It could only happen in the age of the Internet: Rallied by a guy in Brazil, a handful of Washington area residents are joining hundreds of fuming investors around the globe in legal action against a British bank.

Organizers are calling it the first class-action suit orchestrated via the World Wide Web. Local economist Phillip Berrill is calling it the only way to get the money he's owed.

"I feel we were deceived," he said. "They moved the goal posts on us." Berrill is talking about Halifax PLC, a mutually owned building society -- essentially a savings and loan -- that converted to a publicly traded bank last June. The stock offering raised about $30 billion and was supposed to net Halifax's 8 million members an average of nearly $3,800 each.

Trouble is, the bank didn't distribute the booty to many of its members, including some 100,000 living abroad. Bank leaders say complying with the securities laws of so many countries was too onerous. And they point out that details of exactly how to partake in the windfall -- and a list of 27 "permitted" countries -- were included in a 166-page conversion document sent to members before the stock float was approved.

But even if the information was there in black and white, members around the world now say they feel ripped off. Many contend the document was mailed too late for them to set up a British address. Others say they got it but didn't read it closely enough -- or at all. Prospects for a quick payday had them too excited to note the details.

"Had the document stated on Page 99 that members voting in favor of the conversion would be executed on Dec. 25, 1997, then the great mass of members would have cheerfully signed their own death warrants," said Thomas Hooley, a retired accountant living in Vancouver.

Enter Brian Hazelhurst, a gray-bearded Brit living in Rio de Janeiro. Hazelhurst was among those who missed out on the party, and he is using technology to try to claw his way in. His Web site at www.rain.org/ ~jmhmps/unhav.html is a call to arms for the estimated 314,000 Unhavs, an acronym for United Halifax Victims. His group now claims 400 members in 50 countries.

The Web site offers updates of recent developments and press clippings from British papers, where the Halifax story has been making headlines. Much of Hazelhurst's energy these days is spent spurring Unhavs to join what he hopes will be a suit big and public enough to persuade the bank to reopen its coffers.

Members have begun to send about $75 each to a law firm in Ruislip, England, named Callen & Howman Solicitors. Berrill sent his check recently, and it's the happiest money he's spent in a while.

"I feel badly treated," said Berrill. "Halifax engineered to exclude lots of people with overseas addresses, and they did it very underhandedly."