Episode 17 Fake Britain

Welcome to a world where nothing is quite as it seems.

Welcome to Fake Britain.

Police! Don't move!

Get down! Get down

Put your hands behind your back now!

Here at the Fake Britain house, things might look familiar,

but don't be taken in.

Because this is a house that's filled with fakes.

In this series, I'll be revealing the counterfeits, copies and cons

that are flooding the market, fooling the public,

making money for the criminals and maybe even putting you in danger.

We'll be investigating those fraudsters who are cashing in

by selling us something that isn't real.

And we'll be showing you how to avoid falling for a fake.

Today, on Fake Britain, fraudsters faking their gas meter readings.

There's several small holes and, essentially, what they're now doing

is providing a fake reading.

And the disastrous consequences this can have on innocent people.

Do you want to move back now?

There was a loud bang and the house just shook.

Have you felt the force of the fakes?

We reveal how fake film posters have become a bit of a hit.

I immediately knew, as soon as this was unwrapped and come out the tube

that this was fake.

I felt quite conned.

And we uncovered the shocking truth about the fake cheese

that could be on your pizza.

They had ingredients which were fake

and it isn't actually cheese at all.

Almost every house and commercial property in Britain

has one or both of these tucked away in a cupboard somewhere.

The gas and electricity meters.

They calculate how much energy we're using

and so how big our bills will be.

But, across the country, meters are being tampered with

to produce fake readings and get those bills down.

It's been estimated £400 million worth of energy

is stolen in the UK each year.

As we've discovered,

getting those fake bills could put people's lives at risk.

This is what could happen if you tamper with your gas meter.

I was going to say, the house meter's still in 114.

Can you all move back now?

Firefighters were called to an explosion

at a house on Dundas Road in Sheffield,

a terraced street on the outskirts of the city.

Sylvia Dixon was at home just across the road.

There was a loud bang and the house just shook.

It frightened me. It frightened me.

So I thought, is it a bomb?

Has somebody set a bomb off?

The entire street was thrown into chaos

as a suspected gas leak blew this house wide open.

Move back. Come on. It's dangerous. Move back.

There could be another explosion.

And then I saw all the smoke and the fire

and then I saw the young man that lived there

more or less blown out of the house into the middle of the road.

This man was in the house where the explosion took place

and suffered serious burns.

Four other people, including children, were hospitalised.

And 50 residents were evacuated.

I don't think they'll ever forget it.

You know, the people who lived there, they will never forget it.

Deputy Chief Fire Officer Chris Blacksell is shocked by what he saw.

Really significant type of incident to arrive at,

because there's clearly the blast damage on the house,

there's clearly a serious fire still ignited.

You don't know at that stage, probably,

whether there's someone still in the property.

After the dust had settled,

a complex investigation was carried out,

which traced the explosion back to the gas meter.

It showed signs that it had been tampered with.

So, what you're looking at here is the gas meter itself

and the pipe which would be sat on top of the gas meter,

which is known as an anaconda to many people.

But it's a pipe that actually goes onto the gas meter itself.

So we're looking at someone deliberately tampering with the meter.

And this wasn't the only one.

The investigation also found tampered gas meters

at five other houses in the same street.

I think one of the really worrying things about that case was that,

as part of the ongoing investigation,

there were a significant number of houses down the street

that had their meters tampered with to try and fake their meter readings.

So we did see in other houses down that street

where gas meters had been bypassed,

where there'd been inappropriate pipework put in place

and where there was, again,

the risk of that happening again down the same street.

And it could be happening at a house near you.

Around 25,000 tampered meters are found in the UK each year,

for the sole purpose of faking the meter readings.

It's estimated that thousands more go undetected.

You may save a bit of money in the short term,

but can put yourselves, your family, at the risk of dying.

But the authorities are fighting back.

It's 11am somewhere in the Midlands.

British Gas protection officers Richard Cook and Joel Brown

are clamping down on the criminals

putting innocent people's lives at risk

by faking their energy meter readings.

