Episode 8 Doorstep Crime 999

Here's a problem that gets right under your skin!

From the day they turned up on the doorstep,

all they wanted was to make money.

Sadly, this is a crime, which is just getting worse and worse!

The lengths this type of criminal go to is quite staggering.

Unfortunately, it tends to be the most vulnerable people who take the brunt of it all.

He'd taken the most precious things that I still had from my husband.

Anything from rogue trade rip-off merchants to con artists who strike at your front door

and we're united against them.

I think doorstep crime is a very serious crime.

It's taking advantage of vulnerable people in their homes.

It needs to be stopped abruptly, here and now.

We really want to put a stop to doorstep crime

and name and shame the culprits!

We've been filming all over the UK

with award-winning police and Trading Standards teams

and we've been hearing from you,

face to face and by letters and e-mails,

helping us in our campaign to shut out these cold calling con merchants.

On today's programme, find out how a pair of heartless con men

got their just desserts after scamming vulnerable consumers

with their overpriced mobility scooters.

I asked him why he'd sold my father a scooter at the price that he had

and his response was, "Because I can," and he put the phone down.

Plus, I meet a lovely lady

whose good nature almost led to a roofing rip off!

How can you feel sorry for people who were scamming you?

I don't know, I don't know. Just a weak moment, I suppose.

And we're on the case with North Yorkshire Trading Standards

as they throw the book at a drain company.

What we have here is CCTV footage inside Mr and Mrs Morris's drain.

This trader had told the Morris's that he had removed all root growth from this drain

when that's actually clearly not the case.

Hello and a here's thanks for all your e-mails

that I'm glad to say are still flooding in!

Now, both Brian Worsley in Swansea and Rachel Sharp in Melton Mowbray

have written to say that things would be so much easier

if there was a law to stop cold callers

and I have to say that is a very popular view.

But we shouldn't forget that law enforcement agencies

are doing their very best to stop this type of activity.

For instance, North Yorkshire Trading Standards,

who are determined to pull the plug on a very dodgy trade.

It's November 2011 and Ruth Andrews, the local Trading Standards officer,

is at court for the trial of Julian Donoher -

a businessman who claimed to run a reputable drain clearance firm.

In fact, he was a con man

who thought nothing of defrauding dozens of unsuspecting people

out of many thousands of pounds.

So, we're at Teesside Crown Court today

to see whether Julian Matthew Donoher is going to plead guilty

to multiple offences we've charged him with

for ripping off many people in relation to drainage work

and made them miserable.

It was the beautiful and affluent spa town of Harrogate, in North Yorkshire,

which became a target for one of Donoher's most audacious scams.

He advertised his services all across the UK

and one of his victims was former teacher Jane Morris,

a clued up lady who found herself taken in by this dodgy trader.

'Every year we have to clear the drains'

because the leaves can congest by the cellar door and can back up

so we have a flooded cellar if we're not careful.

But in the winter of 2010 the drain suffered one blockage after another.

Having backed up from here,

you get a complete flood all the way round here

and it goes through the door. After I'd cleared it up one day,

the next time I came down there was just no way that I was going to do it again

and that's when we decided that we had to get some help.

But Jane was about to embark upon a very expensive journey.

Enter a dodgy drains firm, run by the aforementioned Julian Donoher.

He was more than happy to rip people off.

They worked quite quickly and very fast

but they seemed to be efficient and charming

and I paid the cheque for £330, which they requested.

Now, clearing a drain should only cost around £65

but Jane had been charged almost five times that.

With hindsight I now know it's far too much for the job

but I didn't know then.

As we all know, hindsight is a wonderful thing.

Later we'll find out about more of the con tricks that Donoher's company played on Jane,

and we'll discover what his punishment will be

when the court reaches its decision.

I have to say I just LOVE this technology!

Hello, my name's Vivienne Spence, I want to tell you what happened to me.

Two young men came to the door,

very presentable, dressed well and...

they scammed me.

They gave false references and they really had me over like a kipper.

Thanks for all of that, Vivienne,

we'll come back to you a bit later on in the programme

but first, a story from Nottinghamshire

which shows the depths some doorstep con men will sink to,

just to extort money from vulnerable consumers.

Like lots of other UK towns, the residents of Nottingham

have had to contend with their fair share of doorstep crime.

