"The breaches were extremely serious as they involved longstanding and systematic failures in the conduct of broadcast competitions"". GMTV pledged to refund a total of £35 million to all viewers affected. A month later, the Serious Fraud Office took the decision to review the evidence from Ofcom into the phone in scandal. An SFO spokeswoman said: ""Following media reports and some complaints received from the general public about GMTV's use of premium rate telephone services, we are in touch with Ofcom although no SFO investigation is under way... Furthermore, the SFO will await the outcome of Ofcom's investigation into ITV's"
"later fined £300,000 by Ofcom - the highest ever amount from the broadcasting watchdog. The BBC was also affected by these scandals. ""Saturday Kitchen"" on BBC One were accused of encouraging viewers to phone in to a pre-recorded programme. On 14 March 2007 the BBC children's programme ""Blue Peter"" was revealed to have used a girl who was visiting the studio to pose as a caller live on the show. The BBC stated that a technical error prevented 14,000 callers from getting a chance to win in the competition. Konnie Huq apologised over the phone-in problem on the March 14"
"programmes were subject to a further investigation by Ofcom which found that between January 2003 and October 2006 ""Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway"" had: Between September and October 2005, ""Ant & Dec's Gameshow Marathon"" had: The pair were ridiculed for their alleged participation in the fraud on the front cover of the satirical magazine ""Private Eye"". On 10 September 2008, Ant & Dec announced that the frauds ""will never happen again"", insisting that a ""high-tech system"" and strict rules will ensure viewers cannot lose out with poorly monitored premium rate phone lines. On 30 September 2008, it was reported"
"OFCOM also announced that it had completed an investigation into seven companies in relation to silent calls. Notifications were issued to four of these, imposing a new limit of 3% abandoned calls. An undertaking (without official notification) was secured from another company for the same performance. The sixth company's actions did not constitute persistent misuse. The final company has stopped accepting contracts to send unsolicited fax communications. On 3 November 2006, Ofcom published a statement indicating that it was taking action against 4 companies. You can see the full notification at codice_1. In 2008, Barclaycard was fined the maximum penalty"
"January 2007. In early 2007, a series of scandals broke out in the UK involving allegations of phone-in segments of television programmes and quiz channels conning viewers. ITV suspended all programmes involving premium rate phone-ins on 5 March 2007, including its quiz channel ITV Play. This was to allow independent auditor Deloitte to conduct a review of programmes carried by ITV including ""Dancing on Ice"", ""The X Factor"" and ""Quizmania"" which all used phone-ins to generate revenue, to ensure they are run fairly. ITV Play was taken off the air during the review, but for a few days it ran"
"whether connected to the studio or not. ITV had promised to make its programmes with higher production values than quiz programmes on other quiz channels, but with little evidence of such. Many of the callers were kept on hold and unable to connect. Restrictions put on the number of attempts to call, 150 per day, mean that in a 24-hour period BT callers could still spend a maximum of £112.50 per day. This changed in February 2007 to 100 calls per day, so the maximum was £75 a day on BT. In January 2007, Ofcom found ITV guilty of breaching"
"making legitimate claims."" The company ultimately settled for $200,000 but admitted no wrongdoing. In 2014, Best Buy settled for $4.55 million in a class action lawsuit filed against them in April 2010 by consumers who claimed Best Buy was making unsolicited phone calls in contravention of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. In the second quarter of 2007, Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal ordered an investigation into the company's use of an in-store website alleged to have misled customers on item sales prices. In December 2007, the ""Los Angeles Times"" reported on the same issue, in which some customers claimed they"
"upon themselves to do this even without the knowledge of the management. This contradicted Panorama's claims that in 2003, sales director Mark Nuttall at Opera had discovered the situation and sent an e-mail to staff, saying: ""Make sure they never find out you are picking the winners early."". Two senior executives resigned: Controller of Enterprises Kate Fleming and Managing Director Paul Corley. On 24 September 2007, Opera was fined £250,000, while GMTV was fined £2 million by Ofcom, who stated: ""the breaches constituted a substantial breakdown in the fundamental relationship of trust between a public service broadcaster and its viewers."