It's an offence that can lead to thousands of pounds in fines

and five years in prison.

Richard and Joel have received intelligence that suggests

a number of fast-food outlets in the Midlands

have been tampering with their gas meters

to deliver fake meter readings.

The first stop is a fast-food takeaway.

Their gas consumption, their yearly gas consumption

is very low for the type of property that they're trading as.

So their gas consumption should be probably ten, maybe 12 times

what they're actually using.

Joel and Rich suspect this business could be using one of many methods

to fake their meter reading.

British Gas, for the gas meter, mate.

Come through. The gas meter is just in there, mate.

Just in there, yeah?

In the UK, the average high street food outlet

uses around £4,000 worth of gas each year.

It's hardly surprising, then,

that there are some people who are faking it to save on those bills.

M016K...

..003167.

It's not long before Joel spots something suspicious.

Yeah, there's several.

-There's several drill holes under there.

-Exactly.

You want to have a look?

Yeah.

What we've found with this meter is, underneath the index here,

this houses all the gearing which sort of calculates

the amount of gas that's used.

Now, underneath here, it should just be completely sealed up.

What we've found is, down here, there's several small holes.

It looks to be three or four small holes.

Joel knows the holes are a means of interfering

with the gas meter's readings.

Essentially, what they're now doing is providing a fake reading.

But there's worse to come, because Joel fears this tampering

could be putting the staff and customers in danger.

They've damaged the integrity of the meter.

Obviously, it's part of a Gas Safe installation,

so there is the potential for a gas leak.

This is exactly the type of unsafe practice

that Joel, Rich and the team are determined to stamp out.

Is it all right if I have a look

at what you've got running on gas out the back?

Is that all right?

But the visit's not just about safety.

The theft of the gas itself is also of concern.

Rich needs to have a look around the kitchen to see how much gas

the business is actually using.

Then he can work out the amount that's been stolen

by the fake meter readings.

You don't turn it on? Have you got a...

Just your water boiler and that's it, mate, there's no more now?

That's everything?

Outside, Rich has calculated how much gas this kebab shop has used

since they've been with British Gas.

A period of over two months.

So, basically, with interfering with the meter,

he's actually created, ultimately, a fake reading.

So we've billed you for the shortfall of gas

that he's prevented from being recorded on that meter.

Calculations complete,

Rich is about to find out the true cost of this faking operation.

So that's the bill there for the customer.

It's for £2,617.66.

It's hardly loose change.

But news of the bill is not the only thing Rich and Joel need to deliver.

So, right now, we're going to switch all the gas appliances off.

Make it safe.

We've got to disconnect the meter.

We're left with no choice, OK?

My colleague's going to come round

and start switching everything off and I'll get the work started, OK?

If Richard and Joel discover a meter's been tampered with,

they have to cut off the supply and make the premises safe.

The police will also be informed about the theft of gas

and the meter tampering

and may decide to investigate.

So the meter's all been removed now.

They've got no further gas supply until it's all resolved.

For now, they are going to hit this business where it hurts.

With no gas supply, it's going to be forced to close.

They won't be able to carry on trading

until they make their full payment.

And they are going to have to answer to

whichever police investigation comes forward.

But there'll be no more trading from this property.

And they are not the only ones.

In 24 hours, Joel and Rich's sweep through the Midlands

uncovered a number of tampered meters and fake readings.

The meter's now under-registered.

It means any readings given are now also fake.

They are on a very busy stretch of a high street

so, if anything were to go wrong with this meter,

it could be quite catastrophic, obviously, towards innocent people.

Not only were they highly dangerous,

they were stealing tens of thousands of pounds' worth of gas.

The bill is £1,297.07.

How much is it?

£9,088.54.

You don't have to pay this right now.

But, at the same time,

we don't have to leave you with a gas meter right now.

Later, we find the extraordinary lengths

some fraudsters are willing to go to

in order to fake their meter readings.

What's happened here is the customer

has decided to use a bicycle inner tube

to bridge the position where the meter would be.

In terms of danger, these are lethal.

