MP SIR George Young is waging war on premium rate phone scams and has vowed to stop rogue companies preying on unsuspecting customers.

Sir George, MP for North West Hampshire, said many of his constituents had been affected by the latest technology scams.

Phone owners are being conned by the schemes, which include text messages asking victims to ring a premium rate line on the pretence that they have won prize money. Callers have to listen to a long pre-recorded message and prizes are often non-existent.

He also plans to try to oust the "rogue diallers" which install themselves on computers and automatically dial up 090 numbers.

Sir George first warned of the effects in a parliamentary debate in June.

But now he has said something needs to be done about the scams which have cost some phone owners hundreds of pounds.

"About 20 constituents originally contacted me to say they had been affected by this," he said.

"But since I had the debate in the House of Commons, the world and his wife have been in touch. It's a major scam."

Since his Commons debate, Sir George has been working with telecommunications watchdog Ofcom and the Independent Committee for the Supervision of Stan-dards of Telephone Information Services (ICSTIS) to prevent premium rate numbers being issued to unscrupulous companies.

He added that Ofcom was also carrying out a review of the regulation of premium rate phone services, which is due to be completed within the next six weeks.

Sir George said the problems often arose because Ofcom issued 090 numbers to intermediary companies, who then leased them out to service providers. In some cases, ICSTIS, the regulatory body, was unable to take action against a rogue service provider because the intermediary company would not release its details.

"These intermediary companies need to be far more careful about who they allocate numbers to. I believe they should be held liable for the rip-off service providers," said Sir George.

He added that he was not in favour of a total ban on premium rate lines, and felt confident about his efforts to rid phone owners of the scourge of phone scams.

"There is no reason why these premium numbers should be given to people who are not reputable, so it should be reasonably straight forward," he said.