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Welcome to a world where nothing is quite as it seems. | 0:00:02 | 0:00:06 | |
Welcome to Fake Britain. | 0:00:06 | 0:00:07 | |
Police! | 0:00:09 | 0:00:10 | |
-Get down! Get down on the floor now! -Put your hands behind your back now. | 0:00:20 | 0:00:24 | |
Here at the Fake Britain house, | 0:00:24 | 0:00:26 | |
we'll reveal the fakes that are flooding the market, | 0:00:26 | 0:00:29 | |
conning people like you and me and making money for the criminals. | 0:00:29 | 0:00:33 | |
We'll investigate the fraudsters who are selling us | 0:00:33 | 0:00:36 | |
something that isn't real and could be dangerous. | 0:00:36 | 0:00:40 | |
And we'll help you avoid falling for a fake. | 0:00:40 | 0:00:44 | |
Today on Fake Britain - | 0:00:44 | 0:00:46 | |
the tradesmen faking logos to rip off homeowners. | 0:00:46 | 0:00:49 | |
My father-in-law was actually showered by all of the foam | 0:00:50 | 0:00:54 | |
that had just been left in the loft space. | 0:00:54 | 0:00:56 | |
Tiles were loose, and if there was any high wind all of those | 0:00:56 | 0:00:59 | |
would have been ripped off the roof. | 0:00:59 | 0:01:01 | |
The fake edible glitter that you wouldn't want to eat. | 0:01:01 | 0:01:04 | |
It shocks you to think, | 0:01:04 | 0:01:05 | |
I've put this product on this cake that kids are going to be eating. | 0:01:05 | 0:01:09 | |
The fake bailiffs threatening small businesses. | 0:01:09 | 0:01:12 | |
I couldn't believe somebody could scam me out of just under £4,000. | 0:01:13 | 0:01:18 | |
And the fake breathalysers that could cost you your licence | 0:01:18 | 0:01:21 | |
or even your life. | 0:01:21 | 0:01:23 | |
This is telling me I'm alcohol free. | 0:01:23 | 0:01:25 | |
Anybody who relies on this is really playing with fire. | 0:01:25 | 0:01:28 | |
There are around 100,000 county court judgements for debt | 0:01:34 | 0:01:39 | |
issued against British companies every year. | 0:01:39 | 0:01:42 | |
Some of these result in a visit by bailiffs or enforcement agents | 0:01:42 | 0:01:45 | |
to recover the debt. | 0:01:45 | 0:01:47 | |
So, if you get a call from someone who sounds official saying | 0:01:47 | 0:01:50 | |
the business you work at, or even own, owes money | 0:01:50 | 0:01:54 | |
you're going to sit up and take notice. It's a serious matter. | 0:01:54 | 0:01:58 | |
But what if that phone call isn't everything it seems? | 0:01:58 | 0:02:01 | |
This is Little Bunnies nursery in King's Lynn, Norfolk. | 0:02:05 | 0:02:09 | |
Just after starting her shift, manager Becky received a phone call. | 0:02:10 | 0:02:14 | |
Good morning, Little Bunnies. | 0:02:14 | 0:02:17 | |
The man on the phone said he was from a firm of bailiffs | 0:02:17 | 0:02:20 | |
and that the bailiffs were on their way to seize | 0:02:20 | 0:02:22 | |
goods from the nursery to settle an unpaid debt. | 0:02:22 | 0:02:25 | |
I was actually quite nervous when they phoned. | 0:02:25 | 0:02:28 | |
They were very aggressive in the way that they were talking, | 0:02:28 | 0:02:31 | |
very convincing that they were actual real bailiffs | 0:02:31 | 0:02:35 | |
that just wanted to come and take all the equipment from the nursery. | 0:02:35 | 0:02:38 | |
Becky was confused about the so-called debt owed by the business. | 0:02:38 | 0:02:42 | |
More than that, she was worried about the impact on the dozen or so | 0:02:42 | 0:02:45 | |
children currently in the nursery. | 0:02:45 | 0:02:48 | |
So, she acted quickly. | 0:02:48 | 0:02:49 | |
As soon as I hung up the phone I followed our security procedures. | 0:02:51 | 0:02:54 | |
I got all the children from the front of the nursery into the back where it's quite secure. | 0:02:54 | 0:02:57 | |
I stood at the front of the building with the telephone ready in case they were going to come. | 0:02:57 | 0:03:01 | |
Becky then phoned her boss, the nursery's owner, Donna Jarvis. | 0:03:01 | 0:03:06 | |
When Donna arrived she immediately phoned the man, who was calling | 0:03:06 | 0:03:09 | |
himself a bailiff, to query the debt of which she had no knowledge. | 0:03:09 | 0:03:14 | |
The man told her she owed £550 to an IT company for work on software | 0:03:14 | 0:03:19 | |
plus a £250 bailiff fee. | 0:03:19 | 0:03:21 | |
She insisted she knew nothing about the debt but he refused to listen. | 0:03:22 | 0:03:27 | |
He says, "Sorry, love, we hear this all the time." | 0:03:27 | 0:03:29 | |
He had the paperwork rustling in the background. | 0:03:29 | 0:03:32 | |
He had a case reference number. | 0:03:32 | 0:03:34 | |
My words to him actually were, | 0:03:34 | 0:03:36 | |
"There's women and children in my nursery, a lot of children." | 0:03:36 | 0:03:39 | |
His actual words were, "I don't care how many kids are in the building, | 0:03:39 | 0:03:42 | |
"we're coming through the door." | 0:03:42 | 0:03:44 | |
At that point I said, "Ridiculous, I'm phoning the police." | 0:03:44 | 0:03:47 | |
He informed me, "No need, we'll be turning up with the police." | 0:03:47 | 0:03:50 | |
The man told Donna the only way to stop the bailiffs | 0:03:50 | 0:03:53 | |
would be to settle the debt. | 0:03:53 | 0:03:55 | |
He gave her an 0845 number to call in order to pay up. | 0:03:55 | 0:03:59 | |
