Premium Rate Interactive Services on Gold

Everything you need to know about the premium rate interactive services we run as part of competitions and services on Gold.

If your messages aren’t sending, you haven’t received a confirmation message after texting us, you received your confirmation after the text lines closed, or you have any other question about our paid-for Premium Interactive Services, please read on, but let’s start with how we might notify you if you’ve won a prize.

I’ve received a message from you (or one of your presenters) on social media saying I won a prize. Is it a scam? 

If you’ve won a prize with us, we will almost always talk to you by phone first – and will advise you of the process to redeem your prize. 

We will never contact you about a competition prize via social media or WhatsApp

We will also never ask you for your credit or debit card details to redeem a prize. Our prize fulfilment process is outlined here (see clause 4.3) and we will only ever ask you to complete your details on our secure link at global.com. 

If you receive a message on social media instructing you to click a link to redeem a prize then do not click the link, even if the link has been posted on one of Gold’s social media accounts. 

If you’re in any doubt at all, you can check if your prize is genuine by contacting our Customer Support team.

Please, always report anything suspicious to the relevant social media platform (Facebook, X, Instagram etc.), through their reporting processes. 

What are Premium Interactive Services?

Premium Interactive services are those for which you are charged through your mobile phone or through online payment service providers such as Paypal. These services tend to cost more than a normal text message or online competition entry.

How do I know if an Interactive Service is Premium?

Premium Interactive Services are accessed by sending a text from your mobile phone to a five-digit number called a shortcode, like Gold’s on 65588. Not all services running on a shortcode are Premium Rate, for example if you text our studio this wouldn’t be Premium Rate. Premium Interactive Services can also be accessed online and it should always be clear that payment is involved when you interact with them. Usually the buttons will say something like ‘Pay now’ or ‘Pay using my mobile phone’.

We will always tell you if there is a charge associated with a specific service.

What kind of Premium Interactive Services does Global provide?

Global provides a number of Premium Interactive Services across our brands, which include but are not limited to:

Competitions or voting by text or online

Charity text competitions with a delayed donation

Charity text donations

Are all of your Online competitions Premium Services?

We run a variety of competitions and promotions online – some are Premium Services where you have to pay to enter, and some are free to enter. If a competition requires payment to enter, we will make this clear at the point of entry.

What does ‘standard network rate’ mean?

We know and will always tell you how much we’re charging you to interact with us. What we don’t know is how much your payment service provider (or mobile network) is also charging you. That depends on the payment service provider and what kind of deal you have with them. That’s why you’ll hear us say that you will be charged your ‘standard network rate’ or that ‘standard rates apply’.

If you’re texting us, then every time you send a text, you pay your phone network a fee for doing so. These vary from network to network and may also vary depending on the number you’re sending a text to (some networks, for example, may charge less to text someone on the same network than they do for texting someone on a different network). This is known as a ‘standard network rate’ and is typically between 10p and 20p.

The cost we tell you about is what you pay in addition to whatever charge your network applies. So, for example, if your competition entry costs £2 and your network also charges you 10p per text, then you’ll actually pay £2.10. This should appear on your bill as two separate charges - one that you’ve sent to us, charged at 10p, and another that you’ve received back from us, charged at £2.

In the case of mobile shortcode and Premium Interactive Services, texts sent at standard network rate are not usually included in any bundles you may have as part of your deal with your phone companies and will generally incur a charge, even if you have unlimited texts included in your contract. The charges we tell you about on air are inclusive of VAT, but on some bills, the VAT may be displayed separately.

There are too many payment service providers, mobile phone networks, and too many different pricing packages, changing too frequently for us to keep up with them and read them out on air, or even put them on our website. That’s why we say “standard network rate”, so that you know that your phone company may impose an additional cost on top of what we’ve told you you’ll pay for interacting with us. If you want to know what your standard network rate is, you should contact your payment services provider or mobile phone network.

How am I charged for online entries?

When you engage with our Premium Interactive Services online, you can either choose to pay by Paypal, debit card, Apple Pay, Google Pay, or you can select ‘pay by mobile’. If you select ‘pay by mobile’, your payment will be charged to your phone bill or pay as you go credit. However, you don’t need to send a text message and there’s no standard network rate charge. We’ll send you a receipt though, so you’ll always know you’ve been charged once the payment has gone through.

Why are my text messages not sending?

