A sequel to the above in today's Times.      The Times March 17, 2007

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The rip-off culture, from government to TV companies       Janice Turner

Sure, Blue Peter presenters have, over the decades, strutted in gay clubs or porn flicks, snorted cocaine, dated Joan Armatrading, tumbled out of nightclubs and skimpy tops. Sins of the flesh: te absolvo etc. But this new phone line scandal was not, as old Biddy Baxter claimed, another case of “human frailty”. Removing pocket money from children (or, more likely, their parents) and stuffing it in the pockets of Cable & Wireless — who received 7p for every 3.5p Blue Peter raised for Unicef — is more serious than, after a small oversight, renaming Fred the tortoise Freda.

What place do premium phone lines really have on children’s television? Occasionally, on Saturday mornings, my sons go into a flurry of searching for a pen, shushing while they scribble down a phone number. “We know the answer, Mum!” they cry. “Can we ring up?” And there’s no denying when faced with a head-scratcher like “Is the British Prime Minister called a) Tony Hair b) Tony Blair or c) Tony Carebear?” my boys can’t be beaten.

So you tell them the question is dumb, deliberately dumb, so lots of people will ring in. It’s a rip-off, a swizz. They look at you so crushed at being called dumb just when they thought they were so smart. And then, wearily, you hand them the phone.

Perhaps the Blue Peter scandal — where 14,000 children phoning a competition line had no chance of getting through and the winning child was plucked from a group visiting the studio — has taught British kids the valuable life-lesson of scepticism. There has been much hand-wringing about a “breach of audience trust”. But do we actually want our children to trust television? Better they get clear-eyed early on about the business model upon which their favourite shows are founded in the multichannel age: grifting cash out of suckers.

Let them know that TV executives commonly think of viewers’ phone revenue as “moron tax”. And that this attitude of contempt is the reason why the makers of Richard & Judy or Saturday Kitchen encouraged viewers to run up their phone bills long after a contest was closed. Yeah, OK, it’s a fix, a cheat, an injustice. But only against saddos — the elderly, housebound, lonely and poor, for whom TV is the most powerful presence in their lives. Who cares about those pathetic enough to vote on whether Eamonn Holmes gets to stuff his fat face with apple charlotte or ginger pears?

As a child at the fair, I recall being warned not to waste my money on the hoopla. The rings are too small, I was told, they won’t fit over the bases, no one ever wins that gold watch. But now the hooplas have multiplied, the stalls are everywhere. My kids scrabble for the scratchcards that skitter out of newspapers or seize a bit of junk mail emblazoned with “Open now to receive your £20,000 special award!”. They look longingly at the spangly flashing pop-ups on websites: “Click here to claim your prize.”

They don’t yet own mobile phones to receive those tempting messages: “Just text this number to claim a free flight.” They haven’t picked up the phone to semi-legal cold-callers who cheerily announce you’ve won a holiday, just ring this number . . . let alone suffered the daily e-mail bombardment of Nigerian fraudsters, unsolicited share tips, the drug company salutations of “Hey Mister, got trouble with your Johnson?”.

How am I to teach children to navigate through the hawkers and shysters of the modern marketplace when I feel so baffled myself? My default mode is now utter distrust. I turn down free gifts with purchase if I have to give my e-mail address: they’ll only flog it on and thus double my spam. I don’t want a loyalty card, a free upgraded phone, to change my electricity supplier or enter a free prize draw. I know your little game, all of you! Because even the wisest fall prey to scams: the most worldly, sophisticated sixtysomething I know received a catalogue in the post, offering thrilling discounts if he rang a certain number. Which he did and hung on for ten minutes, until he was rewarded with a special address to write to . . . and £9.50 on his phone bill.

How can a whole economic stratum based upon huckstering be allowed to exist? But then this is a Government happy to levy “moron tax”, eager to catch the poor’s loose change as it drops into supercasino coffers. So what if National Lottery money is chucked into the bottomless pit of the Olympics? Yes, maybe there was no transparency, the money was shifted, the charities stiffed. But will those scratchcard-addicted chavs whom it belonged to really care? The Blue Peter scandal has not killed innocence, only delusion. Better our children believe Father Christmas doesn’t exist than that he can be reached at the North Pole, call costs may vary, usual terms and conditions apply . .

Good articles but a shame they were in The Times and The Daily Telegraph where they were preaching to the converted instead of in The Sun and The Daily Mirror which most of the ripped off callers read.

And what of the covert 084/7 premium rate numbers not regulated by ICSTIS and for which Ofcom is therefore directly responsible.  What is its excuse for not taking any action over those (eg NEG's doctor surgery line 0844 scam)?

It seems clear that Ofcom us under strict instructions from New Labour not to damage the profitable businesses of its major cronies such as the Murdochs (Sky) or Capita.