The chap answered, | 0:04:00 | 0:04:02 | |
"Hello, Northampton County Court. This is the payment line." | 0:04:02 | 0:04:05 | |
I instantly went in very passionately and angrily saying, | 0:04:05 | 0:04:08 | |
"I've just had bailiffs on the phone stating that I've got this debt." | 0:04:08 | 0:04:11 | |
"Excuse me, madam, I need to stop you. Please can I take your reference number." | 0:04:11 | 0:04:15 | |
Pretended to type it into a computer, you could hear the keys. | 0:04:15 | 0:04:18 | |
"Yep, Little Bunnies Day Nursery. You owe this amount of money." | 0:04:18 | 0:04:21 | |
He repeated the same dates off when it went to court. | 0:04:21 | 0:04:24 | |
He was so good. He had an answer for every single thing I threw at him. | 0:04:24 | 0:04:28 | |
Little Bunnies nursery wasn't the only business to receive | 0:04:30 | 0:04:33 | |
a phone call from men demanding money. | 0:04:33 | 0:04:36 | |
Jenny Tofts' hair salon in Cambridgeshire had a similar call | 0:04:36 | 0:04:40 | |
out of the blue from someone claiming to work on behalf of the courts. | 0:04:40 | 0:04:44 | |
He said he was calling from Croydon County Court | 0:04:44 | 0:04:47 | |
and he was dealing with the judgment that had been made | 0:04:47 | 0:04:50 | |
against my business, as I'd not turned up to the court case. | 0:04:50 | 0:04:53 | |
I then obviously said, "What court case? I know nothing about this." | 0:04:53 | 0:04:57 | |
I'm like, "God, I've never had anything like that in my life." | 0:04:57 | 0:05:00 | |
I couldn't believe it. | 0:05:00 | 0:05:02 | |
She had no idea what they were talking about. | 0:05:02 | 0:05:06 | |
The man claimed Jenny owed nearly £2,000 in court fees | 0:05:06 | 0:05:09 | |
and an unpaid debt for online advertising. | 0:05:09 | 0:05:13 | |
They threatened that the bailiffs would arrive shortly | 0:05:13 | 0:05:15 | |
unless she paid the debt. | 0:05:15 | 0:05:17 | |
I questioned it and said, | 0:05:17 | 0:05:19 | |
"Surely I don't have to make that payment now?" | 0:05:19 | 0:05:21 | |
He said, "Yes, I'm afraid you do because the judge's ruled, | 0:05:21 | 0:05:24 | |
"you now have a county court judgment against your business | 0:05:24 | 0:05:27 | |
"and if you don't make that payment, they will come to your salon | 0:05:27 | 0:05:30 | |
"and they will take goods to that value." | 0:05:30 | 0:05:32 | |
What Jenny didn't know was if she'd had a real debt, | 0:05:32 | 0:05:36 | |
real bailiffs would have needed to give her seven days' written warning | 0:05:36 | 0:05:39 | |
before being able to take any enforcement action. | 0:05:39 | 0:05:43 | |
By now, Jenny was seriously worried about her business. | 0:05:44 | 0:05:48 | |
I didn't want someone coming in here with a salon full of clients, | 0:05:48 | 0:05:51 | |
and I panicked because I thought, "What's that going to do | 0:05:51 | 0:05:54 | |
"to my business, my reputation and everything else?" | 0:05:54 | 0:05:57 | |
In King's Lynn, nursery owner, Donna, | 0:05:59 | 0:06:01 | |
was also feeling the pressure as she spoke to a man who said | 0:06:01 | 0:06:04 | |
he was a clerk on the Northampton Court payment line. | 0:06:04 | 0:06:08 | |
I was almost convinced, | 0:06:08 | 0:06:09 | |
I was almost convinced and I almost paid the debt. | 0:06:09 | 0:06:12 | |
But Donna decided, finally, to pass the phone to her partner | 0:06:12 | 0:06:15 | |
who had happened to be an ex-police officer, | 0:06:15 | 0:06:18 | |
a fact that Donna made clear to the man on the phone. | 0:06:18 | 0:06:21 | |
And it was only at that point that the young lad slipped with his nice, | 0:06:21 | 0:06:25 | |
polite, "I'm a county court...county clerk" on the payment line. | 0:06:25 | 0:06:29 | |
He went, "Oh, great." | 0:06:29 | 0:06:31 | |
And then the line went dead. | 0:06:31 | 0:06:33 | |
And then I re-phoned the 0845 number to get a mobile answer machine. | 0:06:33 | 0:06:37 | |
And then I realised it was definitely a con. | 0:06:37 | 0:06:39 | |
Donna had a lucky escape. She didn't pay the fake bailiff. | 0:06:41 | 0:06:44 | |
But in Cambridgeshire, salon owner, Jenny, | 0:06:44 | 0:06:47 | |
had been feeling the pressure and the man who said the bailiffs were coming | 0:06:47 | 0:06:51 | |
to get their money and disrupt her business | 0:06:51 | 0:06:53 | |
was doing everything to prove he was genuine. | 0:06:53 | 0:06:56 | |
He got me to go online to these websites and type in reference numbers | 0:06:56 | 0:07:01 | |
that he gave me, which then brought up all their information. | 0:07:01 | 0:07:06 | |
I suppose I ended up believing what he was saying | 0:07:06 | 0:07:08 | |
because he had an answer, almost, for everything, really. | 0:07:08 | 0:07:12 | |
Thinking that she must somehow be in the wrong | 0:07:13 | 0:07:16 | |
and fearing the disruption to her business, Jenny finally caved in. | 0:07:16 | 0:07:20 | |
She paid nearly £2,000 into an account number given to her | 0:07:20 | 0:07:24 | |
by the man on the phone. | 0:07:24 | 0:07:26 | |
But later he phoned back claiming the money hadn't gone through and | 0:07:26 | 0:07:29 | |
threatened the bailiffs again if she didn't make the payment once more. | 0:07:29 | 0:07:33 | |
I panicked again | 0:07:33 | 0:07:35 | |
