If your messages aren’t sending, you haven’t received a confirmation message after texting us, you received your confirmation after the text lines closed, or you have another question about our Premium Rate Interactive services, please read on…
What are Premium Interactive Services?
Premium Interactive services are those for which you are charged through your mobile phone or through online payment service providers such as Paypal. These services tend to cost more than a normal text message or online competition entry.
How do I know if a number is Premium Rate?
Premium Rate services are accessed by sending a text from your mobile phone to a 5 digit number called a shortcode like Global’s 82200. Not all services running on a shortcode are Premium Rate, for example if you text a comment or song request to one of our studios, this wouldn’t be Premium Rate. Premium Interactive Services can also be accessed online and it should always be clear that payment is involved when you interact with them. Usually the buttons will say something like ‘Pay now’ or ‘Pay using my mobile phone’.
We will always tell you if there is a charge associated with a specific service.
What kind of Premium Rate services do Global provide?
Global provides a number of Premium Interactive Services across our brands, which include but are not limited to:
- Competitions or voting by text or online
- Charity text competitions with a delayed donation
- Charity text donations
What does ‘standard network rate’ mean?
We know and will always tell you how much we’re charging you to text us. What we don’t know is how much your phone service provider is also charging you. That depends on the telephone company and what kind of deal you have with them. That’s why you’ll hear us say that you will be charged your ‘standard network rate’.
Every time you send a text, you pay your phone network a fee for doing so. These vary from network to network and may also vary depending on the number you’re sending a text to (some networks, for example, may charge less to text someone on the same network than they do for texting someone on a different network). This is known as a ‘standard network rate’ and is typically between 10p and 15p.
The cost we tell you about is what you pay in addition to whatever charge your network applies. So, for example, if your competition entry costs £2 and your network also charges you 10p per text, then you’ll actually pay £2.10. This should appear on your bill as two separate texts, one that you’ve sent to us charged at 10p and another that you’ve received back from us charged at £2.
In the case of shortcode and premium rate services, texts sent at standard network rate are not usually included in any bundles you may have as part of your deal with your phone companies and will generally incur a charge, even if you have unlimited texts included in your contract. The charges we tell you about on air are inclusive of VAT, but on some bills, the VAT may be displayed separately.
There are too many networks and too many different pricing packages, changing too frequently for us to keep up with them and read them out on air, or even put them on our website. That’s why we say “standard network rate”, so that you know that your phone company may impose an additional cost on top of what we’ve told you you’ll pay for the text. If you want to know what the network charge will be for your phone, you should contact your phone service provider.
How am I charged for online entries?
When you engage with our Premium Interactive Services online, you can choose to pay by debit card, Apple Pay, Google Pay, Paypal, or you can select ‘pay by mobile’. If you select ‘pay by mobile’, your payment will be charged to your phone bill or pay as you go credit. However, you don’t need to send a text message and there’s no standard network rate charge. We’ll send you a receipt though, so you’ll always know you’ve been charged once the payment has gone through.
Why are my messages not sending?
If messages are not leaving your handset, then they haven’t reached us and won’t be included in the draw to win. This may be because you’ve exceeded a monthly spending cap on your phone bill, you might have a Premium Rate block applied to your phone number, or if you’re on pay-as-you-go, you might have insufficient funds. This isn’t something we’re able to affect, so you’ll need to contact your mobile phone network, and they will be able to advise you further.
My text sent, but I did not receive a confirmation message back
There may be an issue with your network account, or some latency could have delayed your message in reaching us. Contact your mobile phone network in the first instance, and if they’re unable to resolve it then contact us using the details below.
I didn’t receive a confirmation message until after the text lines closed. Have I still been included in the draw?
Sometimes, when we experience a higher-than-normal volume of traffic, it can take longer than usual to process and send out our response messages, so if you receive a confirmation message after the lines closed, that entry was still included in the draw.
