Not just fun and games

Video shows the new innovative educational programme that teaches secondary school students that mobiles can cost them money

More than 14,000 complaints were made about premium rate telecoms services last year, including mobile downloads, TV voting and competition entries, new statistics show. However, this represents a 60% reduction in year-on-year complaints.

Welcoming this decrease, PhonepayPlus, the phone-paid services regulator, has launched PhoneBrain 2010 – a much bigger version of the innovative schools campaign that saw 650 secondary schools taking part last year.

PhoneBrain aims to further reduce complaints by helping teens understand how to recognise phone-paid services and the costs involved, making it clear that fun with their mobiles can cost money.

More than a third of 11- 17 year olds (37%) have used music or video content on their phone in the past six months. However, only a third knew how much they would be charged to download a ringtone, game or other phone-paid service, according to new research from PhonepayPlus. This could lead to young people paying more than they expected, or entering subscription services when they think they are making one-off payments.

In the following video, Simon Bates from PhonepayPlus explains how PhoneBrain is raising awareness of the risks of premium rate services amongst teens, whilst developing their computing and business skills in an engaging way.  We also hear from teens and their tutor at the Waltham Forest City Learning Centre where PhoneBrain 2010 was launched this week.

View the video here

For more information visit www.phonebrain.org.uk