and made that second payment. | 0:07:35 | 0:07:37 | |
When Jenny checked with her bank, | 0:07:37 | 0:07:40 | |
she was told both payments had in fact gone through. | 0:07:40 | 0:07:43 | |
She'd lost thousands of pounds to fake bailiffs. | 0:07:43 | 0:07:46 | |
I couldn't believe that somebody could... | 0:07:46 | 0:07:49 | |
..scam me from just under £4,000 of may salon's money | 0:07:50 | 0:07:54 | |
in the space of an afternoon. | 0:07:54 | 0:07:57 | |
It's a huge sum of money for a business like Jenny's to lose. | 0:07:58 | 0:08:02 | |
I'd got wages to pay, I'd got tax bills to pay. | 0:08:02 | 0:08:06 | |
You go home every night feeling sick to your stomach | 0:08:06 | 0:08:10 | |
and worrying about how you're going to pay for everything, and how | 0:08:10 | 0:08:14 | |
your business is going to survive now this has happened to you. | 0:08:14 | 0:08:17 | |
Jenny phoned Action Fraud, | 0:08:19 | 0:08:20 | |
the UK's national fraud and internet crime reporting centre. | 0:08:20 | 0:08:24 | |
They referred her case on to the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau, | 0:08:24 | 0:08:28 | |
a specialised unit within City of London Police | 0:08:28 | 0:08:30 | |
that's been set up to tackle fraud. | 0:08:30 | 0:08:33 | |
Chief Inspector Matt Bradford if the head of the unit | 0:08:33 | 0:08:36 | |
and he's identified a trend where fake bailiffs are cynically | 0:08:36 | 0:08:40 | |
targeting particular types of business. | 0:08:40 | 0:08:42 | |
Fraudsters seem to be targeting those softer | 0:08:43 | 0:08:46 | |
and more vulnerable targets. | 0:08:46 | 0:08:48 | |
We've had nurseries, schools, doctors, plumbers, you name it. | 0:08:48 | 0:08:51 | |
Anyone can be vulnerable to this. | 0:08:51 | 0:08:53 | |
And while Jenny lost around £4,000, other victims of the fake bailiffs | 0:08:55 | 0:08:58 | |
might consider her to be one of the lucky ones. | 0:08:58 | 0:09:02 | |
In one instance, lost nearly £20,000. | 0:09:02 | 0:09:04 | |
That's a huge amount of money | 0:09:04 | 0:09:06 | |
especially if we're talking about small businesses. | 0:09:06 | 0:09:08 | |
That's a lot of turnover, a lot of hard work and it's just lost. | 0:09:08 | 0:09:12 | |
Far from the being an isolated crime, there have been many cases | 0:09:13 | 0:09:16 | |
of fake bailiff fraud, and the problem seems to be getting worse. | 0:09:16 | 0:09:20 | |
The National Fraud Intelligence Bureau have done some research | 0:09:20 | 0:09:23 | |
and analysis, and we've shown from less than ten, | 0:09:23 | 0:09:25 | |
they've increased to nearly 25. | 0:09:25 | 0:09:28 | |
That's 25 reports per month. | 0:09:28 | 0:09:30 | |
Extrapolate that over a year and each one of those could have | 0:09:30 | 0:09:33 | |
losses of hundreds, thousands or even multiple of tens of thousands. | 0:09:33 | 0:09:38 | |
That's a lot of money that's going into organised crime, | 0:09:38 | 0:09:41 | |
it's going into the pockets of fraudsters. | 0:09:41 | 0:09:43 | |
After two months of painstaking negotiations with her bank, | 0:09:45 | 0:09:48 | |
Jenny finally got her money back. | 0:09:48 | 0:09:50 | |
She's still coming to terms with just how sophisticated the fakers were. | 0:09:51 | 0:09:55 | |
I was amazed at the length this faker went to, | 0:09:55 | 0:09:59 | |
to get the information that he did. | 0:09:59 | 0:10:01 | |
Not only did he have information about me, | 0:10:01 | 0:10:04 | |
he'd researched my business to make it believable, to make me believe. | 0:10:04 | 0:10:09 | |
Whilst Donna had a narrow miss with the fakers, | 0:10:09 | 0:10:11 | |
their actions have left her seething. | 0:10:11 | 0:10:14 | |
It makes me extremely angry that somebody gets up in the morning, | 0:10:15 | 0:10:20 | |
looks in the mirror and decides they're going to spend | 0:10:20 | 0:10:23 | |
their working day threatening children and women. | 0:10:23 | 0:10:27 | |
And the fact these fake bailiffs are out there taking this money | 0:10:27 | 0:10:31 | |
is disgusting. | 0:10:31 | 0:10:32 | |
Matt has some good advice for members of the public who get a call | 0:10:33 | 0:10:37 | |
out of the blue from anyone demanding money. | 0:10:37 | 0:10:39 | |
You need to make sure that you know who you're talking to. | 0:10:41 | 0:10:44 | |
That means putting the phone down, | 0:10:44 | 0:10:46 | |
doing your own independent research, phoning them back on a number | 0:10:46 | 0:10:49 | |
that you've identified, not the number they've given you. | 0:10:49 | 0:10:52 | |
Protect yourself and that's just by buying yourself some time | 0:10:52 | 0:10:55 | |
and doing your research. | 0:10:55 | 0:10:57 | |
Around 7,000 road accidents and 300 deaths each year in the UK | 0:11:04 | 0:11:09 | |
are caused by drink-driving. | 0:11:09 | 0:11:11 | |
This home breathalyser could help. | 0:11:11 | 0:11:13 | |
It should tell you whether you're over the limit | 0:11:13 | 0:11:16 | |
when you get behind the wheel. | 0:11:16 | 0:11:17 | |
And if you're planning to drive in France, and 17 million of us | 0:11:17 | 0:11:21 | |
will visit the country this year, | 0:11:21 | 0:11:23 | |
then you'll need one in your vehicle because it's now the law. | 0:11:23 | 0:11:27 | |
That means a lot of these things are going to be sold | 0:11:27 | 0:11:31 | |