In this case a cruel father and son team

who've managed to swindle dozens of people to the tune of,

wait for it, £31,000.

People like that just, they just absolutely astound me.

They didn't care who they victimised,

it was all about generating income for them.

One person who's been seriously affected by these doorstep con men

is Jacqueline O'Brien.

In January 2009 her 86-year-old dad Charles

was visited by a company called Nottingham Mobility -

not to be confused with reputable companies of the same name -

they were offering to sell him a new disability scooter.

We first came into contact with Nottingham Mobility

when my father needed one of his scooters,

that he already had, servicing.

He has quite chronic arthritis, he gets confused,

he's unsteady on his feet, hence needing a mobility scooter,

but just trusting.

Unfortunately, Jacqueline's dad proved the perfect quarry

for these particular rogue traders.

Paul Gretton leads the East Midlands Scambusters,

a team of Trading Standards officers who track rogue traders right across county borders

and who know, only too well, the type of scam

Nottingham Mobility was involved in.

Typically they would cold call victims by telephone,

visit them in their homes and sell them a variety of mobility aids.

Anything from a walking stick to a stair lift.

They had no qualifications or any specialist knowledge,

so they would sell whatever they wanted to buy from them whether it was appropriate or not.

It wasn't long before Nottingham Mobility set their sights on Jacqueline's dad.

He'd been cold called by Laurence Johnson,

who enticed him into paying £3,210 for a new scooter.

When Jacqueline spoke to her dad a couple of days later

it became clear that something was up.

I asked my father how much he'd written a cheque for

and he had said he couldn't remember.

And then I looked at the cheque stub, in my dad's cheque book,

and realised it actually wasn't his writing that was on the cheque stub.

Suspicious at the strange writing on the cheque

and the amount of money her dad had paid,

Jacqueline rang Laurence Johnson posing as a potential customer.

So, I called him four or five times not telling him who I was

and on every quotation he quoted me a totally different price

to the one that he charged my father.

Eventually I did tell him who I was

and asked him why he had sold my father a scooter

at the price that he had

and his response was, "Because I can," and he put the phone down.

On any level, absolutely outrageous.

In fact, the scooter should have cost Jacqueline's dad £1,695

so he'd paid over twice what it was worth!

After threats of legal action from her solicitor were ignored,

Jacqueline decided to take matters into her own hands

and contacted the local newspaper,

which is when she received a visit from another member of the Johnson family,

Laurence's father, Shane.

He came to my home and met with me,

said that he was absolutely disappointed in his son,

said he'd got no people skills,

that he would reimburse my father the difference

between what the scooter could be sold at, at £1,600,

to what my father paid for it.

Great result! So, Charles was about to get a refund of £1,600.

Well, guess what?

No money was reimbursed,

although Jacqueline's Dad did get a one year service cover

worth a paltry £70!

So, the time had come to call Trading Standards,

who soon made an unfortunate discovery.

One of the officers was actually at my father's flat

and discovered that he'd bought another scooter

from a different mobility company

but the Trading Standards Officer actually recognised it as being

the same company under a different name.

Unbelievable!

Not content with conning Charles out of over £1,600

for a scooter he didn't need,

those charming Johnsons had returned just months later to rip him off again

to the tune of well over £3,000.

For Jacqueline it was the final straw.

This feisty lady was so furious she put aside any thoughts of personal safety

and went to the Johnson's home for a showdown

determined to claim back the thousands of pounds

they'd stung her dad for.

Mr Johnson tried to tell me that

my father knew exactly what he was doing,

that there was no pressure selling in any way, shape or form.

I was getting very cross at the arrogant manner of him,

that he was just disregarding everything that we were saying,

could absolutely see that he'd done no wrong whatsoever,

while he's sat in his beautiful home telling me he didn't rip people off.

Before she left the house, Johnson senior promised Jacqueline that

he would reimburse her dad's money in instalments.

But, you've guessed it, after just two payments it all went quiet.

Trading Standards were on the Johnson's trail

and they soon learned that their victims were helping to fund

a very lavish lifestyle indeed.

We discovered, for example,

that they'd been driving a Maserati and a Porsche,

which they'd leased, which were very expensive cars

and they needed to generate enough income to pay for things like that.

