A Toronto man has been fined and told to repay his victims after pleading guilty to an Internet scam.

The Federal Competition Bureau says Peter Kuryliw targeted 40,000 businesses and charities with a deceptive mailout concerning an Internet directory.

The organizations got a notice last May to send payment to a postal box in Toronto for an Internet business directory that would list details of their business.

Bureau investigators said the mailout was made to appear as invoices from Bell Canada or the Yellow Pages. It asked the recipients to pay $85.55 for a listing in Yellowbusiness.ca.

"These invoices duped companies into believing they were customers of a service they never purchased when in fact, the mailout was simply a business solicitation," said Raymond Pierce of the Fair Business Practices Branch of the bureau.

Investigators seized mail from the Toronto postal box with about $700,000 in payments.

Peter Kuryliw, the director of 1473253 Ontario Inc., has been charged with making a false or misleading representation. He's been fined $30,000 and told to dissolve the company.