Britain's bill for premium rate phone calls rises to £1.6bn a year - highest in the world

If you are wondering who to vote out next in Big Brother or which showjumper gets to stay on in Only Fools on Horses, you may want to reconsider.

It emerged yesterday that the British spent £1.6bn dialling premium rate phone numbers last year, equivalent to £35 for every adult in the UK, according to figures published by the industry regulator.

Premium rate phone and text numbers, which usually begin with 090 and typically cost up to £1.50 a minute, have become a big moneyspinner. The biggest earners are computer companies, which charge premium rates for helplines. But reality television companies appealing for audience votes have also profited.

Call-TV first became popular with Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? with aspiring contestants typically paying £1.20 just to register. Later came Pop Idol, where the final received 8.7m calls at premium rates. The first series made £2.5m from phone voting alone.

Icstis, the government-appointed body that regulates the premium rate industry, said yesterday that including the cost of calling chatlines and computer helplines and downloading ringtones, the business turned over almost as much as Ryanair and easyJet combined.

It also revealed that Britain has the biggest premium rate call market in the world, spending twice as much as the total in the US.

Premium rate calls are controversial because they cost 20 times as much as a standard phone call or mobile phone text. By law the supplier has to set out how much the call will cost users before they dial. The calls usually cost between 50p and £1.50 a minute. But the numbers are frequently used by unscrupulous traders - often based abroad - to con users. The first the victims know of the con is when they see large amounts on their bills.

Some countries have banned some or all premium rate numbers.

In its annual activity report, published yesterday, Icstis said it received nearly 19,600 complaints last year. Ringtones, horoscope updates, football goal alerts and other mobile phone subscription services were the worst offenders at more than 6,700 complaints.

Complaints about premium rate services were 75% lower than in the previous year because of a crackdown on rogue internet diallers. Last year the regulator was bombarded with complaints after crooks sent viruses to computers that ordered the computer - unknown to the user - to dial premium rate numbers.

George Kidd, the director of Icstis, said yesterday: "This is probably the tip of the iceberg. Lots of consumers conned out of a few pounds probably put the experience down to bad luck. Increasingly we are working to stop frauds as soon as we come across them, and this year we have been much more successful in stopping the money from leaving these shores."

In the past year Icstis issued fines of £4.5m, although almost £2m was not paid after two companies failed. In September, it will get powers to force intermediary suppliers to check content providers better or face big fines themselves.