"televised-sex-line show that was one of its major programs, becoming a stand-alone website. In 2004, a pornographic satellite channel called ""Xplicit XXX"" owned by Digital Television Production was fined £50,000 by Ofcom for broadcasting hardcore pornography before the 9:00pm watershed. In February 2005, Playboy TV was fined by Ofcom for broadcasting ""Sandy Babe Abroad"", a hardcore pornographic film. Ofcom said ""it includes material which should not be transmitted at any time under any circumstance on British television"". In 2009, the station was once again fined by Ofcom for breaches of its licence, by broadcasting ""sexually explicit material unencrypted"". In January"
"reporter Nick Owens stating that the cost of hospital television was £9 per day, a higher figure than that paid by prison inmates. Call charges remain at the mobile rate of 49p for incoming calls to the units, however outbound calls to landlines have now been included in the price when television is purchased. In 2010 the company featured on the BBC's consumer affairs programme Watchdog which portrayed the company in ""favourable"" light, neither negative or positive. A major criticism is that cards purchased from Hospedia card machines are non-refundable; the company state that if the patient pays by credit"
"(The station had already made arrangements to repair the damage) Stackhaus later resigned. In December 2004, the Federal Communications Commission proposed fines totaling $220,000 against Entercom Communications for alleged indecency violations during multiple broadcasts in April and May 2002 of the Morning Show on KQRC-FM in Kansas City, Kansas, and KFH-AM in Wichita, Kansas. The FCC claimed that the material included repeated graphic and explicit sexual descriptions that were pandering, titillating or used to shock the audience. As justification for proposing the maximum fine, the Commission noted ""the egregious nature of the violations and Entercom's history of prior indecent broadcasts."""
"airing of the show. On 20 March 2007 it was revealed that 11,500 votes for the ""Dancing on Ice"" final three days earlier on ITV were lost as they were not delivered to Vodafone until the following Monday morning. On 23 April 2007, a BBC ""Panorama"" investigation disclosed that callers to GMTV's phone-in competitions may have been defrauded out of millions of pounds, because the telephone system operator, Opera Interactive Technology, had determined the winners before the phone lines had closed. GMTV responded by suspending the phone-in quizzes, but claimed that ""it was confident it had not breached regulators' codes""."
"lessened competition in the retail television market."" Justice Sackville labelled Seven as ""far from a helpless and innocent victim"", being ""the author of its own misfortune"" and stating ""there is more than a hint of hypocrisy in certain of Seven's contentions."" He was unable to accept Seven's chairman Kerry Stokes as a reliable witness. The judge also commented on the hefty financial cost of the case, remarking that ""in my view, the expenditure of $200 million and counting on a single piece of litigation is not only extraordinarily wasteful, but borders on the scandalous"". The case has continually been labelled"
"release of Ofcom's findings, Press TV claimed that Maziar Bahari was ""an MI6 contact person"" taking guidance from ""The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, protocol No. 7"". Press TV called Ofcom's ruling ""part of an anti-Iranian campaign,"" and that ""A quick look at senior decision makers at OFCOM demonstrates that the regulator is mostly made up of former Channel 4 and BBC executives, some of whom are well-linked to and influenced by powerful pro-Israeli politicians."" The Sitefinder database is a national database of mobile phone base stations in the UK. In September 2007 an Information Tribunal ruled that"
"and Simpson was fined for the speeding infraction. In March 2004, satellite television network DirecTV, Inc. accused Simpson in a Miami federal court of using illegal electronic devices to pirate its broadcast signals. The company later won a $25,000 judgment, and Simpson was ordered to pay an additional $33,678 in attorney's fees and costs. On the night of September 13, 2007, a group of men led by Simpson entered a room at the Palace Station hotel-casino and took sports memorabilia at gunpoint, which resulted in Simpson's being questioned by police. Simpson admitted to taking the items, which he said had"
"any corporation by the FCC at the time – that was issued against Univision in February 2007, following an investigation stemming from complaints filed in 2005 by the United Church of Christ and the National Hispanic Media Coalition during pending license renewal proceedings for two of its owned-and-operated stations (WQHS-TV in Cleveland and KDTV in San Francisco) that uncovered violations of Children's Television Act (CTA) guidelines, which require over-the-air television broadcasters to air a minimum of three hours of compliant educational programming each week, by the network's 24 O&Os. The violations regarded youth-oriented telenovelas from Televisa and Venevision aired by"
