December 7, 2004 17:52

REFUND OF THE YEAR!

Thousands of mobile phone users hit by a a technical fault which costs them cash....

An embarrassing blunder has forced organisers behind ITV’s RECORD OF THE YEAR competition to refund thousand of pounds to viewers.

The annual contest, broadcast on ITV1 on Saturday (December 4), was won by Busted’s hit ‘Thunderbirds Are Go!’.

But, according to the BBC, a ‘few thousand’ people on the T-Mobile and Virgin networks were hit by technical fault which triggered multiple confirmation messages, charged at 25p a time.

Netsize, who organised the text-voting have promised all affected customers a full refund.

Netsize marketing manager Anuj Khanna said: "We have details of every customer affected and we are looking at ways to make sure everyone is fully refunded. We will be contacting them, possibly by text message, to tell them, how to get a full refund."

A spokesperson for T-Mobile added: "T-Mobile recognise that some T-Mobile customers may have experienced a fault with the voting service on Record Of The Year broadcast on ITV1 last Saturday.

"We have been working with the third party provider, Netsize, in this case, to identify the cause of the problem. Netsize are finalising their investigation but would like to assure all affected customers that they will be entitled to a full refund. It seems there was a technical fault . We apologise to all customers affected."