And find out who ultimately pays the price for the fakes.

The person who's actually faking bills, if you will,

is actually taking the money straight out of the pockets of us all.

As consumers, we are all victims in that.

SNIFFS

That smells good.

There's nothing like a freshly cooked pizza.

This one's a cheese and tomato,

which you might think is a bit boring.

But it's far from boring.

It's our next story.

Because it's a fake.

Not the pizza, but the cheese.

And, as we're about to show you,

so-called cheese that isn't cheese at all

is being sold to us all over Britain.

OK, so we didn't invent it.

But, clearly, we love a slice of pizza.

It's estimated nearly two-thirds of Brits

eat at least one pizza every month.

A basic pizza consists of a dough base,

tomato sauce and, of course, cheese.

Usually mozzarella.

And, at this South London pizzeria, that's exactly what you'll get.

But, sadly, there are pizza sellers all over the UK

who are telling us we are getting cheese

but, in reality, giving us a fake.

Something known as cheese analogue.

It looks and smells like cheese, but is missing one vital ingredient.

Dairy fat.

And, therefore, in the eyes of the law,

it can't be labelled as cheese.

Here at Fake Britain, we're getting a bit fed up with it.

And so is Trading Standards' lead officer for food and nutrition, Corinne Lowe.

Trading Standards have been finding cheese that's been mislabelled

in takeaways and restaurants and mobile catering vans

across the country.

Cheese analogue is a much cheaper ingredient than real cheese.

Therefore, they've got a bigger profit margin,

if they still charge the consumer for the price of real cheese.

So, the fraudsters are motivated by money. No surprise there, then.

What's more, this cheese analogue has minimal nutritional value

and isn't even a suitable alternative

for those with a lactose intolerance.

Here at Fake Britain,

we decided to find out just how widespread the problem is.

We visited three major cities around the country to purchase some pizzas.

We went to Sheffield, Birmingham and London.

We bought ten cheese and tomato pizzas clearly labelled as cheese.

And we took them to Kent Scientific Services,

where head tester Jon Griffin agreed to inspect them

to see if they were actually cheese or if they were fakes.

They're saying it's with a cheese topping.

I would expect that to be a dairy cheese topping.

After testing for the presence of dairy fat in the cheese,

Jon found that one in five was fake.

They contain cheese analogue rather than dairy cheese.

They had ingredients which were fake.

In this case, it was cheese being described as cheese

and it isn't actually cheese at all.

It's a significant percentage

and you have only got to extrapolate that across

the number of products being sold out there in the UK,

you can actually mount up and see how big a problem it could well be.

That's exactly what we did.

And, if my basic maths is correct, that means we could be consuming

around 100 million fake cheese pizzas every year.

Yeah, it is concerning.

I, personally, think that food fraud is certainly on the increase.

Everybody has to eat.

And the cost of food is getting higher.

So there is a way of companies and individuals

making a quick profit out of this.

And the person who suffers, obviously, is the consumer.

We're not the only ones to be a bit suspicious about cheese.

Lancashire Trading Standards

recently carried out tests on 20 pizzas.

Ten from Chorley and ten from Preston.

And their results were even worse than ours.

They revealed a staggering 19 out of 20 contained fake cheese.

Cheesemonger Hero Hirsh thinks that, ultimately,

it's our taste buds that pay the real price for the fakes.

The milk is linked quite strongly to the flavour of the cheese.

The area in which the cows or the goats have grazed

will also be reflected in the flavours of the cheese.

Customers would be losing out to cheese analogue.

Jon fears that the use of fake cheese is growing

and it might not just be pizza that's falling foul of the fakers.

If we look wider and looked at different products,

you could actually find the same fake cheese on other and in other foods.

To me, it's an authenticity issue.

So the consumer is just not getting what they're paying for.

Earlier, we saw the devastating effects

tampering with energy meters can have on innocent people.

I thought, is it a bomb?

Has somebody set a bomb off?

And we followed British Gas as they discovered businesses

faking their meter readings.