If text messages are not leaving your handset, then they haven’t reached us and won’t be included in the draw to win. This may be because you’ve exceeded a monthly spending cap on your phone bill, you might have a Premium Rate block applied to your phone number, or if you’re on pay-as-you-go, you might have insufficient funds. This isn’t something we’re able to affect, so you’ll need to contact your mobile phone network, and they will be able to advise you further

I’ve tried to enter an online competition paying by mobile, but it won’t work

When you enter one of our competitions online, you can pay using Paypal or through your mobile. Mobile billing is currently only supported by the major mobile networks: O2, Vodafone, EE & Three. If you’re on another network you can try the other payment methods instead.

My text sent, but I did not receive a confirmation message back 

There may be an issue with your network account, or some latency could have delayed your message in reaching us. Contact your mobile phone network in the first instance, and if they’re unable to resolve it then contact us using the details below.

I didn’t receive a confirmation message until after the text lines closed. Have I still been included in the draw?

Sometimes, when we experience a higher-than-normal volume of traffic, it can take longer than usual to process and send out our response messages, so if you receive a confirmation message after the lines closed, that entry was still included in the draw.

My phone bill says I’ve been charged for a subscription service. How can I unsubscribe / cancel?

Global does not run any subscription services, so you’ll only ever be charged when you interact with our services. If your payment services provider tells you that we’ve charged you on a subscription basis, then please double-check with them, as the charges are likely to have come from a different organisation. You can also use the number-checker at www.psauthority.org.uk/for-consumers/service-checker

If I text the word STOP will that stop me from incurring any future charges?

Texting STOP will stop you from receiving marketing messages if you’re opted in to receive these. However, this will not stop you from being able to use your phone to enter our competitions, and if you do so you’ll continue to be charged.

Someone else used my phone or account details to enter a competition – what can I do?

If you allow others to have access to your phone or internet-enabled device, including children, you are responsible for its usage, so the charges won’t be refundable. To prevent this happening in the first place, you can contact your payment services provider or mobile phone network to request a block on premium services. Additionally, if you pay the bill for anyone else, for example a family member, you should consider asking your payment services provider or mobile phone network to apply a block on premium services in this case too.

For text entries, do I have to write the message in capital letters?

You can write the message in lower or upper case, or a mixture of both – it doesn’t make any difference.

How do you select your competition winners?

We use an automated computer system driven by an algorithm that selects winners from all the entries received at random whether they’re received by SMS, online, free routes of entry or a mixture of these. Entrants are randomly selected irrespective of any other factors such as whether they’ve entered before or for the first time, geographic location, gender or any other information beyond the mobile numbers from which the entries are sent.

Can I access Premium Interactive Services from abroad?

Premium Interactive services, and non-Premium services that require you to text one of our shortcode text numbers, may not work if you are trying to enter from outside of the UK. Unfortunately, if you are on holiday or away on business, you may not be able to interact with us. Even if your device does enable you to interact with us, each competition comes with its own geographic restrictions so please read the competition’s specific rules before entering.

Can I interact from anywhere in the UK?

For most of our Premium Rate competitions, you can enter if you’re a resident of Great Britain (England, Scotland or Wales). Some of our Premium Rate competitions are also open to residents of Northern Ireland but please check the competition’s specific rules before you enter.

If you live in The Isle of Man or the Channel Islands, then we’re really sorry but you shouldn’t enter any of our competitions as you won’t be eligible to win, due to different competition regulations in those places.

How many times can I enter?

Each of our services come with their own entry limit. Please have a look at the specific rules for each promotion to find out what it is. Our promotions are designed for entertainment purposes and we strongly advise against entering excessively. If you want to set a limit on how much you spend on Premium Interactive Services each month, consider asking your payment services provider or mobile phone network to apply a monthly cap.

Can I exclude myself from Global’s Premium Rate Services?

If you feel that you no longer want to interact with our Premium Rate services by SMS, you can ask us to exclude your phone number by requesting we block it. Please contact our Customer Support Team here if you wish to do so.

