Viewers 'lose millions' to GMTV

Well of course, you gotta hope they throw the book at this bunch...

Callers to premium-rate phone competitions on the GMTV breakfast show have been defrauded out of millions of pounds, a BBC investigation has found.

Panorama found that for the past four years, a company working for GMTV had been finalising shortlists of potential winners "long before" lines closed.

GMTV has suspended all phone-in quizzes but said it was confident it had not breached regulators' codes.

The phone operator, Opera Interactive Technology, denied any wrongdoing.

Panorama said tens of thousands of callers had been charged £1.80 to enter competitions on GMTV - but as many as half had no chance of winning.

But what caught my eye was the quote further down.

Samantha Pedder, 37, from Saffron Walden, told Panorama: "I've spent near on £1,000, but you think, 'Well I'm in with a chance'.

"To find out that I wasn't makes me really angry and I want my money back."

Well no, Samantha, I don't think that.

And the link to this article which tells us...

Unemployed Brett Rees, 22, from Rotherham, landed a 126-page phone bill for nearly £9,000 after he repeatedly called TV quiz shows. He says he didn't realise how expensive it would be.

They should have cut me off, they should have cut me off straight away. Instead of letting me run up this phone bill so high they should have cut me straight off.

Incidentally, £9000 at £0.75 a call...that's 12000 calls.


Sigh...it's too depressing to go on...

GMTV phone+quiz+fraud TV