They've damaged the integrity of the meter,

so there is a potential for a gas leak.

In Leicester, British Gas revenue protection boss Mark Andrews

has seen his fair share of tampered meters

and knows all the tricks the criminals use

to fake their meter readings.

And there are a number of ways

that people can choose to tamper with their meters

in order to create a fake meter reading

and generate a fake bill.

One of the ways is to tamper with the index reading itself.

The index is the box with the dials on it,

which registers how much gas you're using.

And what the criminals have started doing

is tampering with the mechanism inside the box

to reduce the amount of gas use it clocks.

If Mark simulates gas being passed through the meter,

in this case with air,

you can see the tamper in action.

What's happening is the gas is going through the meter.

It's not all being recorded. The customer's happy.

They're creating that fake meter reading,

which is giving them a fake bill at the end of the day.

But, in order to clock the meter,

you need to remove the blue seal,

which is like holding up a huge sign saying,

"I've tampered with my meter."

So, the fakers have a crafty trick to cover up their tracks.

To hide the damage that they've done to the seal,

the customers are using these fake seals,

which they're able to buy from the internet,

and just putting them in place afterwards to look as new.

These criminals may be saving a few pounds,

but tampering with your gas meter is not only illegal,

it's highly unsafe.

Unfortunately, Mark's seeing more and more fake meter readings

created by a highly dangerous method

that involves tampering with the gas supply pipes.

And what's happened here is

the customer has decided to use a bicycle inner tube

to bridge the position where the meter would be.

And this would go to the internal appliances at the property.

Whoever has done this is really riding his luck.

Replacing the meter pipe for the inner tube

and then rotating the two over the course of the year.

And what happens then, of course,

is that they've created this fake meter reading

by the fact that most of the gas they've used

during that quarterly read period

has gone through the bypass rather than the meter.

If they registered that no gas at all was being used,

the authorities would immediately spot a fake.

Not only is it a poor quality bicycle inner tube that's been used

to replace a proper copper pipe,

it's held on here with a hose clip.

In terms of danger, these are lethal.

Clearly, there's no gas-tight seal here.

And an explosion is a likely consequence of this type of tamper.

By doing this, the fraudsters are risking their lives.

And it's not just bike inner tubes that they're using, either.

Mark's seen washing machine waste pipes

and sophisticated tap systems installed.

The perpetrator here has even put a little on-off valve

so he can control the amount of gas going through the bypass.

Sadly, it's not just the people faking their meter readings

that are cashing in on this market.

We recently found this bypass on an online auction site,

advertised as "dreaming of free gas".

And the person selling it is so sure he won't be prosecuted,

he'd even put his company name on the front of the bypass.

The seller might be bold as brass,

but fitting it is fraught with danger.

Especially if the homeowner is buying it to fit themselves.

If that's your gas meter, fitted in situ,

this is a perfect replacement for it.

And I can't think of anything else that could be used for,

other than to create a fake meter reading.

We looked on the internet

to find out just how big the business is

of selling parts needed to fake your meter reading.

A couple of clicks later, we found an online auction site

littered with an array of different fake seals

going for around £10 each,

as well as entire meters up for sale.

These are illegal to fit yourself, but they come wound back to zero,

a very primitive way of faking your meter reading.

What was more shocking was that,

when we searched for "how to fake your gas meter guides",

we were falling over web pages and videos

giving instructions on how to do it,

including this video illustrating the wind-back method

to fake your meter using a domestic vacuum cleaner.

Tony Thornton, Chairman of the UK Energy Theft Trade Association,

says it's people who pay their bills who ultimately pay the price.

The person that's actually stealing energy, faking bills, if you will,

you know, is actually taking the money

straight out of the pockets of us all, you know?

So, as consumers, we're all victims in that,

because that cost's getting socialised.

So, each and every one of us

that is legitimately paying for the energy we're using

could also be footing the bill for energy stolen

as a result of people faking their meter readings.

And that's estimated to be, wait for it...

..a whopping £400 million each year.

