Episode 9 Doorstep Crime 999

I have to admit that nothing upsets me more than stories of doorstep crime.

But you know what? There is an answer. It's known as people power!

Rip-off rogues, conniving con-artists,

we're showing them the door, with your help.

And we're celebrating the work of award-winning police

and trading standards teams,

who make sure that the crooks end up behind bars, where they belong.

Today, the incredible story of a doorstep rip-off

which cost one man almost £150,000.

To use a modern phrase, looking back now

at the amount that I had to lay out, I feel gutted, utterly gutted.

Plus, the rogue trader who got his comeuppance

when the family of one of his elderly victims stepped in.

I asked him to leave.

Under no circumstances to come back to this house ever again

to undertake any other works.

And we take a close look

at the five most common methods of doorstep con trickery.

Every step of the presentation they make in your home

is well scripted, well crafted,

and designed to make sure you're off your guard.

CAT SQUEALS

POLICE SIREN

Hello, I'm delighted you've been able to join us for the programme.

Now, let's start with big money.

£150 grand - I think you'll agree that is big money.

Now imagine you'd paid all of that out for work that you didn't request or even need.

Well, it happened to one unlucky man in south London.

Prepare to be shocked.

This incredible story takes place in the borough of Bromley.

It's was so extreme, that it sticks in the mind of Rob Vale,

the head of the local Trading Standards team.

This was obviously an extreme case

and probably one of the worst cases we've dealt with in Bromley,

but it does demonstrate that anyone can be caught out

by these individuals who are ruthless, professional and organised.

Rob is referring to the case of Ian Blee,

a 65-year-old former transport manager who lives in South London.

So we go back to the beginning of April 2008.

I came downstairs one Saturday morning

and found a strange guy in the front garden.

Ian went out to ask the man what he wanted.

He claimed to represent the same company

that Ian once employed to carry out some work on his house,

and our man thought he seemed plausible.

He claimed that his firm had taken over the rights of this company

and they were offering a service to renovate that coating,

at no charge to me.

But as part of the deal, while they were in the property

they would like to undertake any other building work I wanted done,

which would be subject to a fee.

But the work on the coating would be free of charge.

Ian had a flat roof at the rear of his house which was leaking,

causing damp in the back bedroom.

It seemed a good opportunity to get this sorted,

so agreed if the price was right,

he would be interested in having some work done.

He indicated it would all be very simple and straightforward,

but that they wanted £500 up-front for materials.

I got the money, they came back in due course and began to start work.

Now you won't believe this.

Instead of fixing the leaky roof,

the builders started hacking the back bedroom to pieces.

They stripped plaster off the wall, ruining the carpet in the process.

By then, I was in a difficult position

where I couldn't really go back or stop paying money.

And it was at that point that they asked for the first tranche of money

of £24,000.

Which I paid.

£24,000!

At this stage all they'd done was to make a complete mess of Ian's home.

And worse was to come.

The pair claimed that further treatment was required,

because the damp was so severe.

The flat roof would need completely replacing

and the chimney stack, some urgent attention.

Of course all of this came at extra cost.

Ian was told to pay a further £22,000,

and that still wasn't the end.

Work continued and unfortunately Easter came at that time,

and over the Easter weekend we had a violent thunderstorm.

And whatever they had done to the roof

had not made things better but had made it worse by that time,

and so the water poured in, not only through that bedroom,

but also the bathroom which is next door.

For five days across the Bank Holiday weekend of 2008,

Ian tried to call them.

Each time, no answer.

All he could do was watch his home suffer even more damage.

When they finally came back, the rogues were most apologetic,

and then they hit Ian with the next rotten trick.

They went so far as to suggest that the property had a settlement,

and they would need to dig up the back of the property

to investigate the problem and solve it.

At that point I said no, I don't think I want to have that work done,

and furthermore I have buildings insurance anyway

so I will be contacting my insurance company.

They then said, "We'll deal with that, leave that to us."

"And by the way we'll need another large tranche of money

"to deal with this additional work," which I then had to pay.

