This is the Grumbletext newsletter sent out today. BBC's Money Programme is doing an investigation into premium rate telephone scams.

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SOS SOS on Grumbletext newsletter - Monday 18 July 2005 Grumbletext has been contacted by the BBC TV Money Programme (BBC2) who are making a programme about premium rate telecoms scams. For those who don't know the programme, it has been running for 40 years, and is a serious investigative unit. They are interested in hearing from consumers who have lost money as a result of being duped by premium rate 'services', including ringtones for example, but also premium rate landline scams where you end up calling a £1.50 per minute 090 number. If you (or your child) have responded to any kind of unsolicited call or text message (or indeed TV or print advertising)  and either lost money calling an 090 premium rate number for a prize which didn't exist etc, or you texted a ringtone service thinking you were just getting one ringtone and ended up getting into a 'subscription' where you got them sent to you repeatedly, and maybe also you coulldn't even end the 'subscription' when you tried, or if you got a recorded message on your telephone saying you had won e.g. a holiday or some kind or prize and to call a 090 number and you did, or if you get other unsolicited nuisance marketing messages on your phone... .. then please call Terry Messenger on the Money Programme at 020 8752 7412 or email him at terry.messenger@bbc.co.uk Just to recap, they are looking for consumers who have actually responded/been duped/scammed - if you just ignored the message then please don't bother to respond as they can't use it as a basis for further investigation. cheers, Adrian at Grumbletext

I can't see how this helps us.  The 09 text message scamming is already well known and documented.

Why won't Money investigate the BBC blatantly ignoring the COI and ASA guidances on 0870, especially on its latest outrageous series of 0870 Coastal Walks information lines which it is promoting specifically to be called from an 0870 number!!!

Sent an email to Mr Messenger over a week ago to ask about doing an 0870 scam investigation - but the silence is deafening!

The report on BBC Money Programme is on BBC Two on Friday 11 November. Details here.

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The Great Phone Call Con Everyone in Britain is having their pocket systematically picked - and it's being done via our phones. The Money Programme reveals that tens of millions of pounds are being stolen from us in ingenious scams, which exploit new telecoms technology. If you've ever had a text or voice mail saying that you've won a prize, then you've probably been targeted by the fraudsters. In the worst of the scams, many thousands of Brits have been hit by huge bills for calls which they never made. And even law-abiding telecoms companies have come under fire over business practices which target consumers unfairly. Rajan Datar investigates the hi-tech phone call cons.

wrote on Nov 4^th, 2005 at 1:06am:

The report on BBC Money Programme is on BBC Two on Friday 11 November. Details here.

Interesting.  But it doesn't sound like its going to include 084/7?

This sounds more like 090 prize lines and text messages you are charged for receiving scams.  Of course all of it points at the door of the total incompetence of the snoozing Ofcom who think that all is required is the odd light touch in between their bottle of Claret.

Perhaps they may also cover the Patientline scam?

Unfortunately with 084/7 most of the media always see it as only a few pence a minute instead of at least £100 to £150 a year extra on the average uk household phone bill.

This may seem a bit off subject but I think its something most SayNo users would be interested not to miss.
The great phonecall con
The Money Program tonight(Friday) on BBC2 at 7pm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4397308.stm

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/40971000/jpg/_40971900_phonebill203bbc.jpg

What the .... nice use of old BT bill and a nice 5 figure bill as well! He should be using 18866.com!!!!

Will be very surprised if 0870 even gets a mention, but can always hope!!  But sounds like they will be looking at the scams that make a 'big-hit' off customers from one call.

This is the beauty of the 0870 scam, it is taken from consumers in relatively small chunks, which they hope we don't notice.  Those of us that DO notice are often derided by others as 'miserly' for making a fuss over a 'few pence' - this is the misconception most people have.

Exactly beginner.

It's all a bit like "pile 'em high, and sell 'em cheap"!

An interesting programme that highlighted another area of ineffective regulation in the telephone market.

Towards the end the question of whether ICSTIS is a "toothless" regulator was put to its director, George Kidd. Mr Kidd rebuked that by saying that the fact that many people continue to use (and therefore trust) these services, and shows that it is doing a good job.

It seems that there's a "pass the buck" approach and that the industry as a whole is doing nothing to stop this, although delaying payments to service providers is a step in the right direction.

A premium rate number is a way of transacting money from the caller to the receiver. Measures are in place to compensate for credit card fraud, so why is nothing similar in place for premium rate phone numbers?

Yes that is the root of it Dave,

There are no measures in place at all and when it is clear that there has been a contravention of the regulations, such as sending Premium text messages to under 16 year olds, the regulators do not want to know and do nothing. This is all in fact quasi-criminality.

dorf wrote on Nov 13^th, 2005 at 5:23pm:

Yes that is the root of it Dave, There are no measures in place at all and when it is clear that there has been a contravention of the regulations, such as sending Premiumn text messages to under 16 year olds, the regulators do not want to know and do nothing. This is all in fact quasi-criminality.

There is a simple solution to all this delibately permitted scamming which is that 09 call access on any phone line is only made available on request and only after a subscriber security check and even then each 09 call will require the entry of a PIN number given only to the line subscriber.  If the line subscriber then chooses to share the number with other users of his line then on his/her own head be it.  Also all 09 calls must have a call price announcement at the start.  Then the system would be fair and no one could complain.

Why is this not done? Well because it would make life hard for the scamsters and their telco industry partners and it seems perfectly clear that Mr Kidd and his director equivalents at Ofcom would then not have the funding to continue to draw their £100k+ per annum salary packages if the scams were closed down and the income of the scam part of the telecoms industry fell.  That is why we have telecoms regulation in the self interest of both the directors of Ofcom and ICSTIS and the self interest of the directors of the major telcos.  Unfortunately both those parties have an entirely symbiotic self interest which is at direct odds with the self interest of the average uk citizen and consumer. [smiley=shocked.gif] [smiley=shocked.gif] [smiley=thumbdown.gif] [smiley=thumbdown.gif] [smiley=thumbdown.gif]