Strictly Come Dancing’s major ‘fix’ as Joe Sugg fans reveal voting loophole

Strictly Come Dancing has been hit with claims of its worst ‘fix’ yet, after Joe Sugg fans revealed how they can vote him to the top spot – despite not even living in the UK.

The BBC’s strict terms and conditions means only viewers in the UK (including the Channel Islands and Isle of Man) are eligible to vote for the Strictly couples, whether from a landline, their mobile or through the BBC’s own site.

But an Instagram account run by die-hard Joe fans has revealed how they can get around the rules with a loophole.

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The account, which has close to 3,000 followers, encourages fans outside the UK to ‘trick’ the BBC website into thinking they are based in the UK so they can vote for Joe and his partner Dianne Buswell at Saturday night’s series finale.

In a four-step instruction picture, the account advised: "How to vote if you’re not in the UK."

If this works anyone living outside of the UK would be able to vote for Joe – or any of the other finalists – during the very last show, as long as they have already registered as a BBC user.

The account encouraged other followers to share the four-step plan, then screengrabbed a number of accounts that had done so. One had thanked the original account, writing: "if u don’t live in the uk u can still vote for joe all u have to do it the following."

The BBC’s own T&Cs state: "The BBC reserves the right to disqualify votes if it has reasonable grounds to suspect that fraudulent voting has occurred or if it considers there has been any deliberate attempt to manipulate the result."

It goes on: "The BBC can only guarantee that votes individually entered directly through the telephone numbers promoted on the show and those registered through the site http://www.bbc.co.uk/strictly will count."

There is an "independent verification service" that verifies voting for each show, but it’s not clear whether this service will have the ability or time to distinguish between valid UK-based votes and those from outside the country on the big night.

The loophole trick raises concerns about how far Joe has come in the competition so far, and whether votes for his performance can be properly counted given that he – unlike fellow finalists Faye Tozer, Ashley Roberts and Stacey Dooley – has a global fanbase thanks to his YouTube channel.

Joe’s original ThatcherJoe channel boasts 8.2million subscribers, with a further 5.49million and 5.7million fans following him on Twitter and Instagram respectively.

One disappointed Strictly viewer told Mirror Online: "I find this loophole very unfair as Joe has millions of fans and voting is for the UK only.

"A lot of people spend money by voting and if Joe was to win it should be fairly, not unfairly."

The Strictly rules state: "Votes are only open to individuals as consumers from the UK, and not to any agencies, businesses and/or companies."

Voting through the website is free, although landline calls to the 11-digit number given on-screen during the show cost 15p – mobile calls are higher to the same number, although votes can be placed by mobile to the 7-digit number for less.

The Strictly Leaderboard ahead of the final has Ashley and Pasha joint-top with Faye and Giovanni with 76 points each.

They’re followed by Stacey and Kevin with 75 points.

Joe and Dianne are bottom of the Leaderboard with with 59 points.

Mirror Online has approached the BBC for comment.

*The Strictly Come Dancing final airs Saturday December 13 at 6.30pm on BBC1

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