This time the doorstep crooks wanted £35,000,

bringing the total that Ian had paid to a staggering £81,500.

They were after his life savings and he was caught in their trap.

We'll find out a little later how he fought back.

Plus, news of a cold caller who preyed on residents in Hereford

and charged extortionate prices for work that didn't even need doing.

I thought it was a bit heavy, very heavy, actually,

for what work had been done round the house.

He ripped me off because he never told me the price.

POLICE SIREN SOUNDS

MILK BOTTLES CLINK

It's clear how important it is to report crimes like this

as soon as possible, to the police or Trading Standards.

Doorstep crime comes in many forms, and some disreputable companies

rely on salesmen who call with one thought in mind - to rip you off.

So, we decided to investigate

the most common methods of doorstep con-trickery.

In 2011, a Government report found

that we lose a whopping £6.6 billion each year to pressure selling.

The Office of Fair Trading takes it so seriously

that they've launched a campaign to stop it.

But we can all make a stand against these chancers,

by wising up to their five most rotten tricks.

At number five, the shocking claims that some salesmen make.

They're often outrageous and usually too good to be true.

An expert who knows more about them than pretty much anyone else in the country

is Steve Playle, of the Trading Standards Institute.

He's been bringing them to book for 30 years.

A salesman who comes round cold calling, knocks at the door,

that's their opportunity to try and sell you

what they're trying to sell.

So they'll make some claims.

They'll say the product does things

which perhaps it won't strictly speaking do,

but they'll try and impress you.

And by impressing you they think that you'll buy it.

To get to the heart of these sales tricks, we've spoken to two men

who have first-hand experience of trying them out.

Nick Carr has moved on from selling household cleaning equipment,

but remembers it vividly.

We'd always start talking up the product using facts and figures.

Almost taglines that we had been given during training.

Things like it had been developed internationally,

millions of dollars had been ploughed into research.

It was just broad, sweeping statements.

Our second ex-salesman wants to remain anonymous.

He worked for a firm

which sold expensive building products to homeowners,

and saw some very sharp practices indeed.

The way people talk up the product

is by using research which has never been used on the product.

It's been tested over in Holland,

it's been tested over in France, it's had amazing results.

The reality was, the product didn't work,

the guarantee we promised wasn't right,

the tests we had showed them weren't genuine,

so the reality was the product they were buying wasn't up to scratch.

There you have it, straight from the horse's mouth!

Claims that sound too good to be true

really should be taken with a pinch of salt.

At number four, underhand tactics used by a salesman.

One example that I've come across

is where a trader went up into someone's loft,

came down with a dead rat, trying to imply to the householder

they had a rat infestation in the loft.

The reality is of course that the dead rat was in the trader's pocket,

went upstairs into the loft, then came downstairs and produced it.

That is completely outrageous

and just designed to scare the living daylights out of the poor consumer.

If you think that's an eye-opener, our ex-salesman, Nick,

spent four hours with a more experienced colleague,

who tried to get an elderly couple to buy a costly cleaning gadget.

When it looked like they'd failed,

a new plan was cooked-up to clinch it!

We got back to the car, as I got in,

the salesman told me to get back out, we were going back in.

It turned out he'd slashed his own tyres with a knife, or one tyre,

so we could then go back the house and ask if he could use the phone

to contact head office and a rescue service.

We then spent two hours in the house trying to get the sale again.

Thankfully, the homeowners were not taken in,

despite the epic six-hour sales pitch.

It's so common for salesmen to call their offices

that the technique is at number three in our countdown.

The technique of calling back to the office is one

that I've come across quite regularly.

It buys some time, it means you're in someone's home for much longer

and it also bring an air of credibility to the business -

it makes the consumer think that there's a big organisation

behind this salesman, he's not acting alone,

and also, of course, it's an opportunity for the person at the other end of the phone

to try and continue the hard sell.

The sales calls were a friendly chat

with a little bit of friendly sales patter involved in it,

which very quickly moved on to a fairly hard sales technique

from head office.

The customer was made to feel more at ease because they had somebody else to talk to

who wasn't just knocking on the door, trying to ask for money.

