TELEPHONE companies are being urged to play their part in helping to curb a fraud epidemic that is sweeping the country.

Trading standards teams are calling on them to introduce free barring services for premium rate calls to stop the con-artists who are raking in money.

At the same time, they want to see strict regulations and tough penalties for the fraudsters in order to protect consumers.

The number of complaints from people unwittingly dialling expensive and fraudulent premium rate numbers in response to letters, small advertisements, bogus prize competitions and the Internet has at least doubled in the past year.

The Trading Standards Institute is using National Consumer Week to try to stop the frauds.

North Yorkshire County Council's executive member for trading standards, Councillor Carl Les, said: "We estimate that more money is probably being taken from consumers every day in premium-rate scams than through any other scam.

"It is like a sickness that is reaching epidemic proportions, and we are struggling to contain it.

"Consumers can protect themselves from these types of scams by setting up a call-barring facility on their phone. Most phone companies offer the service, but some charge for it, it should be free."

The institute is also lobbying for premium-rate phone numbers, all prefixed 090, to be divided into two categories, with different prefixes so consumers can easily recognise those that are going to be particularly expensive.

The head of North Yorkshire's trading standards team, Graham Venn, said: "If I was giving career advice to a young up-and-coming fraudster, then I would tell him that getting into the premium-rate phone market could be the perfect job.

"Services based on premium-rate charging are worth over £1bn a year, but there is a small, but significant, minority who choose to use it to rip people off and cause great consumer harm.

"Regulation needs to be strengthened and the penalties increased for those who are caught.

"Consumers desperately need extra protection. A recent trading standards survey showed that 24 per cent of scam and fraud complaints to local officers involved premium-rate numbers.

"People regularly ring up to collect on their 'you've won a prize' claim or to respond to a bogus urgent letter or return a voicemail message from an unknown caller. They ring up a phone bill of around £1.50 a minute only to find it's a scam."