"enter the quizzes by phone. ICSTIS also said that it wanted callers to know how much each call would cost them and the odds of winning any prize. ICSTIS raised concern that players were unaware that they would be charged for each call regardless of whether the player got through to the studio or not. On March 9, 2007 in the wake of a number of technical problems and controversies over premium rate phone-ins on television shows and quiz channels, ICSTIS warned television companies that any illegal operating would be investigated by the police. ICSTIS also announced measures to bring"
"to give or even put up this guy for recognition when he has done such a terrible thing. It was unforgivable, really. I'm not angry, I just don't believe it."" Sachs himself said that the nomination was: ""a bit of a surprise"", and that: ""One would question the reasons when it comes so quickly after what happened. I wonder how much it has to do with trying to comfort him. I don't know. That is how it happens. That is showbusiness."" On 21 November 2008, the BBC's watchdog BBC Trust said that the phone calls were a ""deplorable intrusion with"
"573 (D.C. Cir. 2007) affirmed the three-judge panel, but on different grounds; the Supreme Court declined review. The Ethics Committee formally rebuked McDermott in 2006, writing he had ""violated ethics rules by giving reporters access to an illegally taped telephone call involving Republican leaders a decade ago. Rep. McDermott's secretive disclosures to the news media ... risked undermining the ethics process"" and that McDermott's actions ""were not consistent with the spirit of the committee."" Previously, the Martins pleaded guilty to violating the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. In 1997, Gingrich was reprimanded by the House for providing false information to the"
"Rulemaking had been hacked was false. When it emerged in 2006 that AT&T, BellSouth and Verizon may have broken U.S. laws by aiding the National Security Agency in possible illegal wiretapping of its customers, Congressional representatives called for an FCC investigation into whether or not those companies broke the law. The FCC declined to investigate, however, claiming that it could not investigate due to the classified nature of the program– a move that provoked the criticism of members of Congress. ""Today the watchdog agency that oversees the country's telecommunications industry refused to investigate the nation's largest phone companies' reported disclosure"
"the ""dumbing down and commercialisation"", which resulted in him hating his bosses. In April 2007, BBC One's Panorama programme made claims that Opera - a company dealing with GMTV's phone in competitions were finalising shortlists of potential winners ""long before"" lines closed, which resulted in viewers wasting an estimated £10 million a year since April 2003 on entering premium rate phone competitions. Paul Corley, managing director of GMTV, said: ""I'd just like to apologise for everything that's gone on. GMTV had trusted Opera, but, the fact is it appears two or three people at this telecoms company were taking it"
"LG Display €215 million for its part in an LCD price fixing scheme. Other companies were fined for a combined total of €648.9 million, including Chimei Innolux, AU Optronics, Chunghwa Picture Tubes Ltd., and HannStar Display Corp.. LG Display has said it is considering appealing the fine. This followed the 2008 case in the US, when LG Display Co., Chunghwa Picture Tubes and Sharp Corp., agreed to plead guilty and pay $585 million in criminal fines for conspiring to fix prices of liquid crystal display panels. LG Display would pay $400 million, the second-highest criminal fine that the US Justice"
"morning and Saturday early afternoon timeslots for youth-oriented telenovelas. Following an agency investigation resulting from complaints by the United Church of Christ and the National Hispanic Media Coalition during license renewal proceedings for a Univision-owned television station in 2005, in February 2007, the FCC levied a $24 million fine – the largest single FCC fine filed against any corporation to that point – against the network's 24 owned-and-operated stations for circumventing federal guidelines requiring broadcast television stations and networks to air at least three hours of educational programming aimed at children by claiming the novelas (with the Televisa-produced ""Cómplices Al"
"and journalist Yvonne Ridley, Yusuf Estes and Jamal Badawi. In 2007, Ofcom fined Islam Channel £30,000 for breaking the broadcasting code by having Yvonne Ridley present news programmes while standing as a candidate in local elections for the Respect Party during the previous year. Ofcom also condemned the channel for not providing requested recordings. In 2008, Yvonne Ridley was awarded £20,532 in compensation and £5,000 in costs after an employment tribunal upheld her complaint that was unfairly dismissed, was sexually discriminated against and harassed whilst working at the station. Two cases from 2009 were also punished by Ofcom, for not"
"and won his housemates' weekly shopping budget. Lionel Blair, Abi Titmuss and Carol Vorderman also participated in ""You Say We Pay"" whilst they were guests on the programme. On 18 February 2007, ""The Mail on Sunday"" revealed allegations that the quiz was cheating viewers by inviting them to phone in after the winning contestant had already been chosen. The paper stressed that Madeley and Finnigan were unaware of any wrongdoing and the story was sold to the newspaper through a publicist named Jonathan Hartley. On 6 July 2007, the operator of the phone-in quiz was fined a record £150,000 by"