A sure sign you're being had is when the price suddenly drops

by thousands of pounds.

Number two is the great money-off con.

Quite frankly, it's a rip-off - the huge amounts

they try to scam us out of.

Very often, the tactics used are highly illegal.

I've come across cases where double glazing contracts have started off at £25,000,

and consumers have finally settled for something like £3,000 or £4,000,

so a tremendous discount but actually, ask yourself,

was the £25,000 actually a fair price in the first place?

We'd always start off selling the product at about a 500% mark-up,

'and the least you we'd sell it for was a 35% mark-up.

'Now, a lot of the sales we were doing, we were working on

'between 100% and 125% mark-up.'

At number one, scare tactics.

"You're in danger and only this product will save you!"

The fear factor is very effective in the salesman's toolbox.

It preys on people's minds, it works particularly well on the elderly

and vulnerable consumers,

who are worried about what the salesman's telling them

and they want to put right what they think is wrong.

You'd tell them the house was so far in disrepair

and needed urgent attention.

Things were leaking, things were hanging off,

when in fact they were absolutely fine as they were, perfect.

'A lot of the time they were an elderly couple

so they just took you on face value that what you were saying

was correct, when a lot of times it was just made up.

One of our salesmen was encouraged to look out for inhalers,

in homes where they were trying to sell cleaning equipment.

They'd tell the homeowner that their product could remove dust mites

and other causes of asthma and thus help their breathing.

One salesman used to carry about an empty inhaler

and he didn't have asthma himself,

but when he went into a customer's house

he would fake breathing problems and hold his chest, breathe deeply,

fumble for his inhaler and use it and breathe a sigh of relief.

His sales explanation for it was that he used to have asthma,

"I bought one of these for the house and never bothered with it

"but I have to carry this when I go to customers' houses

"because that's when my asthma starts back up again."

Every step of the presentation they make in your home is well scripted,

well crafted, and it's designed to make sure you're off your guard.

'For the final thought on how to avoid doorstep cons,

'the last word goes to our former doorstep salesman, Nick.'

They're not trying to help you. They're trying to help themselves.

If you want to spend a lot of money on a product,

ask somebody else, ask a friend or a family member for advice on it.

Find out what they've bought and what they're happy with.

Don't be pressured into buying something like that from somebody you don't know.

Your emails and letters are very thought-provoking, I have to say.

Carol Doust of south London points out that not everyone at the door

is a crook - sometimes legitimate companies make cold calls.

But the thing is, they're trained so that they refuse

to take no for an answer, and seem determined not to leave

without your business.

Carol feels this hard form of selling should be made illegal.

So you may have a very good point there, Carol.

Now let's return to South London, where Ian Blee has handed over

the staggering sum of £81,500 to a pair of rogue builders.

All he wanted were repairs to his flat roof and back bedroom,

but thanks to their incompetence

and manipulation, his house was severely damaged by rainwater.

What's more, the rogue roofers hadn't finished with him yet.

Every time something went wrong they wanted more money.

They always tried to persuade me that if I paid up,

they would get me the money that I would have got back from the insurance company.

'By the time the work was over, Ian had coughed up £116,500,

'and there was one last trick - a VAT bill of £27,000.

'He paid that as well, bringing the total to a whopping £143,500.

'Ian had paid out all this money in the full expectation

'that his insurance company would reimburse him.

'The workmen had told him they would handle the necessary paperwork

for his claim, and he had taken them at their word.

'In hindsight, it comes as no surprise

'that the cheques failed to arrive.

'At last Ian decided enough was enough.'

At this stage, I began to realise that I was being scammed

and that I wasn't going to get my money back

and I had to do something about it.

Ian did the right thing by contacting Trading Standards,

and Rob Vale led the investigation.

In many cases, we find that the work that has been carried out

by these individuals is worthless

and more often than not, it needs to be done again by a professional.

In December 2008, Rob's team called in local surveyor David Connolly

to examine the rogues' work, and his findings came as quite a shock.

The first aspect I looked at was the roof

and it was clear that they had not done much work at all.

