Morning all.
Had a nasty shock on my contract this month from Vodafone.
I have sent quite a few messages to radio stations using their short code numbers in the last month, the numbers are described as "standard rate" & I, having a contract that has free texts to standard numbers, assumed that these would be free.
Apparently not. Any short code text number is, by Vodafone, classed as a premium rate number. They state to me that "Standard rate" & "standard Numbers" are not the same thing. I have now been stung for over £15 for sending messages that I thought would be in my allowance. To say I am pi**ed off is an understatement.

So for everyone out there sending messages to any TV/radio show on a short code number, you will be charged for the message.

Well yes, that's exactly why broadcasters encourage you to do it, they are 'cash cows'

Worth checking what a specific network's price plan says.

I have always understood that "premium rate" text messages are a cash cow, and very rarely use them except charity texting.
What gets me is the deceitful way that the TV/Radio shows have been allowed to call the numbers "standard rate", which the vast majority of people would assume to be the same as the "standard messages" they get free on their contracts.
If they charge to receive a text it should be called a "premium rate" on their T&C's and described as such when they talk about it on air.

The commercial TV and radio companies use texting as a revenue stream, for some programmes it generates more than the ad breaks during the show.

For the BBC it's a little different, any revenue generated normally goes to a charity.

The networks probably charge to be clogged up with a surge of a million or so SMS messages, and it doesn't take rocket science to determine where that cost gets recovered from.

Moral of the story, don't send broadcasters texts