A man who ran up a chat line bill of more than £90,000 is refusing to pay a reduced demand of £29,000.
Kevin Waldrum, 45, of Gladstone Avenue, Loughborough, ran up the bill after splitting with his girlfriend of two years.
He was charged £91,184 by Vodafone for calling adult entertainment services between September and November.
He told the women he called at Studio 66 TV about his heartache and they sympathised.
Unemployed Mr Waldrum continued to call even after getting a £19,333 mobile phone bill on the £2-a-minute line.
Another for £71,850 followed, but Vodafone admitted it could have alerted him earlier about the size of his bill and has cut its demand to £29,083.
He has vowed to fight to get the company to drop the rest of the bill.
He said: "I was flicking through the daytime TV channels and I saw the advert for the chat line. I just wanted to see what is was all about.
"You ring up, they ask your name and sympathise with you."
Despite the initial bill, Mr Waldrum continued to make regular calls to the chat line.
He said: "I felt unable to stop.
"They used to warn you when a call was coming to the end of the 20 minutes you were allowed, and then I'd just phone straight back.
"I lost two stone in weight through the stress of having to pay such a huge bill.
"I am so depressed, desperate and anxious about the whole situation.
"I admit I rang these numbers and it's partly my own fault but the line should have gone dead before I started to incur such high charges."
A spokesman for Vodafone said: "By his own admission, Mr Waldrum made calls to premium-rate adult entertainment services more or less continuously over a period of two months until we suspended the services on October 21, when the total debt was £91,000.
"We had previously barred a phone used by Mr Waldrum on September 11 for high usage but he got round this by requesting a replacement SIM card from a retail store, saying he had lost the original.
"He was then able to continue to build up debt.
"We cannot manage our customers' spending for them, but we will try to alert them to it if we are aware of an unusual high spending pattern.
"We could have alerted Mr Waldrum on September 18.
"It can sometimes take several days for billing to register on our system.
"By the time it did, his extreme use of premium-rate services meant his bill was already £29,083.
Since we missed the opportunity to alert him at this stage, we will waive the charges of about £61,000 incurred after this point as a gesture of goodwill. However, Mr Waldrum remains liable for charges of £29,083."
Mr Waldrum said he would continue to fight against being held liable for the remaining amount.
