Out-Law / Your Daily Need-To-Know

Premium-rate regulator ICSTIS has been deluged with complaints from Big Brother viewers who paid to evict housemates from the Channel 4 reality show by text message only to find them back in the Big Brother house on Tuesday night.

ICSTIS released a statement yesterday saying it has received almost 2,500 complaints from voters who are outraged by Mikey, Nikki, Grace and Lea getting a second chance to win the £100,000 prize. ICSTIS is referring 2,000 of the complaints to Ofcom.

"The majority of the complainants believe that they have been misled as they were under the impression that they had voted to evict the contestants permanently," said ICSTIS in the statement.

ICSTIS said that Channel 4 and production company Endemol are not the service providers in this case. The service providers are Minick and ITouch UK, both based in London. Minick is providing the mobile shortcode text vote option and ITouch UK is providing the 090 numbers for telephone voting.

ICSTIS said it is currently considering all of the complaints received and is "working closely" with Minick, ITouch UK and Channel 4 to discuss a potential resolution and reviewing the situation "on an hourly basis". It reserves the right to conduct a full, formal investigation.

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