This evening, a Panorama special report will expose one of the biggest ever television phone-in swindles.

The programme on BBC1 tonight will reveal that GMTV have been encouraging it’s viewers to phone in on premium rate phone numbers for competitions which they would have absolutely no hope of winning.

The scam is based around the daily phone-in competitions which ask simple questions revealing 3 possible answers. The answers are usually fairly obvious and the viewers are asked to phone in on premium rate numbers with their response. The scam is realised half way through the phone-in time when the winner is chosen ‘at random’ but the lines are kept open for other viewers to keep clocking up the cash.

Viewers are said to have been cheated out of millions and an estimated £10 million a year has been pocketed by GMTV bosses.

The BBC Panorama programme tonight will reveal that over a 4 year period, viewers were deceived at the rate of over £45,000 a day.