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I’m in the Mail on Sunday today:

A telephone ‘helpline’ is charging parents up to £28 for child benefit information that is available from the Government for free.

MPs and consumer groups last night branded the £1.50-a-minute service – run by a 24-year-old businessman – a rip-off and demanded that it be shut down immediately.

Callers who ring the premium-rate line receive nothing more than a recorded message repeating details from official websites and Government leaflets. The tape runs on for nearly 19 minutes…

Parents seeking information are encouraged to ring a non-geographical 0871 number for up-to-date advice on eligibility, application procedures and addresses of benefit offices around the country.

From there, they are directed to an 09-code premium-rate line which regurgitates a mass of information about child benefit, ranging from how much you are allowed to claim if your baby is stillborn to the rules on what action to take when your child leaves school and goes into full-time education.

As the service has no automated menu facility, some callers have to listen to the entire tape to get information relevant to them. Listening to the full tape would land them with a bill of £28.50. Calls from a mobile would be even more…

Labour MP Mark Todd said: ‘The people running these so-called helplines are preying on the unwary and it’s pretty unpleasant. If they offer nothing more than what you can get from official sources, the regulator should close them down. They are nothing more than a rip-off.’

Liberal Democrat MP Lynne Featherstone said: ‘People searching for information about benefits need help, not exorbitant phone charges. Despite the disclaimers, anyone glancing at the website would assume it was official.’

Ceri Stanaway, principal researcher for Which? magazine, said: ‘All the information on this line is available elsewhere, either much more cheaply or for free. It would be in the interests of consumers to have it closed down.’