If that's passed on to us,

it's an extra £30 being slapped on everyone's bill.

Now, that's a sizeable sum of money. That affects us all.

It impacts everybody's pocket at the end of the day, you know?

And it affects all our bills.

It's not a crime that's going unpunished.

In Northern Ireland,

a man was recently given a 12-month prison sentence

for tampering with gas meters

in order to fake the meter readings and steal gas.

So, for those faking their bills,

they may think that they're actually getting away with it.

But the reality is they won't.

Those that are interfering with the supplies, you know,

they will be prosecuted, they will be found,

we will be doing more of those prosecutions going forward,

I have no doubt.

But it's not just those

that are having their meter readings faked who are cashing in.

Criminals are making money

by offering to come and tamper with gas meters for a fee.

These people do make a business out of doing it until, of course,

we track them down and involve the police

and then that business, hopefully, is soon terminated.

Some of the fraudsters claim to fake as many as 15 meters a day,

charging between £10 and £500 a time.

Some have gone as far as to start advertising their services in newspapers,

offering to come and fix your gas meter and lower the bills.

Like this one Mark found in a Mandarin-language newspaper

distributed in the UK.

And some of the translations from these read as follows...

"Get the super energy-saving device to control the meter.

"One-off installation.

"A lifelong benefit.

"Conquers expensive British bills.

"100% safe and reliable."

They might claim they're 100% safe and reliable,

but Tony says that, in reality, they're anything but.

To let somebody into your property to interfere with the supply,

to effectively create a time bomb,

you know, that could go off at any moment,

it's seriously not worth it.

It doesn't stop with gas.

Later we find out the fakery's gone dual-fuel,

as we go on the road with Western Power

to uncover highly dangerous electricity meters.

They melt. They catch fire.

You could be asleep at night

and this could be happening to your meter if you're tampering.

Movie posters.

When the film's moved on from your local cinema,

most will be forgotten.

But, for a memorable or successful film,

the original poster can become valuable.

Like these... Star Wars and Pulp Fiction.

Both worth thousands.

Or they would be, if they were real.

They're both fakes.

It takes an expert to tell the difference

and that's why posters like these

are fooling collectors across the country.

From box office blockbusters to budget B-movies,

the market for original vintage movie posters in Britain is huge.

And, in West London,

poster dealer Lisa Tessie knows exactly why they're in demand.

Everybody has a favourite actor, actress, movie, moment in the film.

So, an original movie poster is a tangible reminder

of our favourite film.

It's like you're owning an actual piece of history.

And they come at a price.

Rare posters,

like this Audrey Hepburn classic, Breakfast At Tiffany's,

will go for around £25,000.

This original British poster for From Russia With Love,

one of the most collectable and rare UK quad posters.

In fact, it's not unheard of

for some early cinema classics from the 1920s to fetch over £400,000.

But this lucrative market has been hijacked by the fakers,

with swarms of cheap modern reprints being sold

as if they are original posters.

Poster collector-turned-dealer Mark Hochman

has been buying vintage movie posters for over 20 years

and has first-hand experience of being duped by a fake.

Mark was in the market for a highly sought-after original

of the 1990s cult classic Pulp Fiction.

I just think the poster is a fantastic piece

of what I would, honestly, call artwork.

This particular poster, in its original form, is extremely rare.

Probably only 100 to 150 originals are now known to exist.

Mark thought he'd bagged himself a bargain

when he struck a deal with an online seller for the poster,

which retails at around £1,000.

When I bought this poster,

I genuinely believed I was buying an original poster.

The photographs that I was sent were those of an original poster.

So, having checked out the picture, Mark parted with his money.

When the poster arrived, he was less than impressed.

It just didn't feel right. It didn't look right.

I immediately knew, as soon as this was unwrapped and come out of the tube,

that this was fake.

I felt quite conned. I'd asked all the right questions.

I'd been sent photographs of what I thought was an original poster.

What turned up wasn't an original poster.

Mark was out of pocket

and his expert eye was quick to spot the subtle mistakes

that make it a fake.

