Gold Safe is a game show that is aired on Indian television channels NDTV Imagine and Zee TV. The game show titled “Guess the Celebrity”, awards you cash prize if you guess the celebrity’s name right. The show follows a simple rule. Viewers are asked to identify the celebrity, who’s face is partially shown. If the viewer gives the answer correct, he/she is awarded cash prizes ranging from Rs. 20,000 to one lac.
Gold Safe is a project by Cellcast Interactive India, a part of UK based broadcasting company, Cellcast Group. Cellcast Group was co-founded by Andrew Wilson and Bertrand Folliet who operate mainly Chat and Adult channels on DTT and Satellite TV. Their first operation, a British soft porn TV programme called Babestation, started way back in 2002.
Gold Safe started in India a couple of years back. I was not aware of this show until one of my friends told me about it. After listening to the explanation that my friend gave on how the show works, my first reaction was that it was a fake. Although I knew I was right, I did a check on it. As expected, it turns out to be a fake game show. The game show lured its viewers with false hopes of winning easy money.
The game looks easy to play, but to actually play it, you need to wait and wait for hours. In order to participate in the game, viewers are asked to dial the number 5664464 and answer the question once their call is connected. The call rates, however, are Rs. 12/minute on leading networks like Airtel, Vodafone, Aircel, Idea, Tata Indicom and so on. That’s more than ISD charges.
How do they manage to get people to call?
First of all, it is all about the money. Secondly, they have this 60-second timer that keeps popping up every now and then. If no one answers the question within the time limit, then the value of the question drops down. They also have these constant stupid chatters asking people to pick up the phone and call. Most of the times they are out of words and repeat the same shitty sentence again and again.
The whole problem with this show, is that callers are kept on hold for over 45 minutes, and are never connected. That’s Rs. 540 bucks in just 45 minutes from one caller. Now imagine that for 10 viewers making calls simultaneously.
Now you are wondering; “What about the people who call and frequently give wrong answers?” Well, those are all fake calls. These calls are made by someone internally or one of their crew members. The person who gets the answer right is also fake.
Here’s a picture of a celebrity. Viewers were asked to identify the celebrity and whoever got it right, stood a chance to win Rs. 85,000. Out of 7 callers, 6 people got the answer wrong. People guessed that the celebrity was Katrina Kaif, Shilpa Shetty, Tanushree Dutta and so on.
If I asked a 14-year old to guess who this celebrity was, I’m pretty dammed sure the kid would have answered Kajol – which is the right answer.
The show is aired live from 12.00 Midnight – 02.00 AM, all 7 days of the week. I doubt that it’s even a live telecast. I think it’s a pre-recorded show which claims to be “live”.
There’s also a Facebook page against Gold Safe, created in 2010. It states that -
This page is to counter the fraud on NDTV Imagine’s Gold Safe – where you are left on hold forever paying 10 bucks per minute on the phone. If you see this first – you know you have the right answers. If you watch this channel you are welcome to post
Here’s a clip of the game show posted on YouTube.
I happened to Google this topic and I was not surprised to see the number of complaints against Gold Safe. Viewers reported that the real callers were never connected, but were always put on hold. Here’s one such complaint reported on Indian Consumer Complaint Forum which has got over 130+ comments that are against the game show.
I did not expect such shows from NDTV and Zee TV. I am not sure why this show is still being aired despite the many complaints against it. If you have faced problems with this show, then please fill out this form to complaint against it. If you think that this is not fake, then please let us know your experience by adding a comment below.
A couple of months back, we had reported about Speak Asia being a scam survey site that promised to pay its registered users for answering surveys. Please do not fall for such game shows or survey sites that tempt you to earn big bucks.
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