The only way they could keep this lifestyle going for any period of time

was simply to go to the victims, take their cash off them

and not supply the product.

So, it left a lot of people in a sad state indeed.

Well, after an extraordinary two-and-a-half-year struggle

an exhausted Jacqueline was finally able to see this pair of door stepping deceivers in court.

Shane Johnson and his son Laurence were jailed for 12 months

for their heartless £31,000 scam.

I think the important thing here is it's sent out a message

to other traders in this market

that they have to trade honestly and decently

because we don't want more of these cases, we want less of them.

We want the good companies and for the bad people to be off the streets.

Fighting back against these con men has been difficult

but ultimately satisfying for Jacqueline

and she's keen that others don't fall prey to doorstep criminals like her father did.

There are, and I know there are, a lot of reputable companies out there

and I suggest that people check them out before they purchase anything from them.

Later we hear another shocking story,

when this lady found herself conned into roof repairs she didn't need.

Do you think this would've happened if your husband were here?

It would never have happened, no, without a doubt.

I've had an encouraging e-mail from Tim Page of Sussex.

Like hundreds of people all over the country,

he's a local Neighbourhood Watch co-ordinator

and he points out that in large rural areas

it's very hard to keep tabs on everyone

but local knowledge is crucial.

And he runs an e-mail and phone system every day

to keep people as safe as he can.

I think that's utterly brilliant, Tim, keep up the good work!

Well, now it's time to return to North Yorkshire

and discover what other cons lay in store

for former teacher Jane Morris,

when crooks tackled her house drains

Now, if you remember, back in the winter of 2010,

Julian Donoher charged Jane Morris almost five times the going rate

to unblock her drains.

She thought that would be the end of it

but, a week later, her drains blocked again.

So Donoher returned to make sure the job was properly fixed.

'They said, "We'd better put a camera down.".'

They showed me what the camera showed,

which was that there were lots of roots down,

said they'd need to put resin down the pipes so they could resolve it but it would cost £5,500.

I said, "That's an awful lot of money,

"could we get it cheaper somewhere else?",

and they said, "Oh, that's the rate for the job.".

And they were so charming and convincing

that I'm afraid I believed them.

Pardon me? £5,500 to put resin down a pipe?! Extraordinary!

Though she sensed something was wrong,

Jane regrets not acting on her instincts

because it gave Donoher the chance to set up his most devious con yet

but first he had to lay the groundwork.

The men were there for four days digging.

It was an enormous hole and very hard work.

We weren't really suspicious because we didn't know where the pipe was

and they couldn't find it, we thought they were doing the best they could.

They kept digging for three days, I think,

and all the time I was giving them tea and coffee

and home-made cakes and things

because it was nasty weather and they needed a bit of support, I thought.

The workmen said they were having difficulty locating the damaged drain

so they ended up digging a 12 foot hole in the garden

but on the fourth day they seemed to have sorted the problem.

I went to see them

and was surprised that they appeared to be in-filling the hole.

And said, "Have you found the pipe then?", to which they didn't answer

but from behind the gate, a fellow held up a section of pipe, with the resin in, with yellow resin in,

and said, "Oh, it dries very quickly once you, once you put it in."

And with hindsight, I realise they didn't answer my question about whether they'd found the pipe

but anyway, within an hour they'd filled up and put the new paving back down

and had come to ask me for the cheque.

So, Jane paid the full £5,500 in two cheques

and decided to try and claim the job from her insurance company,

but nothing could have prepared her for the shocks that lay in store

when they came to assess the tradesmen's work.

Well, I hope you can stay with us

because Jane's experiences are a real eye-opener for us all

but first, I have an appointment with Vivienne, whom we saw earlier in that video.

Now, Trading Standards were able to help her deal with problem roofers

all thanks to a mystery benefactor

During the bitterly cold winter of 2010,

75-year-old widow Vivienne Spence had no idea that rogue traders

were operating in her beautiful home county of Buckinghamshire.

Sadly, it's something that Timothy Day

of the County Council Trading Standards department is all too aware of.

We estimate that, per year,

there's roughly £5 million of consumer detriment

caused by this type of crime.

That doesn't factor in additional costs,

such as remedying the work

where it was of such a poor quality it needed redoing.