They were supposed to have recovered the roof altogether

but what they've actually done is put a patch on top of the old felt.

They've not done any of the sealing of holes around the windows.

The chimney stack, which needed re-rendering is all cracked

and loose.

So not only did they not do work

that they were supposed to have done,

'they seem to have actually made it worse and made gaps

'for water to get in.'

I then came down here to investigate some work

that they claim to have undertaken by way of underpinning the house.

I didn't find any cracks in the property

that actually suggested that it needed underpinning.

I understand about £140,000 was paid for all of the work

they claimed was necessary, which is absolutely astronomic.

What work they did do was of nil value,

and in fact in some respects they made matters worse,

and I think it's absolutely appalling

that contractors can get away with this.

When we became aware of this case, our only line of enquiry

was really to trace the money, and we have a financial investigator

who set about tracing all the cheques.

After a fairly long investigation, we carried out raids

on two or three properties across London,

resulting in the conviction

of one individual.

A further individual was brought to court but he skipped bail

and he's now on the run,

so there's a warrant out for his arrest.

A third individual unfortunately passed away

before we were able to get him into court.

And there was an outstanding matter against another person.

We've never been able to catch up with.

'Ian had been the victim of organised criminals,

'costing him the best part of £150,000.

'As for that protective treatment he'd been offered for free

'in the first place, it turned out to be a bog-standard masonry paint.'

Well, to use a modern phrase, looking back now at the amount

that I had to lay out, I feel gutted - utterly gutted.

It's certainly affected the way in which

'I treat people on this sort of thing in the future.

'It's something I will never forget and not be easily able to recover.'

An innocent, likeable, honest individual

has lost over £140,000 to these ruthless criminals

who prey on the most vulnerable people in our society.

So I think the lesson from all that is never commit yourself

to work on the spot, as I did.

Get another quote

and always find someone else to talk it over with,

who you trust, before you commit yourself to having work done.

I never cease to be amazed by the salesmen's tricks

and funnily enough, Linda Tucker has written in to the programme

with some great advice, I think, about how to deal with them.

She says any unwanted caller at her door is told that she rents her home

and that really they should talk to her landlord.

She says, "Believe you me, that makes them run a mile."

And she hopes that this might be of help to a few of our viewers.

Linda, I'm sure it will.

Now, let's consider another example of doorstep crime.

This is a classic case of a rogue trader who thought he could take

advantage of elderly people, here in Hereford.

Thankfully, he got his just desserts.

Our story begins in February 2011,

when 50-year-old doorstep deceiver Tony Michael Small

cold-called at the home of 85-year-old Bill Greenhalgh.

He came to the front door and I went out to talk to him

and the he said, "I notice you've had your path done."

I said, "Yes," and he said, "What's it like round the back?"

I said, "Oh, it's flat paving stones."

"Could I have a look?" he said.

'The cheek of it all.

'Now, Bill is a nice man and not wishing to be rude,

'he obliged and took Small round the back.

'It didn't take long for the opportunistic rogue

'to start fishing for more work.'

He offered to clean the steps for me and I said, "How much will it cost?"

"Oh," he said, "don't worry about the cost. We'll sort that out later."

He said, "It doesn't cost much, because you supply the water

"and I supply the machine, just to put the pressure on the water

"and clean the flags."

'But Tony Small didn't stop there.

'He said, "I'll tell you what you want to do -

"on the drive it looks quite nice now

"but you should put some sand on it, on the cracks."

I said, "Oh, all right. I've got a bag of sand in the shed

"that they left for me to do that."

"Oh," he said, "well, I'll do that for you."

'Within minutes of opening his door to the con man,

'Bill had been coerced into having several jobs done,

'including jet-washing the patio,

'fitting trunking to the exterior electrical cables,

'and re-pointing some of the brickwork.

'But there was one thing Small wasn't so keen to discuss.

I said, "How much is this going to cost?"

"Oh," he said, "don't worry about the cost.

"It's not a costly job."

And I said, "All right."

Bill had been well and truly sucked in, but it took a few days

for him to realize what he'd got himself into.