but, hopefully, not too many like this one. | 0:11:31 | 0:11:34 | |
It's a fake. | 0:11:34 | 0:11:36 | |
It's nightfall and we're out on the roads with officers | 0:11:37 | 0:11:40 | |
from Dorset Police's traffic unit. | 0:11:40 | 0:11:42 | |
They're on their way to a collision involving a young female driver | 0:11:42 | 0:11:46 | |
who lost control and crashed into a parked car. | 0:11:46 | 0:11:48 | |
Do you want to sort this out, while I go speak to the driver? | 0:11:48 | 0:11:51 | |
She's not been seriously injured, there's doctors on scene. I'll just go and see her. | 0:11:51 | 0:11:55 | |
Anyone involved in a road accident has to be breathalysed | 0:11:55 | 0:11:59 | |
using one of these Home Office approved police breathalysers. | 0:11:59 | 0:12:03 | |
Right. Fill your lungs with as much air as you can and keep blowing | 0:12:03 | 0:12:06 | |
until I tell you to stop. | 0:12:06 | 0:12:08 | |
Keep going, keep going, keep going, keep going. Well done. Thank you. | 0:12:08 | 0:12:13 | |
You're zero. All right? Thank you very much for that. | 0:12:13 | 0:12:16 | |
While alcohol wasn't to blame for this accident, nearly 300 deaths | 0:12:18 | 0:12:21 | |
on British roads each year are caused by drink-driving. | 0:12:21 | 0:12:25 | |
The police rely on genuine approved breathalysers that give | 0:12:26 | 0:12:29 | |
accurate readings to make the roads safer. | 0:12:29 | 0:12:32 | |
Unfortunately, sir, you've failed your test, so I arrest you. | 0:12:32 | 0:12:35 | |
These help them to make over 40,000 drink-driving convictions ever year. | 0:12:36 | 0:12:40 | |
Members of the public can now buy their own breathalyser. | 0:12:42 | 0:12:45 | |
But Fake Britain has discovered that some machines, falsely claiming to | 0:12:45 | 0:12:50 | |
be approved by the police, are being sold online for as little as a fiver. | 0:12:50 | 0:12:54 | |
Dorset Trading Standards have been investigating these products. | 0:12:55 | 0:12:59 | |
We've got concerns on these breathalysers | 0:12:59 | 0:13:02 | |
where there are any links to the police or any claim | 0:13:02 | 0:13:06 | |
that they are a professional item when quite clearly they're not. | 0:13:06 | 0:13:09 | |
They're cheap quality which could result in a danger for the user | 0:13:09 | 0:13:13 | |
and other road users. | 0:13:13 | 0:13:14 | |
Trading Standards' main concern about these fake breathalysers | 0:13:14 | 0:13:18 | |
is that they could give false readings. | 0:13:18 | 0:13:21 | |
Fake Britain wanted to see if these cheaper online products | 0:13:22 | 0:13:25 | |
matched the performance of the real thing. | 0:13:25 | 0:13:27 | |
So, we bought several allegedly police approved breathalysers | 0:13:27 | 0:13:32 | |
and took them to Lion Laboratories, a world leader in breath alcohol | 0:13:32 | 0:13:36 | |
testing equipment, whose products are approved by the Home Office. | 0:13:36 | 0:13:40 | |
Dr Paul Williams is a forensic alcohol expert. | 0:13:40 | 0:13:43 | |
Plainly, these are all low cost instruments | 0:13:43 | 0:13:47 | |
and they use a very inferior type of detection technology | 0:13:47 | 0:13:50 | |
for the actual alcohol analysis. | 0:13:50 | 0:13:52 | |
It's not a good start. | 0:13:52 | 0:13:55 | |
The alcohol readings displayed on these so-called | 0:13:55 | 0:13:58 | |
police approved breathalysers would be useless in this country. | 0:13:58 | 0:14:02 | |
This instrument is set up to measure alcohol levels | 0:14:02 | 0:14:05 | |
as would be used in the United States and Australia. | 0:14:05 | 0:14:08 | |
Got nothing whatsoever to do with the United Kingdom | 0:14:08 | 0:14:10 | |
or even mainland Europe. | 0:14:10 | 0:14:12 | |
This booklet is absolutely useless in giving any information about that. | 0:14:12 | 0:14:15 | |
Dr Williams decided to test the fake police breathalysers | 0:14:15 | 0:14:19 | |
with the equipment he uses to test | 0:14:19 | 0:14:21 | |
his genuine Home Office approved products. | 0:14:21 | 0:14:24 | |
When he blows into these jars, they'll release a vapour that | 0:14:24 | 0:14:27 | |
simulates human breath at various concentrations of alcohol. | 0:14:27 | 0:14:31 | |
Firstly, how do these breathalysers perform | 0:14:31 | 0:14:34 | |
when they're tested at 1.5 times the UK legal limit? | 0:14:34 | 0:14:39 | |
This is telling me I have a blood alcohol level of 0.05 | 0:14:39 | 0:14:42 | |
which is just over half the legal limit in the United Kingdom. | 0:14:42 | 0:14:47 | |
Whereas in fact, I'm 1.5 half times the legal limit. | 0:14:47 | 0:14:50 | |
This machine is reading less than half of what it should do. | 0:14:50 | 0:14:54 | |
This is grossly inaccurate. | 0:14:54 | 0:14:56 | |
If you relied on this fake breathalyser to check you were fit | 0:14:56 | 0:14:59 | |
to drive after drinking, you would break the law and risk your licence, | 0:14:59 | 0:15:03 | |
not to mention the lives of other road users. | 0:15:03 | 0:15:06 | |
It's got a reading of zero percent. | 0:15:06 | 0:15:08 | |
It's actually telling me I've got no alcohol at all in my body. | 0:15:08 | 0:15:12 | |
But how would these fake breathalysers react to breath | 0:15:12 | 0:15:15 | |