The statistics are shocking, to say the least,

so I've come to find out exactly what happened

when a rogue roofing company came knocking at Vivienne's door.

So, Vivienne, take me back to that day when those guys came to call,

where were you, what exactly were you doing?

I was just around the house, really,

and I went to the door, I opened it up,

and I saw these young men who looked very clean and nice.

So, what did they say to you about doing work around your house?

They said my roof needed seeing to and it was a mess

and that they'd take the moss off for me and it all needed tidying up.

So, I thought, "Fair enough."

What did they quote you originally?

About £900, I think.

It was a lot of money and I said, "I can't possibly afford that."

I just wasn't going to pay that sort of money.

As her late husband Stan handled everything to do with the upkeep of the home,

Vivienne was incredibly susceptible to being ripped off

but, to her credit, even she knew that £900 just to remove some moss and repoint a few bricks

was an extortionate amount of money.

so she stood firm and negotiated a price that she was happy to pay.

Eventually they agreed on £550.

I, sort of, got into conversation with them

and they said they could furnish me with references, which I requested.

What kind of references did they give you?

One was a written reference...

and the other one was just a telephone reference,

so I was quite happy.

-Did you telephone this person?

-Yes, I did. I spoke to this gentleman

and he said, "Oh, yes, they're very nice guys.".

Did you not think that it could just be a scam?

I thought they were young, starting out in business, give 'em a break.

Did they give you a written contract of any kind?

Yes, they did, they gave me this piece of paper,

I can't remember exactly what it was

but I was quite satisfied that they were going to do the job.

As a good natured soul who sees the best in everybody,

Vivienne had been reeled in hook, line and sinker

by these door-stepping charmers.

Unfortunately, it's something that happens far too often.

Traders will deliberately target people

they think can get away with this kind of thing with,

so this tends to be the people who generally don't know the price of home improvement work

or can't check the work for themselves.

Particularly with roofing work, if they're working on houses

where people have, perhaps, got a disability

or they're elderly or any way they can't check the work for themselves

then there's a certain amount of trust and the traders can easily exploit it.

Vivienne's experience of these opportunistic scam merchants was no different.

Within a matter of minutes of answering her door,

they'd gained her trust, pressured her into a contract

and now work was about to commence.

Had they actually carried out a big inspection?

I mean, were you clear in your mind that they had inspected it...?

Well, yes, they'd had a look and that was all really I...

You know, I just trusted them.

It's a sad fact but rogues like this will use any means necessary to gain your confidence,

so you need to be on your guard, no matter who comes knocking on your door.

The lengths that this type of criminal will go to

are, in some instances, quite staggering.

We've had reports that they've turned up on a door

pretending to be police officers or council officials,

people from the water board...

They've shown crucifixes and told householders that they're very religious

and that they'd always do a good deal.

Now, I gather that a neighbour then got involved,

so what do you now understand happened?

Well, I believe the neighbour got in touch with the police.

Why was that? Had he seen something...?

Well, he obviously didn't like what was going on up there

and he was looking after my interests.

As well as the police, this eagle-eyed neighbour also called Trading Standards.

Thanks to this quick thinking Timothy was able to take action

while the scam was still taking place.

We responded straight away because we knew the traders were onsite,

it offered us the opportunity not only to reassure and protect the consumer in this issue

but also to speak directly with the traders.

Upon arrival, it quickly became clear that these tradesmen

were neither skilled nor honest.

The standard of work was pretty shoddy

but what struck me most was that it was completely unnecessary.

The pointing was fine as it was,

so there was no need for any repointing

and certainly brushing moss off the roof

was not anywhere in the region of the amount

that was being charged by the trader.

It also transpired that the contract Vivienne had been given

wasn't worth the paper it was written on.

It was handwritten,

a lot of what they'd agreed to undertake hadn't been noted down on a contract

and they hadn't done what they needed to do in law in terms of providing cancellation rights.

The reason cancellation rights are so important is it allows

consumers the ability to take a view, get different quotes

and decide for themselves without the pressure of trader being on the doorstep.

By law we're allowed a seven day cooling off period

for goods or services sold to us in our homes.

To waiver this period Vivienne would have needed to do so in writing

but as she hadn't been asked for any signature,

she didn't HAVE to pay the rogues a penny which was good news.

Incredibly though, she still felt that she owed them something.

