 The premium rate numbers charged �1.50 per minute |
Fifteen operators of automated phone services offering bogus prizes have been fined a total of �1.3m by the premium rate telephone regulator. The services dial domestic phone numbers to promise householders a prize if they call a premium rate telephone number for details of their win.
The premium rate telephone numbers charged �1.50 per minute, and the prizes often did not exist.
Icstis, the regulator, said automated calling devices defied an EU directive.
Maximum fine
The Independent Committee for the Supervision of Standards of Telephone Information Services (Icstis) has closed down all fifteen services.
In some cases, it also froze the income generated by them.
"These services are simply unacceptable. They are intrusive, misleading and almost certainly illegal," said Icstis director George Kidd.
"We have acted fast to stop the harm but the problem has not gone away. Over Easter we again saw a spate of this junk marketing."
Of the fifteen firms fined, the majority received the maximum penalty of �100,000 that Icstis is permitted to impose.
The use of automated phone services - where the voice on the other end of the phone is generated by computer rather than human - is forbidden under the EU's Privacy and Electronic Communications Directive 2003.
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These services are simply unacceptable. They are intrusive, misleading and almost certainly illegal
