the expertise of his office, so Wyffels began referring all complaints to the Attorney General. Several victims also said they had reported the company to the Federal Trade Commission, which routinely handles consumer fraud cases of all kinds.

Meanwhile, though, Wyffels said he talked to both Kruchten, who the captain said had only recently turned 18, and Kruchten's attorney, trying to convince them to change their practices and turn off the flow of complaints.

``I was under the impression they would make a good faith effort to fix it,'' he said. It didn't work. Complaints continue to trickle in more than two weeks after the BBB alert.

``People continue to call and if they do, we will refer them to the attorney general,'' Wyffels said.

Leslie Sandberg, a spokeswoman for the attorney general's office, confirmed that the office is aware of the angry consumers ``but we can't disclose any further details at this time.''

Meanwhile, access to pagecreators.net mysteriously ended on Dec. 27, the day the BBB put out its international alert and Wired, an online magazine, published a story about the complaints and the BBB action. All that was left of the site was a near-blank screen.

The secretary of state's office noted that Kruchten had registered a second business name last September, Trinity Host LLC, at his parent's home as he had for Page Creators. The company's filings are up to date and in good standing, Secretary of state spokesman Kent Kaiser reported.

The BBB has issued no warning about Trinity Host and has no complaints filed against it. Its operational status is unclear, though. Its home page is black except for a message saying, ``under construction for 48 hours.''