Call for TV channel closure as part of Government's anti-scam campaign

12.00.00am GMT Sat 11th Feb 2006

Young Alliance Chairman Ian James Parsley has called for the Government to be consistent with its campaign alerting people to scams, by closing a satellite television channel.

The North Down Councillor stated: "Party colleagues of mine have rightly raised the serious problem of spiralling debt in Northern Ireland.

"The Government has rightly realized that among the prime reasons for this is the number of scams going on. These are run through magazine inserts, bulk mail, and most obviously email. Offering great rewards for a single phone call or a single postal response, the outcome is very often seizure of credit card details or huge phone bills running into hundreds or even

thousands of pounds.

"However, now we see such scams being run by television channels. Specifically the channel 'The Great Big British Quiz', on Sky Channel 166, is no more than a scam. Although technically the Channel no doubt operates within the law, it dupes people into making expensive calls to a quiz show to answer a mathematical or word puzzle, but uses trickery to ensure that the obvious right answer is deemed incorrect. As such, the same game can

run for weeks with no 'correct' answer being given, while the same people often phone in at huge expense to attempt to give that answer.

"People must be protected from such scams, by legislation if necessary. I have written to the Office of Fair Trading requesting the closure of such channels pending a review of the legislation and, if necessary, the Government should pass laws to prevent such 'quizzes' appearing on air.

"No Liberal politician suggests banning things lightly. But people must have the freedom to know that if they enter a competition, their answer will be judged fairly. Legislation against television channels or any other organization running quizzes using trickery to dupe honest people out of their money would have a very useful effect. As such would make a welcome change from the nonsensical, interfering 'press-release' legislation which is going through Westminster currently."

ENDS