A DOCTORS' surgery is the latest North-East organisation to claim it has been "ripped off" by a telephone system provider.

Neasham Road Surgery in Darlington signed a contract with One Cloud Solutions Ltd in 2012 which would see the Northumberland-based company lease phone equipment to the practice, as well as providing telephone lines and a calls package.

The contract stated the surgery would pay around £520 a month for line rental and calls, including £345 to lease the equipment.

However, this cost would be off-set by a £250 monthly payment from the phone company to the practice towards 'marketing'.

Surgery staff say they were told these payments would be for 63 months but they stopped after a year.

Sally Hutchinson, practice manager, said they were also promised free local and national calls, but later discovered only the first 300 minutes were free - and this deal lasted just 12 months.

One Cloud collapsed with debts of £900,000 in 2014, but customers were taken on by Breeze Communications, run by former One Cloud employee David Nethercott.

Mrs Hutchinson also raised concerns about the quality of the maintenance provided to the surgery by Breeze, saying they had a problem on a Friday afternoon and rang for help only to find everyone had gone home.

"We've been left paying over £500 a month for the phone system and calls," she said. "We would never have signed up to that - it's an absolute rip-off

"We're a public funded organisation and for us to be treated this way is the pits."

In response, Mr Nethercott said the original contract between One Cloud, the surgery and leasing company Academy Leasing was not a matter for Breeze.

On the issue of maintenance, he said the surgery had not bought the additional out-of-hours service but had asked for help over the Christmas break with a fault on a line.

"Within 32 minutes the fault had cleared - I would say that was pretty good service, " he added.

Mr Nethercott said he had offered Mrs Hutchinson face-to-face meetings to discuss her issues which she declined.

A spokesman for Academy Leasing said One Cloud were not acting as Academy Leasing's agent and were not authorised to make any representations to customers on academy's behalf.

"The cost of the equipment, repayment terms and interest charges are clearly stated in the hire agreement and were accepted by the customer," he added.

Several other former customers of One Cloud have accused the company of ripping them off, including a hotel and leisure centre.

The company was the subject of a police investigation and majority shareholder Garry Moat was arrested last year.

However, Northumbria Police confirmed that it was taking no further action against a 51-year-old man, understood to be Mr Moat.