Premium rate con-tricks

Watching BBC Watchdog tonight, and seeing a piece of scum by the name of Shaun Freeman (sue me if you're stupid enough), it reminds me how angry I am at the never-ending con-tricks performed under guise of 'information' lines or 'competition wins.'

My 89 year old mum regularly receives promotion cards inviting her to scratch off the panels on the front to see if she has won a prize. Of course, she always has and is consequently invited to phone a premium rate line to claim her prize.

The print announcing the cost of this is in so small a typeface as to be virtually illegible and the average cost of doing so is, I estimate, never likely to be less than £7-8. Often it is very much more.

Old people come from a trusting generation that upheld decency and respect. As a result many of them can be tempted to follow the instructions with expensive consequences. I know because it has happened.

To my mind this is a classic case of obtaining money by deception dressed up to appear to stay within the law. Yet how can it possibly be lawful to deceive people into calling costly telephone numbers or to make them rack up the bill by obliging them to stay on the line for no purpose?

The body that is supposed to oversee this scam - PhonepayPlus - is seemingly pretty toothless. Nice warm name, pretty website but not much going on when it comes to it.

Its Chief Executive Director Paul Whiteing said that 'the issue was complicated and that they do make sure that lines like these comply with their code of practice.'

That, frankly, is like saying that the Yorkshire Ripper obeyed the speed limit between victims.

These lines should be much more carefully controlled. At the very least, a simple law should be passed that, for all cases where the cost of a call is more than local rate, any promotion literature or advertisement of any kind should show the cost next to the number in a type-size

NO SMALLER OR LESS BOLD THAN THE LARGEST TEXT ON THE LEAFLET.

Not to do so should be a criminal offence. There, easy wasn't it?