Now, what happened to the work they had done

and the money that you'd promised to pay?

I felt that they had done a job and I felt sorry for them in a way.

But how could you feel sorry for people who were scamming you?

I don't know, I don't know - a weak moment, I suppose.

-So, I gave them a token amount.

-How much?

300.

Do you look back now and think you were silly giving them any money?

Yes, I do, actually. I shouldn't have done.

To enable the roofers to trade lawfully in the future,

Trading Standards gave them detailed advice about their responsibilities to customers.

Even so, I really feel for Vivienne because she put her trust in these cold callers

at a time when she could so easily have been taken advantage of.

Well, Vivienne, sadly your husband died a couple of years ago

presumably that's left you feeling more vulnerable around the house?

Definitely. Definitely because I'm useless, can't even change a plug!

-And he would have...?

-Everything, he did all that sort of gear, yeah.

-Do you think this would have happened if your husband had been here?

-It would never have happened.

No, without a doubt.

So, looking back on this whole episode

and the scam that was involved, how has it changed your attitude?

My advice to anybody who, somebody comes to your door, don't have anything to do with them.

Wait until you've got a personal recommendation from a friend

and just don't answer the door to anybody selling you anything.

Now, how this has changed you as an individual?

I'm a lot tougher...I hope, yeah.

Thank you, very much for sharing your story with us.

Well, now it's time to discover the fate of businessman Julian Donoher,

whose company ripped off dozens of victims all over the UK.

Donoher is appearing at Teesside Magistrates Court today.

Amongst his many victims is Jane Morris.

He charged her £5,830 just to unblock a drain.

Only when she tried to claim the money back through her insurance company

did the full extent of the con come to light.

The insurance man came round two or three days later,

I told him what had happened and how the first blockage had happened

and much I'd paid, £330, for this and immediately, he became anxious for me

and he said, "That's far too much.".

He went out to look and put his camera down the drains.

Came back in, and by this time my husband was home, and said,

"Please will you both sit down, I'm afraid nothing's been done.".

So, let's get this straight,

Jane had paid £330 to Donoher for unblocking her drain,

plus another £5,500 to put resin down the pipes.

In reality, Donoher did nothing except lie to Jane about the work he'd done.

What we have here is CCTV footage inside Mr and Mrs Morris's drain.

This was taken by somebody acting on behalf of their insurance company,

once they realised there was a problem.

And you can see the camera travelling along the drain

and it's now approaching an area of root growth

and what this trader had told the Morris's

was that he had removed all root growth from this drain

and that's actually clearly not the case

and the drain is obstructed here by roots.

But because Jane had paid by cheque,

it now meant there WAS a paper trail.

This was the turning point in the case

as Trading Standards finally had a way of fighting back against Donoher.

Investigators were then able to trace where that cheque went

and this trader had used a cheque cashing service to actually get the money from that cheque.

That enabled us to carry out further enquiries with the cheque cashing service

to find out how many other multiple cheques had been through his account in that same way.

And we then identified many other victims

that had been targeted by him in exactly the same way as the Morris's.

Happily police and Trading Standards finally caught up with Julian Donoher.

He was arrested and charged with fraudulent trading.

Having been on the case for almost two years,

Ruth Andrews is at Teesside Crown Court hoping for a successful outcome

and that Donoher's days as a con artist are well and truly over.

'So, really good news,'

Mr Donoher has pleaded guilty to 33 counts of fraud and money laundering charges

relating to multiple victims and thousands of pounds that he has taken from them.

Really successful case for us that's taken us 18 months to bring to a conclusion

but also great news for the victims of this case

who lost so much money to him.

And there's more good news

because Trading Standards are currently using the Proceeds of Crime Act against Donoher

to reclaim the money he scammed from his victims.

One thing is for sure, the whole episode has certainly been a deep learning curve for Jane Morris.

'We were amazed that we could be taken in.'

In future I'll know that the first port of call

is to go to the insurance or something like that

and not to believe people the first time

but always to have a second opinion.

Well, we're so pleased to say, a great result.

We're here to fight back against doorstep criminals

and we'd really love to hear more of your stories

about how you've stopped them ripping you off.

You can always find the details about how to get in touch at:

In the meantime, thanks for watching

and I really hope you'll join me again, next time.

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