HONOLULU -- About 9,000 Hawaiian Telcom customers have found that they have been overbilled due to a glitch in the company's automated payment system.

It's a problem that the company said it is already addressing.

Kathy Dean pays her phone bill by automatic payment, but one look at her bank statement this week and she knew something wasn't right.

"The amount that they took out for the second withdrawal is actually a combination of my April and my May amount. So now they've taken my April amount out twice," Dean said.

Dean is among thousands of Hawaiian Telcom customers who have been mistakenly overbilled. A problem that came up as the company transitioned to a new billing system. When the April bills went out late, so did the auto payments.

"In an effort to get back on track for the May billing, the May bills went out almost on time, and then the automatic payments were withdrawn, but they were very close upon the heels of each other," Hawaiian Telcom spokeswoman Ann Nishida said.

Hawaiian Telecom said it has corrected the error, reversing the entire amount of payment for all those affected and paying any bank overdraft charges that may have occurred.

The complexity of this issue, plus the number of people affected has created another problem: long wait times on Hawaiian Telcom's customer service phone line. Some customers are waiting between 20 and 30 minutes to talk to a customer service representative.

"We anticipated some glitches and there were some and we thank our customers for their patience and loyalty I know it has been difficult for some customers," Nishida said.

"My husband and I have decided we will not put back on our automatic bill payment for at least three or four months until they work out the kinks in their billing system," Dean said.

Hawaiian Telcom said all billing cycles should be back on schedule by mid-June.