Telephone services in the UK have up until recently worked on the principle of 'the caller pays'. This simply means if I telephone you I pay for the call, you don't have to pay to receive my call. But we have discovered that this principle is no longer always the case.

There are now a range of services being offered in the sms-text message five digit short codes beginning 82*** which allow companies to call you AT PREMIUM RATES after you call them just once.

This can cost up to £1.50 a call when THEY CALL YOU BACK.

This is because, after one call to these numbers, you are deemed to have subscribed to their premium rate service. And they can call you back repeatedly until you unsubscribe.

Bear this in mind when you see an advertisement for a mobile text number beginning 82*** as it can cost a lot of money - and especially if your youngsters innocently call the numbers not knowing what they are getting themselves into.

One particular example: We saw an advertisement on a music channel on Freeview targeted at youngsters. You are told that there is a competition for a DVD recorder (in this example, other competitions include an ipod). You ring the number and they send you another question. You have to answer five questions correctly in all. At 50p a time this costs £5 (as you pay 50p for the text message you send, and 50p for the text question they send you). If you get all five questions right and there is more than one winner per round you go into a play off. We have not been able to find out how many rounds the play-off involves and if you have to pay 50p + the 50p for their call each time... If you simply stop replying, hoping they will go away, they then wait to tell you about the next competition when it is about to start, which costs you 50p for that message and 50p for the first question of the new competition!!!

So, beware - it all looks like it's a bit of fun for 50p, but it can turn into an expensive nightmare as the company continues sending text messages until you unsubscribe from their service... By the way, in this example, if you want to unsubscribe by sms-text message you have to pay another 50p... and also, in this example, it isn't just a case of texting STOP, you had to go to their web site to find out the correct code (if you texted stop you still paid the 50p call charge but you weren't unsubscribed!)

We have not revealed the name of the company involved and the 5 digit 82*** number for legal reasons.

If you have a complaint about any premium rate sms mobile service in the range 82000- 82999, they are regulated by http://www.icstis.org.uk you can complain on the web site.

media inquiries: editor@thevoiceofreason.co.uk