My phone bill says I’ve been charged for a subscription service. How can I unsubscribe / cancel?
None of our services are subscription-based, so you’ll only ever be charged when you enter our competitions. If your mobile phone network tells you that we’ve charged you on a subscription basis, then please double-check with them, as the charges are likely to have come from a different organisation. You can also use the number-checker at www.phonecharges.org
Someone else used my phone to enter a competition – what can I do?
If you allow others to have access to your phone or internet-enabled device, including children, you are responsible for its usage, so the charges won’t be refundable. To prevent this happening in the future you can contact your phone network to request a block on premium services. Additionally, if you pay the bill for anyone else, for example a family member, you should consider asking your payment services provider or mobile phone network to apply a block on premium services in this case too.
Do I have to write the text message in capital letters?
You can write the message in lower or upper case, or a mixture of both – it doesn’t make any difference.
How do you select your competition winners?
We use an automated computer system driven by an algorithm that selects winners from all the entries received at random whether they’re received by SMS, online or a mixture of both. Entrants are randomly selected irrespective of any other factors such as whether they’ve entered before or for the first time, geographic location, gender or any other information beyond the mobile numbers from which the entries are sent.
Can I access Premium Rate Services from abroad?
Premium Interactive services, and non-Premium services that require you to text one of our shortcode text numbers, may not work if you are trying to enter from outside of the UK. Unfortunately, if you are on holiday or away on business, you may not be able to interact with us. Even if your device does enable you to interact with us, you will only be eligible to win our Premium competitions if you’re based in Great Britain (i.e. England, Wales or Scotland) at the time you enter. For non-Premium rated competitions, you will need to be in the United Kingdom at the time you enter.
Our Premium Rate Promise
Our aim is to entertain you. We know – because you’ve told us – that you love the competitions we run, and you enjoy listening to and taking part in them. We want to keep it that way. That’s why we’re making these promises:
- Whenever you interact with one of our Premium Interactive Services, we’ll make sure you know how much you’ll be charged for it.
- When we’ve told you how much a text will cost, that’s what it will cost. There are always going to be some small variations in cost depending on who your phone network is and the deal you’ve got with them (we’ve explained more about that above), but you should still be able to look at your bill and identify the text.
- When we stop accepting entries to a Premium Rate service, we’ll tell you not to text any more. If you still try to text, you may get billed for it and there’s nothing we can do about that. You’ll need to listen closer next time!
- We will never sell your personal information to other companies. We may, from time to time send you text messages or email communications with offers or services that may be relevant to you if you have opted in to our Text Club, but these communications will always come from Global, Win+, or one of our brands. You will never be charged for receiving these messages and can opt out of receiving them in future by replying with the word STOP.
- If you’re still not sure, you can find the full terms and conditions that are applicable to all of our competitions displayed on our website.
What if I have a query about your Premium Rate Services?
If you think there is a problem with our Premium Rate services or would like to make a complaint, please call our customer service team at:
Alternatively, you can call us on 0333 200 2000 during office hours. Calls to 03 numbers are charged at the same rate as calls to 01 and 02 numbers and count towards inclusive call allowances on landlines and on mobile phones. Global Media Group Services Limited do not make any profit from calls to this number.
Regulation of Premium Rate
Global Media Group Services Limited, the parent company of Global is registered with the Premium Rate Services regulator, Phone-paid Services Authority. Our registration number is: ORG832-96388-41101.
Global Charities, a registered charity in England & Wales (1091657) & Scotland (SC041475) is registered with Phone-paid Services Authority under registration number: ORG831-51159-55647.
We hope that we’ve explained how premium rate charges work and reassured you that the way we use them is fair and transparent. We also hope that you will continue to enjoy engaging with and participating in our features and competitions. If you have any questions or concerns, we want to hear them. Please feel free to get in touch or for more information about phone-paid services and how to identify any unknown charges on your phone bill, visit www.phonecharges.org