Firstly, when it comes to fake movie posters, size does matter.

Whatever the fakers do, for some reason,

they cannot get the size right.

This poster, although it is minor,

actually comes in at just under 27 inches.

The original is just over, by about a quarter to an eighth of an inch.

The same with the height.

What should be 40 inches is, again, a touch short.

Even though we're dealing in only fractions,

it makes a difference between what is an original and a fake.

And that's not the only mistake.

The film may have been a huge hit,

but the print quality on this fake isn't going to win any Oscars.

No matter what the fakers did,

whether it was a fault on the printing press or the printing process,

all of these fakes have the white speckle.

It's got a foggy look to it.

Generally out of focus.

It's just...

It's not right.

Mark's isn't an isolated case.

Poster dealer Lisa has seen her fair share of fakes

and knows just how convincing they can be.

Unfortunately, many of these fakes were done so well that, in fact,

many auction houses and top poster dealers have been fooled.

One of the most widely faked posters in existence

is the original Star Wars poster,

known in the business as the Star Wars style C.

Star Wars was extremely popular

and, therefore, would have been very profitable to fake.

At the time when they would have printed these fakes,

they would have printed, you know, thousands.

Perhaps tens of thousands.

So it's likely thousands of collectors out there

have, unknowingly, purchased these fakes.

But, unlike the fake poster Mark bought,

this one is the exact same size as the original,

which could fetch around £5,000 at auction.

However, there's one subtle giveaway.

On the fake, the easiest giveaway is this hairline here,

on Princess Leia's back.

That's the immediate giveaway for the fake.

As opposed to, on the original...

As more buyers are purchasing online,

so Lisa's seeing more counterfeits doing the rounds.

Most people nowadays are being fooled by the online auction site.

There are no poster police out there,

so there is nothing to stop these opportunist dealers

selling these fakes on online auction sites.

There are hundreds, if not thousands,

of collectors and movie buffs out there

getting their fingers burnt by these fakes.

But, as Lisa points out,

most don't even realise they've bought a fake

until they come to sell it.

When they bring it into us to resell and we tell them of that news,

of course, they're extremely disappointed.

And one of these fakes is this lobby card.

A lobby card is a smaller poster designed for cinema lobbies.

And it purports to be from the 1983 hit Scarface.

So, it's over 30 years old.

I took a look at his lobby card and I said,

"Sir, you know, just so you know, this is actually not an original."

And, of course, you know, he was horrified.

To the untrained eye, the fakes and the originals look the same.

But, if you know what you're looking for,

there's always a telltale sign.

This is an interesting one

because it's quite obvious that you can tell this one is a fake.

This is what we call pretty much minty white on the back.

This is a giveaway that these are not originals.

So, the paper looks brand-new.

Far too bright for something that's supposed to be 30 years old.

They might be known as minty whites,

but, for the unfortunate people buying them,

there's nothing refreshing about these fakes.

It's not really worth anything. Maybe £5 or £10.

And they've spent hundreds of pounds on acquiring it.

So it's going to be very disappointing for someone

who has spent their hard-earned money on a fake.

Is not an experience Mark would like to repeat.

It was an expensive mistake but one that I've learned from.

And I do not buy that many posters from online sellers now.

It is a minefield.

You might not have seen one of these before.

It's an egg incubator and it's all the rage for the growing market

of people who keep and breed their own chickens at home.

But, as the saying goes,

don't count your chickens before they're hatched.

This is a fake.

It's dangerous.

And, like other fake egg incubators, it's being sold all over the UK.

Although there are no precise figures,

it's estimated that around 3 million households in Britain

now keep chickens.

And why not?

They provide a ready supply of fresh eggs

as well as being great fun for the family.

Incubator manufacturer Ian Pearce knows all about the appeal.

They're pets. You know, people get to know their chickens.

They tick a lot of boxes for a lot of people, really.

There are some Brits who want to go one step further

in their quest for the good life.

They don't just keep chickens for eggs,

but breed the chickens themselves.

