GMTV phone firm fined for quizzes

GMTV employed Opera Telecom to run its competitions

The company that ran competitions for GMTV has been fined a record £250,000 after viewers lost an estimated £20m in phone-in quizzes.

Premium rate regulator Icstis has handed out the largest penalty in its 21-year history to Opera Telecom.

For four years, the company selected potential winners before lines closed.

Some 18 million callers were charged when they had no chance of winning, Icstis said, with the average cost of each call put at more than £1.

The regulator described it as "the worst case which Icstis had come across in terms of the numbers of consumers affected and the amount of money at stake".

Cutting corners for the sake of convenience or to boost revenues is simply unacceptable George Kidd Icstis chief executive

The scandal has already led to the resignations of two GMTV executives and contributed to a crisis of trust in TV in the UK.

GMTV itself is also braced for a separate large fine from media regulator Ofcom over the matter.

Icstis chief executive George Kidd said Opera "showed a reckless disregard for the interests of callers".

"The consumer harm caused was aggravated by the sheer number of callers who paid to enter the competition but had no chance of winning," he said.

It was also heightened by "the huge amount of revenue that was unfairly generated from these callers, the length of time over which the practice had been going on and the extensive damage caused to public trust in phone-in competitions", he added.

GMTV SCANDAL IN NUMBERS £250,000 - fine imposed on Opera Telecom Four - years the problems went on for £1+ - cost of each call with no chance of winning 18 million - callers lost out £20m+ - cost of wasted calls Source: Icstis

"Today's adjudication sends a clear message to any company offering phone-paid services - your absolute responsibility is to the public who use your services.

"Cutting corners for the sake of convenience or to boost revenues is simply unacceptable and has serious consequences."

Opera must implement suggestions from an independent team investigating its "systemic failures" - or face a 12-month ban from running competitions.

It must also refund callers in full if Icstis is not satisfied by the current refund scheme.

Opera and GMTV are already offering refunds and free prize draws to viewers who lost out.

Opera Telecom continues to apologise unreservedly for the occurrence of these errors and has worked diligently with GMTV to put in place remedies Opera statement

The problems began in January 2003 and lasted until March 2007, when they were uncovered by the BBC's Panorama programme.

Opera said it "fully accepted" the Icstis adjudication and continued to "apologise unreservedly for the occurrence of these errors".

The company "has worked diligently with GMTV to put in place remedies following its own and GMTV's investigations", a statement said.

"Opera Telecom has been through a full and thorough disclosure to Icstis of all systems and records regarding the GMTV competitions," it said. "Icstis has been made fully aware of the remedies, new processes and procedures now in place."

Revelations

GMTV has admitted "serious operational errors in the running of its competitions" and terminated its contract with Opera.

This year has seen a succession of revelations about competitions on TV shows.

These have included Richard and Judy on Channel 4, where viewers were urged to call the You Say, We Pay quiz when lines had shut.

Icstis imposed a £150,000 fine on Eckoh, the company that operated that service.