from a person who is three times the UK legal limit? | 0:15:15 | 0:15:18 | |
Yet again, the readings are zero. | 0:15:18 | 0:15:21 | |
Anybody who relies on this is really playing with fire. | 0:15:21 | 0:15:25 | |
All of these devices gave false readings | 0:15:25 | 0:15:28 | |
and their claims to be approved by the police are fake. | 0:15:28 | 0:15:31 | |
Dr Williams is concerned about the implications for road users. | 0:15:31 | 0:15:36 | |
These devices are purported to measure alcohol levels accurately. | 0:15:36 | 0:15:39 | |
But they are simply not. | 0:15:39 | 0:15:41 | |
We seem to allow these machines to come into the country | 0:15:41 | 0:15:43 | |
and be used to test people. | 0:15:43 | 0:15:45 | |
These instruments should not be on sale to the public. | 0:15:45 | 0:15:47 | |
They are certainly not police grade equipment. | 0:15:47 | 0:15:50 | |
We showed our test results to the head of Dorset Police's traffic unit, | 0:15:50 | 0:15:54 | |
Inspector Matt Butler. | 0:15:54 | 0:15:57 | |
That's really quite scary. | 0:15:57 | 0:15:59 | |
What worries me is people are going to think | 0:15:59 | 0:16:02 | |
they're doing the right thing, they're being sensible, | 0:16:02 | 0:16:04 | |
they're being safe, but in actual fact they're not. | 0:16:04 | 0:16:06 | |
They may go out, they may think they're safe to drive | 0:16:06 | 0:16:09 | |
and be involved in a crash, hurt themselves or hurt someone else. | 0:16:09 | 0:16:13 | |
So what really worries me is these pieces of equipment, rather than | 0:16:13 | 0:16:16 | |
making the roads safer they're actually making them more dangerous. | 0:16:16 | 0:16:19 | |
The police and Dorset Trading Standards also carried out a survey | 0:16:19 | 0:16:23 | |
of fake breathalysers bought online and their results were worrying. | 0:16:23 | 0:16:28 | |
Nine devices out of the 14 said you were safe to drive | 0:16:28 | 0:16:31 | |
when you weren't safe to drive. | 0:16:31 | 0:16:34 | |
You cannot rely on a piece of equipment that you buy | 0:16:34 | 0:16:37 | |
from the internet to make sure you are safe on the roads. | 0:16:37 | 0:16:40 | |
You may think you are safe but you may be over the limit. | 0:16:40 | 0:16:43 | |
The police officers on the front line who have to deal with | 0:16:45 | 0:16:48 | |
the damage caused by drink-driving have a simple message for drivers. | 0:16:48 | 0:16:53 | |
We go to these instances regularly and we have to go and deal | 0:16:53 | 0:16:56 | |
with the consequence of it. | 0:16:56 | 0:16:58 | |
Knock on the door, give the bad news to the family. | 0:16:58 | 0:17:00 | |
The message we give people is, don't drink and drive. It's not worth it. | 0:17:00 | 0:17:04 | |
Baking has taken off in a really big way. | 0:17:10 | 0:17:13 | |
We now spend around £1.8 billion a year on home bakery products | 0:17:13 | 0:17:18 | |
and one of the most popular ways to make your creation stand out | 0:17:18 | 0:17:21 | |
is to use this, edible glitter. | 0:17:21 | 0:17:23 | |
Just sprinkle it over your home-made cupcakes. | 0:17:23 | 0:17:26 | |
But you've guessed it, it's not what it seems. | 0:17:26 | 0:17:29 | |
It's fair to say that the nation has gone baking crazy. | 0:17:33 | 0:17:36 | |
Over 40 million Brits say they enjoy baking at home. That's a lot of cake! | 0:17:36 | 0:17:41 | |
And the cake decoration business is booming with sales of baking products | 0:17:41 | 0:17:46 | |
up by over 60%. | 0:17:46 | 0:17:48 | |
Now the fakers want a slice of the action. | 0:17:48 | 0:17:50 | |
Susan Farmer is a cake entrepreneur. | 0:17:52 | 0:17:55 | |
Her business had started selling glitter from a company called | 0:17:55 | 0:17:58 | |
Edible Art of Durham. | 0:17:58 | 0:18:00 | |
I was quite impressed when we got the product in. | 0:18:00 | 0:18:02 | |
It was lovely and sparkly. | 0:18:02 | 0:18:04 | |
Tried it on a few sample cakes and things like that | 0:18:04 | 0:18:06 | |
so people could actually see it on a product. | 0:18:06 | 0:18:09 | |
We could hardly keep it on the shelves some weeks, it was just flying off. | 0:18:09 | 0:18:13 | |
I thought it was a lovely product | 0:18:13 | 0:18:15 | |
so I was quite happy to recommend it to my customers. | 0:18:15 | 0:18:18 | |
But Susan was about to lose trust in the edible glitter. | 0:18:18 | 0:18:22 | |
The Food Standards Agency had become concerned that the glitter | 0:18:22 | 0:18:26 | |
being sold as edible was anything but. | 0:18:26 | 0:18:29 | |
Trading Standards began an investigation | 0:18:29 | 0:18:32 | |
into Edible Art of Durham | 0:18:32 | 0:18:34 | |
and took samples of the glitter from Susan's shelves | 0:18:34 | 0:18:37 | |
and other stores across Yorkshire. | 0:18:37 | 0:18:39 | |
There was some concern that some of these items were not actually | 0:18:39 | 0:18:42 | |
foodstuffs and they contained other things. | 0:18:42 | 0:18:45 | |
So we visited various cake shops in West Yorkshire | 0:18:45 | 0:18:47 | |
to look at the items they were selling to make sure that they were | 0:18:47 | 0:18:50 | |
compliant with the Food Standards Agency guidance. | 0:18:50 | 0:18:53 | |
When Trading Standards looked at the jars of edible art glitter, | 0:18:53 | 0:18:57 | |
there were no ingredients listed despite some labels claiming | 0:18:57 | 0:19:01 | |