"Anyhow," he said, "Let me get started with the job."

So I said, "All right."

'And then he came later.

After the first week, he asked me could I give him £1,000 cash.

'£1,000 - all starting from an offer to jet-wash the patio.

'It's a tried-and-tested con trick,

'as Tim Thorne from Hereford Trading Standards knows only too well.'

The method this rogue trader used is typical of all rogue traders.

You start with something minor and then add more and more work onto it.

You avoid telling them the price until the end

and then it's too late for the elderly resident -

they've got to pay up.

Bill was in just this situation but there was a final sting in the tail.

Some two weeks later, with barely any work done whatsoever,

Tony Small asked for another payment

'of £1,000, plus £400 more for VAT.

'The grand total? £2,400.'

I thought it was a bit heavy. Very heavy, actually,

'for what the work had been done round the house.'

He ripped me off because he never told me the price.

'Reluctantly, Bill paid up, but he kept the whole matter to himself.

'It was only when his daughter and son-in-law found a note

'from the builder, requesting payment,

'that the scam came to light.'

'Obviously very concerned, they asked Bill to explain.'

Bill was a bit upset because he felt he'd brought it on himself,

'so we had to explain to Bill it wasn't his fault that these

'sort of people are going around ripping old-age pensioners off,'

and not to feel guilty in any way.

Steve was so incensed

'that he took matters into his own hands.'

'I rang the builder up myself and I asked him'

to explain and also to give me an invoice

for the works he'd undertaken.

This he held back from -

he didn't really want to commit himself to giving me an invoice,

but he agreed to pay me £400 of the £2,400 back straight away.

Then I asked him to leave and under no circumstances to come back

to this house ever again to undertake any other works.

Although he had clawed back some of Bill's money,

Steve wasn't satisfied.

He decided to get in touch with Hereford Trading Standards,

who were keen to take a look at Small's handiwork.

'What we have here is the poor quality work'

on the patio slabs at the back.

The rogue trader has power-washed them, which he should not have done,

because it's blasted some of the bedding out from under the slabs

and that has caused the slabs to wobble and be uneven,

and this could be a tripping hazard for Bill and his wife.

This is the first part of the re-pointing

that the rogue trader coerced Bill into agreeing.

It's where the extension on the bungalow met the original brickwork,

and obviously, over time, there'll be a slight crack,

so the rogue trader focused on that and then led Bill into agreeing

to having re-pointing done all the way around the bungalow,

round the bottom, which was of course done in an appalling manner.

It follows the typical rogue-trader practice

of doing unnecessary, over-priced and very poor quality work.

But thankfully there's good news.

Not long after ripping Bill off, Tony Small was caught red-handed

by the authorities, in the middle of conning his next hapless local.

Our investigations into this rogue trader led us to another victim

in Hereford. A 75-year-old, who had been cold-called again,

was told that asbestos guttering needed replacing

when it simply did not, and he ripped the guttering down immediately

so the elderly lady had no opportunity to cancel.

We managed to intervene and stop any money being handed over.

At Worcester Crown Court on 19th February, 2012, Tony Michael Small

was sentenced to a term of seven-and-a-half months' imprisonment,

for three unfair trading offences.

Justice had been done,

but Bill is still very annoyed with himself for being taken in.

He was a smooth man

and, fair enough, he must have measured me up

and sorted me out mentally and thought,

"Well, I think I can push this fellow a little bit further."

My advice to anyone, including the elderly and vulnerable,

to avoid becoming a victim of rogue trading, is very simple indeed -

do not deal with anyone who cold calls you,

either at the door or on the telephone,

and that way you will not get stung.

Virtually all rogue trading activity comes from cold calling.

I'd be very careful if anyone came to me, wanting to do work for me.

I'd be very, very careful with them.

As always, we'd really love to hear more about how you've fought back

against rip-off merchants at the door,

so I hope you'll drop us a line,

using the contact information on our website.

So at this point, may I just say I've really enjoyed your company

and I hope you will join us again next time.

From us, bye-bye.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd