A DISAPPOINTED man ran up a huge phone bill as he tried to get a place on Britain's biggest ever TV quiz show.

John Murphy spent a total of £80 in telephone calls to the special hotline number for the hit show Who Wants To Be A Millionaire.

But the exasperated dad-of-two was not chosen as a cash contender for the quiz, hosted by Chris Tarrant and which has been screened on ITV this week.

And now he has hit out at rules, which he claims to have just seen, stating that potential contestants would be contacted at a "reasonable" time at their home, up to 5.30pm.

John claims he would have been at work if representatives of the show had tried to contact him, so he has wasted £80.

He said: "I don't have a gripe about not getting on the show but now I know the rules it just seems a waste of money to me.

"I'm out nearly 12 hours a day so I would never be in if they phoned.

"When you phoned the hotline you were told to leave your home number but I've only just found out the hours that they try to contact you.

"I didn't leave a works telephone number."

Rules

A spokesman for the quiz show stressed that copies of the rules had been available to viewers on Teletext, a web site and via the post since the first programme was broadcast.

He added: "There are people here until 10pm trying to contact contestants. We have to draw a line at 5.30pm the day before they're due to appear on television."

Now John of Harwood, Bolton, has lost the chance to appear in the latest series, after the telephone hotline closed this week.

And his miss-out may have saved show bosses a small fortune. The BEN set him a test, using 15 random questions from the quiz - and John "pocketed" £250,000!

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