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Paul Keable, a spokesman for Avid Life, the parent company of Ashley Madison, provided an emailed statement in response to a request for comment regarding the allegations made by former employees. “As we have stated in the past, as this is an ongoing investigation, we are limited in what we can say. That said, the information that has been provided to you contains a number of inaccuracies,” the statement read.

Another former customer service worker, who claimed to have left over concerns that the job was not conducive to good well being, offered a succinct summary of the workplace experience.

“They weren’t bad people,” the worker said. “They just did bad things.”

Calls from angry spouses were traumatizing, but far more common, former workers say, were calls from angry men — clients demanding a refund after finding out they had rapidly racked up bills far steeper than they had realized. That’s because every attempt to make contact with a potential mistress on the site costs money — often much more than what clients expect.

A basic starter package of 50 credits costs US$59.99. Sending a message costs five credits and replies are free. But if the message is marked “priority,” the site deducts an additional five credits. And many new users miss the fact that their messages are automatically marked priority by default, unless users make a point of changing their settings to turn the default option off.

That means a user who sent messages to the 10 female profiles on the first page of results (which is generally a new member’s first move) had already burned through his 50-credit starter package. But many also complained they were unaware of another default setting, one that automatically charged their credit cards for a new package of credits, once credits ran out — at a cost of US$79.99. In a few minutes, with just a few messages, the charges could quickly mount to US$140. With a few more messages, some 20- to 50-credit “virtual gifts” to the ladies on the other end and some time spent in a chat session (30 credits for 30 minutes), the client could find himself having burned through more than $500. There was also a US$19.99 activation fee for the mobile app.