ITV's Tonight Programme Seeks Victims of Unfair Pricing

[Tony]

ITV's Tonight Programme is looking to hear from people who have been affected by discriminatory pricing. Have you been affected by any of the following pricing scams?:

INACCURATE PRICE COMPARISON WEBSITES - when you have discovered that you paid over the odds despite a price comparison site telling you it was the cheapest offer. There are also problems with some websites not identifying which offers are sponsored by companies. These often come at the top and are not necessarily the cheapest.

DRIP PRICING - e.g. Travel bookings, concert tickets etc. You think you're paying one price but lots more charges are added on before you check out.

BAITING SALES - customers are attracted by an offer that turns out to be unavailable.

COMPLEX PRICING - 3-for-2 or 2-for-1 offers that can make individual prices difficult to determine and aren't necessarily cheaper.

HIGH-LOW PRICING - eye-catching discounts offered from artificially high original prices.

TARGETED PRICES - when a website reads the information in your cookies and knows what you have bought before. It will tell you about similar products and may even charge you a higher price because they know you're willing to pay.

If you have experienced any of the pricing discriminations listed above, or have another similar story and would like to share it with us, please get in contact with Natasha.Zinni@itv.com or call me on 020 7156 6034. I look forward to hearing from you!

 

[moni00]

Yes, I recently wen ton Uswitch website to check for a better gas and electricity deal. It quoted me loads of suppliers allegedly saving me around 237 pounds. However, after carefully checking and calculating, I realized my current offer was better.

Another scam was by 84459, which is a premium rate charging company. I went on youtube as normal and it asked me to fill in a fast survey on my attitude to advertising interruptions and I could enter a competition for a prize draw, an iphone. I said I hated them. Then the site forwarded me to enter into the FREE competition. I entered my details including my phone number so they can contact me in case I win. I only realized they were trying to charge my phone for 3 pounds for getting me into the competition. I texted STOP and STOP all where I received messages I will no longer receive messages from them, only to keep getting more as it says I am not subscribed to any service.. and they kept trying to debit me for 3 pounds for entering the competition. Luckily my phone was pay as you go and they could not charge me. I finally called T-mobile who said they will contact them to stop this. Have not heard since then but I am very worried over the info I gave them including my name and address.. etc.

I went onlne and realized this was a scam. They have a website operating called 84459.com for games but many people complained they never joined it, yet were regularly charged by their phone companies.