And, in order to hatch your own eggs,

many breeders use one of these, an egg incubator.

Well, if you take a fertile egg,

the natural process is that the bird sits on it in a nest.

So it's kept warm and the bird controls the temperature of the egg.

An artificial incubator has to replicate that,

has to ensure that the egg is at the right temperature.

So, you just pop your eggs inside,

plug it in and leave it to do its thing.

After three weeks, fingers crossed,

you've got seven chicks hatching out.

How marvellous!

I think a lot of people buy small egg incubators

simply for the fascination of seeing eggs hatch.

You know, watching life actually unfold in front of your eyes

is really attractive and interests a lot of people, especially children.

But, believe it or not, this growing market

has encouraged unscrupulous manufacturers and retailers

to churn out fake incubators

that not only fail to work as they should

but are also potentially highly dangerous.

Someone who's had first-hand experience of this

is self-sufficient smallholder Chris Webster.

About five years ago,

Chris had to take early retirement due to ill health

and decided to make up for his fall in income

by breeding geese and turkeys, as well as chickens.

With Christmas fast approaching, Chris devised a plan

to breed some top-notch turkeys

as presents for his family and friends.

So, he bought an egg incubator.

Come on, goose! Goose! Goose! Goose! Goose!

I looked for five or six weeks into various online sites,

to try and find a decent incubator

that would do what I wanted it to do.

Thinking he'd done his homework,

Chris chose this 48-egg incubator,

which set him back just under £120.

He loaded the incubator up with his prized eggs

and set the machine running.

But a couple of weeks into the three-week incubation period,

things took an unexpected turn.

We kept the incubator in the living room

so we could keep an eye on the hatching chicks.

And we smelt burning and the alarm went off on the incubator.

The alarm indicated that the temperature was too high.

But, rather than the machine cutting out,

it continued to heat and began to melt.

You can see here and here where the plastic has started melting.

Luckily, Chris was at home at the time.

Things could have been a whole lot worse.

God forbid we hadn't been in the house that day,

because I hate to think what could have happened.

Chris was determined, though,

and contacted the company he'd bought it from.

They said it must have been a one-off

and sent him a replacement, which seemed to work a treat.

But, around three weeks later,

when Chris was expecting hatching turkeys, he had another shock.

The majority of them were dead in the shell.

And it, basically, looked like the humidity hadn't been correct

for them to be able to break out of the shells easily.

Chris suspects the inconsistent temperature caused

all of the 25 unborn turkeys to die.

It's heartbreaking. You know, they're fully formed.

You know, the only thing they are not doing is breathing.

I'd lost all the Christmas presents

that we were going to give to friends and family of a nice turkey.

It was a great loss to us.

Across the country in Weston-super-Mare,

Trading Standards officer Chris Gwenlan

had also heard about the extraordinary trade

in faulty and dangerous egg incubators.

He decided to act.

We carried out the testing of a number of egg incubators,

as you can see here.

We were quite amazed at the results that we found.

Nine units were tested.

And all nine failed to comply with European safety regulations.

What's more shocking is that they were all stamped

with fake CE marks.

One of them is this hexagonal 60-egg incubator.

The problem with this incubator is that the fan and the motor

are easily accessible.

There's no protection for anybody using this item from that fan.

A child could get access to this quite easily,

they could get access to the moving parts,

and then would suffer the risk of electric shock.

The instruction manual also tells you to wrap up the incubator

in a blanket to keep it warm.

However, there's no thermal cutout in the machine.

So wrapping it up could have disastrous consequences.

So, basically, what it means is that

if it gets too hot it wouldn't cut out and would just burn up.

So there's a risk of fire associated with this product as well.

Basically, the CE mark that's applied to this is a fake.

And it isn't the only one.

This seven-egg model,

with its colourful packaging and bright lights,

even plays a tune,

which, unfortunately, we can't play for you,

as the plug and fuse are both fake and dangerous.

The major concern is the fact that

this incubator needs a reservoir of water

in order to create the humidity for the eggs to hatch.