it was for human consumption. | 0:19:01 | 0:19:03 | |
The authorities needed to find out exactly what was in this so-called edible glitter. | 0:19:03 | 0:19:07 | |
Samples were sent off for testing at West Yorkshire's public laboratory. | 0:19:07 | 0:19:12 | |
This was the first stage of the investigation, | 0:19:12 | 0:19:14 | |
looking to get an idea of what the material is. | 0:19:14 | 0:19:17 | |
A very simple test is just to put it in water. Does it dissolve? | 0:19:17 | 0:19:21 | |
You see these little particles of glitter are not reacting with | 0:19:21 | 0:19:24 | |
the water at all, and we just get this snowstorm effect. | 0:19:24 | 0:19:28 | |
Immediately, that gives us an idea we are not | 0:19:28 | 0:19:30 | |
looking at foodstuffs, we're looking at something else. | 0:19:30 | 0:19:33 | |
So, the scientists had confirmed this glitter was not a food. | 0:19:34 | 0:19:38 | |
What exactly was it? | 0:19:38 | 0:19:40 | |
They decided to analyse the glitter and a microscope. | 0:19:40 | 0:19:43 | |
The pieces of glitter were all similar in size | 0:19:43 | 0:19:47 | |
and similar hexagonal shapes. | 0:19:47 | 0:19:49 | |
Thin and very regular but yet with jagged edges. | 0:19:49 | 0:19:52 | |
So not like a natural material at all. | 0:19:52 | 0:19:55 | |
At this stage we were beginning to think it might have been plastic. | 0:19:55 | 0:19:58 | |
Further tests confirmed Trading Standards' suspicions. | 0:19:58 | 0:20:02 | |
The glitter was in fact made up of polyethylene terephthalate, | 0:20:02 | 0:20:06 | |
the type of plastic used to make bottles. | 0:20:06 | 0:20:09 | |
Edible Art glitter was definitely not edible | 0:20:09 | 0:20:12 | |
but unsuspecting members of the public had been eating it. | 0:20:12 | 0:20:16 | |
It's not a food. | 0:20:16 | 0:20:17 | |
Physically, it's in tiny hexagons with jagged edges | 0:20:17 | 0:20:20 | |
and isn't something people should be consuming. | 0:20:20 | 0:20:23 | |
So, it was a clear breach of food safety legislation because here was | 0:20:23 | 0:20:27 | |
a material, not a food, but a plastic | 0:20:27 | 0:20:29 | |
being sold for human consumption. | 0:20:29 | 0:20:32 | |
Now that Trading Standards knew the glitter was plastic, | 0:20:34 | 0:20:37 | |
they also knew the claims on the labels | 0:20:37 | 0:20:39 | |
suggesting the glitter was food must be fake. | 0:20:39 | 0:20:42 | |
It says that the article contains E171, which is a food additive. | 0:20:42 | 0:20:46 | |
It also has a use by date of 2030. | 0:20:46 | 0:20:50 | |
A consumer would conclude that this item is an edible food glitter. | 0:20:50 | 0:20:53 | |
And what about the name of the company | 0:20:55 | 0:20:57 | |
making the fake edible glitter, EdAble Art Limited of Durham? | 0:20:57 | 0:21:01 | |
Despite the unusual spelling of the word, | 0:21:01 | 0:21:04 | |
it did suggest that the glitter was indeed edible. | 0:21:04 | 0:21:07 | |
When Trading Standards questioned EdAble Art about this, | 0:21:07 | 0:21:10 | |
the company had an interesting defence. | 0:21:10 | 0:21:13 | |
The trader actually made some interesting comments | 0:21:14 | 0:21:17 | |
that the phrase EdAble Art actually related to the name of three mice. | 0:21:17 | 0:21:22 | |
So it was Ed, Able and Art. | 0:21:22 | 0:21:25 | |
So it didn't actually mean that the product was edible, | 0:21:25 | 0:21:28 | |
which I found slightly bizarre. | 0:21:28 | 0:21:30 | |
But in essence, we took the view that this product, as labelled, | 0:21:30 | 0:21:34 | |
would give rise to consumers believing | 0:21:34 | 0:21:36 | |
that it was a foodstuff and would apply it to cakes. | 0:21:36 | 0:21:39 | |
Back in Durham, Susan Farmer was told by Trading Standards | 0:21:41 | 0:21:44 | |
to immediately remove her entire stock of fake glitter from her shelves. | 0:21:44 | 0:21:48 | |
The general public were also being warned not to eat the fake glitter | 0:21:48 | 0:21:52 | |
as its effects on the human body weren't known. | 0:21:52 | 0:21:55 | |
When I found out what they found in the product, | 0:21:56 | 0:21:59 | |
I was absolutely disgusted. | 0:21:59 | 0:22:01 | |
I felt as if I had been duped for about three years | 0:22:01 | 0:22:03 | |
because that is how long I was stocking the product. | 0:22:03 | 0:22:06 | |
Susan hadn't just been selling the fake glitter, | 0:22:08 | 0:22:10 | |
she had unwittingly been sprinkling the particles of plastic | 0:22:10 | 0:22:14 | |
all over the cakes she'd baked for customers. | 0:22:14 | 0:22:17 | |
I had used the glitter on wedding cakes, cupcakes, christening cakes, | 0:22:17 | 0:22:22 | |
so obviously aimed at children, | 0:22:22 | 0:22:24 | |
birthday cakes aimed at children, which is the biggest thing. | 0:22:24 | 0:22:29 | |
It shocks you to think I've put this product on this cake | 0:22:29 | 0:22:33 | |
that kids are going to be eating. | 0:22:33 | 0:22:35 | |
It is not a nice feeling to have. | 0:22:35 | 0:22:37 | |
But fake glitter is not the only fake baking product out there. | 0:22:39 | 0:22:42 | |
In Swansea, Rhys Harries and his Trading Standards team | 0:22:44 | 0:22:47 | |
have seized a batch of over 200 suspected fake cake toppers. | 0:22:47 | 0:22:51 | |
