16427A husband and wife who ran a competition phone line from their Westbury home have agreed to stop sending out misleading mailings.

Mathew and Charlotte Bright were investigated by the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) following a number of consumer complaints about their company Purple Rock Solutions.

From its Dartmoor Road base, PRS blitzed 2.1m people with letters claiming they had won one of nine prizes including a BMW Mini, a flat screen TV and a digital camera.

But the majority of the 137,000 'winners' who contacted PRS' premium rate phone line ended up paying more than £20 to claim a cheap mini camera.

OFT chairman Sir John Vickers said: "This scheme was highly misleading. People were led to believe they had won a top prize when in fact they were being induced to pay for a low value product.

"The OFT will not hesitate to take action to stop this type of misleading scheme."

The Brights have accepted the OFT's findings and their activities stopped after the industry regulator ICSTIS fined them £10,000.

ICSTIS also barred the company from access to phone numbers used in the promotion for 12 months while the OFT stepped in to deal with PRS' future conduct.

A statement from the OFT said: "To claim their 'prize' the 'winners' were referred to a 24-hour claim line.

"Only the small print of the letter explained the cost of the telephone call (£1.50/min with calls lasting up to six minutes) and the handling and delivery charge of £14.95, which consumers would have to pay for most prizes.

"People complained that they did not receive the camera pictured on the mailing, which was of a much higher specification than the mini digital camera sent out by PRS."

The Brights agreed, among other things, they will not publish materials that:

Give the impression people have won a prize after entering a promotion, which they have not actually taken part in.

Imply people are competition winners when the majority of participants qualify to receive an item.

Suggest each item listed in the promotion is a major prize and they are all of equal status, when that is not the case.

Claim a particular item is of a higher quality than is the case.

The Brights were unavailable for comment at the time of going to press.

A resident in Dartmoor Road said the couple had moved away from the street on the Leigh Park estate.