If you’re wanting to make a ton of cash out of gullible people, setting up a shopping channel is no longer the way to go. Scaryduck takes a look at the newest craze, remarkably scammy quiz channels.
There’s a new one coming to Freeview called Quiz Call that appears to have the involvement of Channel 4. From the promo loop they’ve got there at the moment it looks absolutely horrid, cheap, nasty, whatever. But they are promising nice simple things like word grid puzzle type things.
More like Brainteaser, not the ridiculous “Mr and Mrs Pizza bought fifteen pizzas for their three children and ate sixty pizzas themselves. How many pizzas?” nonsense that you get on Big Game TV (which is currently plaguing the schedules of late night ITV2), where the answer appears to be some random number plucked from thin air.
“Yes, there are definitely 3276 pizzas there. Next question!”
I heard that this is nothing compared with what you get on Quiz TV though. Somehow I can’t quite believe that these channels aren’t illegal yet. Remember Ofcom catching AuctionWorld after goodness-knows-how-long (incidentally, a development that didn’t stop shopping channels from selling dodgy goods, but only made them get rid of ‘guide prices’).
Unfortunately I would be surprised if Quiz Call is the only quiz channel to end up on Freeview. The format is perfect for Freeview, because the 60p per second telephone calls provide the handy revenue that they miss out on by not being on a pay TV package. It used to be shopping channels. There are already four shopping channels on Freeview, and now we’re getting the quiz channels. Oh man!
mary
21 March 2006 20:29
#1
I have played on quizcall for weeks now and could not tell you who was a web entrant or phone caller. The amount of people that play have the name carolyn karen mel and lisa etc does not mean its the same person my names mary but there are dozens of marys playing.
E'FFAFLUMP
21 March 2006 20:32
#2
SO ALL YOU WANT IS THEM TO EXPLAIN? WHY THEN TURN BITTER BY SLAGGING OTHERS? PEOPLE YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW, OR ARE YOU PSYCHIC?
Annie
21 March 2006 22:15
#3
Jane I think you are being very reasonable, you are asking for an explanation for the ban and not getting one – Please peeps can you not understand – Jane is only asking for the reason why she is being called a cheat and I would ask the same if I had received the same letter, especially if I was not a cheat. I dont believe jealousy comes into it – just confusion. If QC are totally in the right for banning people then there should be no problem whatsoever in explaining why.
neil
22 March 2006 00:15
#4
quizcall is a load of cr*p at least zorro used a mask to rob you…and does any one know the john anwser
Bhavni
22 March 2006 02:20
#5
I just wanna say how upset I was, am, and will be for even THINKING about calling Quizmania on itv! I don’t know why i even thought about doing it! What I did manage to do though, was make a huge bill of £246 for making 17 calls ! Even though i will manage to somehow pay it all back, it goes to show how stupid I was! I even made 5 calls downstairs on my BT landline and I didn’t get through!!My mum and dad will check the bill and god knows how much of a soar ear Im gonnna have! I just wish this advice could have been available to me before hand!!!! If anybody reads this- PLEASE KNOW WHAT YOU’RE LETTING YOURSELF IN FOR
john
22 March 2006 07:22
#6
quizmania is fuckin ausome
thevoice
22 March 2006 10:03
#7
Good stuff this. I just went and read through the T&C’s of the main quiz channels.
Quizmania doesnt allow form fillers or speed dial and they also have a limit of 10k winnings.
Quizcall, on the other hand is a bit sketchy and it looks like they can exclude people for whatever reason they can think up.With terms like that, I think I would avoid them like the plague.
doctorvee
22 March 2006 12:06
#8
ADMIN NOTICE
I have received another email from somebody else who says they are being impersonated.
I was asked to close the thread. I won’t do that. Instead, in the interests of transparent and open debate, I will list the ‘names’ of people who have the same IP address and are therefore may actually be the same person (although it may be different people using the same computer, or it could be a coincidence).
gary, lilo, mary / MARY, bloke and kate also gave the same email address. All of the others in that list provided separate email addresses.
The following both had the same IP address.
This directly relates to the email I received yesterday.
Isn’t it strange that all this happened when somebody linked to this post from a message board?
I will be closing the comments to this thread. I will also be editing out some names because there is no way I can tell who is telling the truth and who isn’t, and certain people have shown that they are not trustworthy enough to be allowed to say things about other people who are not here to defend themselves. This is the first time I have ever had to do this. In over three years of blogging and 2000 comments on this site alone I have never had such trouble.
There is clearly some underhand debating going on. People are clearly using this space to try and further their side in some kind of long-running debate. You have come here to try and make others look guilty. Well it did nobody any favours — it certainly didn’t exactly make you look squeaky clean.
You can take your squabbles elsewhere; there seem to be enough private forums for you to go to. It is a shame you had to ruin the thread because there was the possibility for people to post interesting and relevant comments.
As for my final view on quiz channels, there are clearly some dodgy goings-on with all of these channels. The prerogative is to make money and they will probably sometimes use underhand tactics to try and screw viewers out of their money (e.g. Quiz Call and their start–stop–start–stop clock). My problem is that they are actually technically against Ofcom regulations, yet nothing seems to be done about it. These phone-in competitions are supposed to involve an element of skill, though pure luck is all you need for most of these. One of the comments above said that it is just a form of gambling — how true. Indeed, good luck to you if you enter because your chances of making money out of these channels (especially since they set such obscure puzzles) are very slim indeed.
doctorvee » The structure of blogs
1 August 2006 22:23
#9
[...] The only problem is that sometimes the more comments a post gets, the lower the quality of comments becomes. Take, for instance, two of the three most-commented on posts on this blog: Who needs shopping channels? and The death of Robin Cook. [...]