Figurines that are used to decorate children's birthday cakes. | 0:22:51 | 0:22:55 | |
These cake toppers, we found in a local patisserie store | 0:22:57 | 0:23:01 | |
which was selling fresh cakes for birthdays, Christmas parties, etc. | 0:23:01 | 0:23:06 | |
We have Minions, which are quite popular, Disney princess, | 0:23:06 | 0:23:10 | |
lots of Spider-Man figures. | 0:23:10 | 0:23:12 | |
We sent a sample of all of these off to the trademark holders being Disney and Marvel | 0:23:12 | 0:23:16 | |
and they've confirmed that they're all counterfeit. | 0:23:16 | 0:23:19 | |
None of them are genuine products. | 0:23:19 | 0:23:21 | |
The fakers have even put fake Disney trademarks | 0:23:21 | 0:23:23 | |
on some of the fake cake toppers. | 0:23:23 | 0:23:25 | |
But the biggest worry for Swansea Trading Standards | 0:23:25 | 0:23:28 | |
is that they will come into contact with food. | 0:23:28 | 0:23:32 | |
We have concerns about them, really. First, what's in them? | 0:23:32 | 0:23:36 | |
What hygienic conditions they were made in? Is it a lead-based paint? | 0:23:36 | 0:23:39 | |
What is going to leach out from this plastic from the paints | 0:23:39 | 0:23:43 | |
into the top of the cake? | 0:23:43 | 0:23:45 | |
Any consumers looking to buy this type of cake topper | 0:23:45 | 0:23:48 | |
or any other sort of branded good, | 0:23:48 | 0:23:50 | |
they need to get some assurances first to make sure this is a genuine product | 0:23:50 | 0:23:54 | |
and they are not buying a fake product that could be dangerous. | 0:23:54 | 0:23:57 | |
Swansea Trading Standards are still investigating | 0:23:59 | 0:24:02 | |
the source of the fake cake toppers. | 0:24:02 | 0:24:03 | |
But back in Leeds, West Yorkshire Trading Standards finally | 0:24:06 | 0:24:09 | |
brought a case against EdAble Art Limited of Durham | 0:24:09 | 0:24:13 | |
for the sale of their not very edible fake glitter. | 0:24:13 | 0:24:16 | |
It turned out the product had never been designed to be put on cakes. | 0:24:16 | 0:24:19 | |
This business had in essence been passing off arts | 0:24:19 | 0:24:22 | |
and crafts decorations as a food article, which is not acceptable. | 0:24:22 | 0:24:26 | |
Their intended use was actually to be used on Christmas | 0:24:26 | 0:24:29 | |
and birthday cards and should never have entered the food chain. | 0:24:29 | 0:24:32 | |
The company was ordered to pay over £13,500 in fines and costs | 0:24:33 | 0:24:37 | |
at Leeds Magistrates Court. | 0:24:37 | 0:24:40 | |
Trading Standards hope that this will send a strong message | 0:24:40 | 0:24:43 | |
to those supplying goods that breach the Food Safety Act. | 0:24:43 | 0:24:46 | |
The penalties for the these sorts of offences are very serious. | 0:24:46 | 0:24:49 | |
Trading Standards officers up and down the UK do take food samples on a regular basis | 0:24:49 | 0:24:54 | |
and where they come back wrong or there is an element of fraud, | 0:24:54 | 0:24:57 | |
traders should expect to be prosecuted. | 0:24:57 | 0:24:59 | |
An interesting ornament. | 0:25:06 | 0:25:08 | |
It was for sale online and the seller said it's made of cow bone | 0:25:08 | 0:25:12 | |
and it's an antique. | 0:25:12 | 0:25:14 | |
But it could be fake. | 0:25:14 | 0:25:15 | |
It could be made of something else. | 0:25:15 | 0:25:17 | |
Something that is at the heart of an illegal worldwide industry. | 0:25:17 | 0:25:21 | |
So is this ivory? | 0:25:21 | 0:25:24 | |
Every year, around 35,000 elephants are killed in Africa for their tusks | 0:25:28 | 0:25:32 | |
to feed the multi-million pound illegal trade in ivory. | 0:25:32 | 0:25:36 | |
Many websites have banned the sale of ivory because of the trail | 0:25:38 | 0:25:41 | |
of destruction left in the wake of this illicit business. | 0:25:41 | 0:25:45 | |
But fakers have discovered a way to bypass the law | 0:25:45 | 0:25:47 | |
and sell their illegal ivory online. | 0:25:47 | 0:25:50 | |
They're passing off products made from illegal ivory | 0:25:50 | 0:25:54 | |
as being made of cow bone. | 0:25:54 | 0:25:56 | |
Investigators like Tania McCrea-Steele | 0:25:56 | 0:25:58 | |
from the International Fund for Animal Welfare | 0:25:58 | 0:26:01 | |
are concerned that consumers could unwittingly get themselves | 0:26:01 | 0:26:05 | |
wrapped up in an illicit trade. | 0:26:05 | 0:26:07 | |
People might accidentally be buying an illegal ivory trinket | 0:26:07 | 0:26:12 | |
and breaking the law without their knowledge or consent, | 0:26:12 | 0:26:15 | |
not realising by doing that they're fuelling | 0:26:15 | 0:26:18 | |
the slaughter of tens of thousands of elephants. | 0:26:18 | 0:26:22 | |
Elephant ivory products made before 1947, before ivory laws | 0:26:22 | 0:26:26 | |
came into force, can be legally sold in the antiques trade. | 0:26:26 | 0:26:30 | |
But if they were made after 1947 then their sale is illegal | 0:26:30 | 0:26:34 | |
under international law. | 0:26:34 | 0:26:35 | |
Tania's team is concerned that the fakers are flouting the rules | 0:26:35 | 0:26:39 | |
by lying about what type of bone their products are made from | 0:26:39 | 0:26:42 | |
and if it turns out to be ivory, how old it might be. | 0:26:42 | 0:26:46 | |
Today, the team is investigating suspicious adverts | 0:26:47 | 0:26:50 | |