"of sales people standing in shop doorways to lure customers. In November 2008, Ofcom found Phones 4u guilty of misleading customers over network coverage, failing to swiftly provide refunds for faulty handsets and offering unfair terms on chequeback schemes. Phones 4u responded with a series of undertakings to prevent recurrences. The company said 80% of complaints were due to problems in its repair business, rather than sales, which the company was in the process of resolving. After six months of scrutiny, the Ofcom investigation resulted in minor changes to terms and conditions. Phones 4u subsequently changed its repair provider. Turnover"
"especially true of Brian Dowling. When a caller was selected at random a message was played to them over the telephone that said the computer would try to connect the call through to the studio. However, not everyone got through immediately. Calls were not vetted so when the contestants got through they could, and occasionally did, say anything. Some contestants had to wait around 5 minutes (still only charged one flat rate of 75p) to be selected. The 2007 British television phone-in scandal involved allegations against phone-in segments of television programmes and quiz channels conning viewers. On 23 April 2007,"
"surveys. On 22 January 2007, Police Commissioner Trevor Paul claimed that members of the business community contacted him expressing anxiety about the CEO's public call for business to close on the 25th and 26th as a public protest to highlight the spiraling crime situation. Based on four complaints, the contents of which are yet to be made public, the Police Commissioner recommended that the Telecommunications Authority of Trinidad & Tobago (TATT) investigate the alleged conduct of the talk show host. Columbus Communications, the cable company on which IBN TV8 airs, said they have “no choice” but to pull the popular"
"up on the main programme, Hopkins explained that they were ""quite funny"". Michelle Mone, the founder of lingerie company Ultimo and a guest on the panel, verbally attacked Hopkins, calling her ""exceptionally selfish"", said she was not to be trusted, and accused her of giving ""businesswomen a bad name"". Sugar was criticised over his questioning of Hopkins about her childcare arrangements. He was accused of violating the 1975 Sex Discrimination Act. The incident received substantial media comment. Sugar argued his case in an interview with GMTV host Fiona Phillips, stating that he was aware of the rules. In June 2007,"
"procedure checking daily winners would have easily identified the fraudulent activity instantly. Channel 5 later admitted that the channel's senior producer was informed by Cheetah Productions that several winners had been fake. The channel ignored this advice and continued to broadcast the show until the ICSTIS investigation was concluded. During this time, Avon and Somerset Constabulary reviewed the reports from Channel 5 and the ICSTIS to see if there were any allegations or evidence of criminal wrongdoing contrary to the Fraud Act 2006. Once the ICSTIS investigation was completed on 26 June 2007, Ofcom handed out a record-breaking fine of"
"charges (ETCs) which were too high; requiring customers moving house to an area within Virgin’s network to sign up to a new fixed term contract or pay ETCs; and failing to take action to ensure that its conditions and procedures for contract termination did not act as disincentives to its customers against changing provider. Ofcom also found it had reasonable grounds for believing Virgin had contravened another General Condition when it failed to publish on its website clear and up-to-date information about the ETCs payable when fixed term contracts are terminated. In early 2008, it was announced that the ISP"
"the 2007 incident. VH1 had hired Collective Intelligence, a private investigation firm, to perform background checks on Jenkins and the other contestants. Collective Intelligence doesn't perform background checks outside the United States, and outsourced the vetting of Jenkins to a Canadian firm, Straightline International. In 2009, Collective Intelligence sued Straightline for breach of contract. The suit alleged that Straightline had falsely told Collective Intelligence that Jenkins's record was clean, and had also failed to check Jenkins against the RCMP criminal database. Collective Intelligence claimed to have lost valuable business from Viacom (owner of VH1), NBC and ABC as a result"
"said not to have sent acknowledgements, which caused the messages to be resent. A computer problem at the Bouygues platform was blamed. During the night of 31 December 2010 to 1 January 2011, more than 930 million text messages were exchanged in France (for the three operators combined), setting a new record compared with the peaks of the previous years. On 21 March 2007 ""Watchdog"", a television series by the BBC focusing on consumer protection, published the results from a broadband survey they held. According to the survey Orange is the worst ISP in the UK. 68% of Orange customers"