The resulting problem could be

that you could get water into the electrical parts of the product.

There is a great risk here of electric shock occurring.

Considering the fact that it's a brightly-coloured model,

plays tunes and has lighting on it,

it would be clear to me

that this is an incubator that's designed for the children's market.

It's a bit worrying.

For such a niche market as egg incubators,

the fact that all the models that we tested

failed in some way, shape or form,

is very concerning.

Earlier, we saw just how dangerous

the practice of faking gas meter readings can be.

In terms of danger, these are lethal.

Clearly, there's no gas-tight seal here.

And an explosion is a likely consequence of this type of tamper.

It's not just gas meter readings that are being faked.

Electricity readings are, too.

It's 9am, again, somewhere in the Midlands.

Western Power enforcement officers Gavin and Steve

are responsible for making sure the electricity network is safe.

They've just received an emergency callout -

a tip-off from a member of the public

saying that a property on their patch

may have had its electricity meter interfered with.

We've had a report that the meter's actually been bypassed.

So the actual readings that you'd be getting out of the meter are fake.

Faking electricity meter readings is not only illegal

but, as with gas meters, it's also highly dangerous.

You've always got the potential of the overloading and catching fire,

the danger of electric shock to anybody that goes near it.

Serious stuff.

It's imperative the men get to the meter as soon as possible.

Arriving at the property, they gain access to the meter cupboard.

And the first signs aren't good.

The actual meter itself, the security seals are missing.

And then, if you look underneath, the outgoing live tail,

they've dropped it down, there's copper showing on it

with marks where, at some stage, they've had a bypass on it.

So they probably would have had a wire between the top of the fuse

to the outgoing tail there

to get free electric.

Steve knows that putting a bridging wire between the supply and the meter

is one of the most common tampering methods used.

It means it might only register a fraction of the electricity

that's being supplied.

And, as Gav safely removes the meter from the wall,

the risks of the suspected tamper are clear to see.

With the copper exposed, if anybody touched that there,

they'd immediately get an electric shock.

This is very serious indeed.

Anyone could have got access to the live wires

in this unsecured cupboard.

But the man who let them into the property

is adamant there's been no tampering

and claims he put money on the meter only that morning.

What's the point in wiring it up if there's credit on it?

We've been paying for this meter.

Although there is credit on it now, that meter has been interfered with.

And then we put another £3 on this morning.

£3 and then another £10.

You're not listening. At the end of the day, that meter's been interfered with.

We will come back again within the next six months. Yeah?

And, if it's been done again, you're cut off.

It's Gav and Steve's job to make the supply safe.

I'm just replacing the meter.

Removing the parts of the tails that have been bypassed.

So as we can preserve any evidence, if needs be,

It's now up to the supplier to determine

whether any electricity has been supplied to the house

but not paid for.

The man at the address denies any wrongdoing.

The police will be informed about what they've found here

and may decide to investigate further.

This being tampered with, it will go into the evidence bag.

And, if prosecution is required,

this meter can be accessed at any time.

With the meter bagged and tagged, Steve and Gav's work here is done.

We can go to sleep tonight rest assured

that this house is not going to set on fire

and there'll be no danger of anyone getting killed

or getting an electric shock.

They've got to this one in the nick of time.

But Mark Andrews has seen what happens

when people faking their meter readings are not so fortunate.

People feel that to tamper is a safe practice.

I think these meters prove that that's not the case.

These are all meters that we found recently.

The bypass still in place.

And because the loading of these cables is not sufficient

to take the current that's going through them,

they melt, they catch fire.

You could be asleep at night

and this could be happening to your meter if you're tampering.

With risks like this, it's no wonder Tony Thornton is campaigning

to stamp out the meter cheaters.

We're not just talking about the financial consequences.

You know, we're talking about risks to life and limb and property.

Ticking bombs, effectively.

You know, when you interfere with the supplies

and you go to bed at night, you know,

you don't know what's going to happen.

Is it really a risk worth taking?

That's all from Fake Britain.

Goodbye!