Our Premium Service Promise

Our aim is to entertain you. We know – because you’ve told us – that you love the competitions and promotions we run, and you enjoy listening to and taking part in them. We want to keep it that way. That’s why we’re making these promises:

• Whenever you interact with one of our Premium Interactive Services, we’ll make sure you know how much you’ll be charged for it.
• When we’ve told you how much it will cost to engage with us, that’s what it will cost. There are always going to be some small variations in cost depending on who your payment services provider is and the deal you’ve got with them (we’ve explained more about that above), but you should still be able to look at your bill and identify the charge.
• When we stop accepting entries to a Premium Interactive Service, we’ll tell you not to engage anymore. If you still try to engage with the service, you may get billed for it and there’s nothing we can do about that. You’ll need to listen closer next time!
• We will never sell your personal information to other companies. We may, from time to time send you mobile messages or email communications with offers or services that may be relevant to you if you have opted in to our Text Club, but these communications will always come from Gold. You will never be charged for receiving these messages and can opt out of receiving them in future by following the instructions on the message, or for text messages, replying with the word STOP.
• If you’re still not sure, you can find the full terms and conditions that are applicable to all of our competitions displayed on our website.

Regulation of Premium Interactive Services

Global Media Group Services Limited, the parent company of Gold, is registered with the Premium Interactive Services regulator, the Phone-paid Services Authority. Our registration number is: ORG832-96388-41101.

Global Charities, a registered charity in England & Wales (1091657) & Scotland (SC041475) is registered with Phone-paid Services Authority under registration number: ORG831-51159-55647.

What if I have a query about your Premium Interactive Services?

If you think there is a problem with our Premium Interactive Services or would like to make a complaint, please contact our Customer Support team at:

customer.support@global.com

Alternatively, you can call us on 0333 200 2000 during office hours. Calls to 03 numbers are charged at the same rate as calls to 01 and 02 numbers and count towards inclusive call allowances on landlines and on mobile phones. Global Media Group Services Limited do not make any profit from calls to this number.

We hope that we’ve explained how premium charges work and reassured you that the way we use them is fair and transparent. We also hope that you will continue to enjoy listening to and participating in our features and competitions. If you have any questions or concerns, we want to hear them. Please feel free to get in touch or for more information about phone-paid services and how to identify any unknown charges on your phone bill, including a glossary of terms, visit www.phonecharges.org

Gold's SMS Marketing Text Club

1.    To join Gold's SMS Marketing Text Club, you must opt in to SMS marketing when you enter a promotion via our online competitions platform Win+.

2.    By opting in, you are agreeing to receiving SMS marketing from Global, and any of its subsidiaries. We will only ever send you alerts and offers that are relevant and that we feel that you will benefit from and be interested in.

3.    We will send our alerts with information around some of our pay-to-enter competitions. These are for your information only and there is no obligation to enter. We will always make clear the cost of entry for every competition.

4.    We may, from time to time, send you text messages informing you about products, events, services and promotions that our third-party partners are offering. These messages will only ever come from Global or one of Global’s subsidiaries. We will never sell your personal information to third parties.

5.    You will never be charged for receiving SMS marketing messages and can opt out of receiving them at any time by texting the word STOP to 65588. This will be charged at your standard network rate.

6.    Global reserves the right to remove you from any SMS marketing if you have not interacted with Heart’s shortcode text numbers for a period of time deemed appropriate by Global.

7.    We are registered with the Phone-paid Services Authority (“PSA”): registration number ORG832-96388-41101. For all enquiries in connection with our SMS Marketing contact our customer support team at https://global.com/contact/.

Data Protection:

8.    Your personal data will be collected and processed by us, our licensees (including Communicorp UK Limited) , and if applicable, our service providers, network operators and suppliers in order to administer the SMS Marketing Text Club. Your personal data may also be disclosed to the Phone-paid Services Authority, Ofcom and/or the Advertising Standards Authority at their reasonable request for regulatory purposes, for example, in order to prevent, investigate and detect crime, fraud or anti-social behaviour and comply with law enforcement agencies and applicable advertising codes.

9. When you enter a Promotion we will retain your personal data for up to three years for internal purposes and to comply with our regulatory obligations. You may request the erasure of your personal data by emailing privacy@global.com. If your data is erased prior to the conclusion of a Promotion, you will forfeit your right to enter the Promotion and/or claim any prize and we reserve the right to select another entrant to participate in the Promotion or withdraw the prize and select another winner, as applicable.

10. We may hold your personal data for a period of 2 years in order to comply with our regulatory obligations.

11. By opting in to the SMS Marketing Text Club, you acknowledge that any personal data provided by you in connection with the Promotion will be processed as set out above and in accordance with our Privacy Policy which sets out full details of how we process personal data and how you can exercise your rights as a data subject. Please ensure you have read and understood our Privacy Policy before entering a Promotion.