and passing their details on to the police. | 0:26:50 | 0:26:53 | |
I have just gone online now | 0:26:53 | 0:26:54 | |
and immediately I have found this item | 0:26:54 | 0:26:57 | |
which is masquerading as a cow bone, but I believe that is a fake claim | 0:26:57 | 0:27:01 | |
because this looks like it has got Schreger lines. | 0:27:01 | 0:27:03 | |
Schreger lines are unique markings that can be seen in cross sections | 0:27:03 | 0:27:07 | |
of elephant ivory, but never in cow bone. | 0:27:07 | 0:27:11 | |
The lines can sometimes be seen in photographs in online adverts, | 0:27:11 | 0:27:14 | |
like the one Tania has spotted here. | 0:27:14 | 0:27:16 | |
The elephants are being killed far away on Africa savannas | 0:27:16 | 0:27:20 | |
but this type of trade is bringing it into our homes. | 0:27:20 | 0:27:23 | |
Fake Britain decided to investigate how easy it might be | 0:27:23 | 0:27:26 | |
for a consumer to accidentally buy illegal fake ivory online. | 0:27:26 | 0:27:31 | |
We bought this carving that claimed to be antique and made from cow bone. | 0:27:31 | 0:27:35 | |
We took the carving to the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh | 0:27:35 | 0:27:40 | |
for the vertebrates expert Dr Andrew Kitchener to examine. | 0:27:40 | 0:27:44 | |
This is apparently made of cow bone, | 0:27:44 | 0:27:47 | |
but in fact it has these very distinctive lines on it. | 0:27:47 | 0:27:50 | |
This suggests the carving is not made of cow bone as claimed in the advert. | 0:27:51 | 0:27:55 | |
But it's actually made from an elephant's ivory tusk. | 0:27:55 | 0:27:59 | |
These are slices through an elephant tusk. | 0:28:01 | 0:28:04 | |
This is towards the base of the tusk where you can see the pulp cavity, | 0:28:04 | 0:28:07 | |
which is where all the blood vessels and nerves are. | 0:28:07 | 0:28:10 | |
This tells us from the orientation of this piece | 0:28:10 | 0:28:14 | |
that it was cut from the outer curve of a tusk. | 0:28:14 | 0:28:17 | |
The fact that it claims to be cow bone is just a complete fake. | 0:28:17 | 0:28:21 | |
So this is ivory. | 0:28:22 | 0:28:24 | |
But what kind of ivory is it? | 0:28:24 | 0:28:26 | |
And where did it come from? | 0:28:26 | 0:28:28 | |
To find out, Fake Britain turned to forensic science. | 0:28:28 | 0:28:32 | |
I am just going to remove the wheels. | 0:28:32 | 0:28:34 | |
In the past few weeks, | 0:28:34 | 0:28:36 | |
Dr Lucy Webster at the Wildlife DNA Forensic Unit in Edinburgh | 0:28:36 | 0:28:40 | |
has been running tests to extract DNA from the bone carving. | 0:28:40 | 0:28:44 | |
A DNA test will allow us | 0:28:44 | 0:28:46 | |
to distinguish between the different elephant species | 0:28:46 | 0:28:49 | |
and whether it has come from an African elephant or an Asian elephant, | 0:28:49 | 0:28:52 | |
to see what type of ivory this may have been carved from. | 0:28:52 | 0:28:56 | |
The results of the DNA test confirm that our carving is fake fake ivory. | 0:28:56 | 0:29:02 | |
Despite the claims in the advert, | 0:29:02 | 0:29:04 | |
it is definitely made from the ivory tusks of an African elephant, | 0:29:04 | 0:29:08 | |
which is an endangered species and protected by international law. | 0:29:08 | 0:29:12 | |
Further analysis showed our ivory carving to be illegal. | 0:29:13 | 0:29:17 | |
It was made well after 1947 and is not antique as stated in the advert. | 0:29:17 | 0:29:22 | |
Fake Britain has handed the illegal fake ivory carving over to Alan Roberts | 0:29:22 | 0:29:27 | |
of the National Wildlife Crime Unit for further investigation. | 0:29:27 | 0:29:31 | |
He has a word of warning for anyone buying carvings online. | 0:29:31 | 0:29:35 | |
If you buy something that is mis-described, | 0:29:35 | 0:29:38 | |
that might be unlawful, | 0:29:38 | 0:29:40 | |
that might find you with a knock on the door from the police, | 0:29:40 | 0:29:43 | |
A - you lose your item, B - you may be prosecuted for it | 0:29:43 | 0:29:47 | |
and end up in court for something you can quite easily avoid | 0:29:47 | 0:29:51 | |
by buying it through a legitimate source. | 0:29:51 | 0:29:54 | |
So you need some work done at your home. | 0:30:00 | 0:30:03 | |
Who do you get to do it properly? | 0:30:03 | 0:30:05 | |
Well, you might look for someone | 0:30:05 | 0:30:07 | |
who is a member of a recognised trade association or federation. | 0:30:07 | 0:30:10 | |
Thousands of builders, roofers, plumbers | 0:30:10 | 0:30:12 | |
and window installers belong to them. | 0:30:12 | 0:30:15 | |
This is a quotation for work at a house in Staffordshire | 0:30:15 | 0:30:18 | |
and it has loads of trade association logos on it. | 0:30:18 | 0:30:22 | |
But they are all fake. | 0:30:22 | 0:30:23 | |
And that caused the home owner all sorts of problems. | 0:30:23 | 0:30:27 | |
Home renovation is big business | 0:30:29 | 0:30:31 | |
with the average home improvement project costing £13,000. | 0:30:31 | 0:30:37 | |
But who can you trust to do it? | 0:30:37 | 0:30:39 | |
Well, for every aspect of building work there's a relevant trade association | 0:30:39 | 0:30:43 | |
designed to improve standards | 0:30:43 | 0:30:45 | |
and to prevent consumers falling prey to rogue tradesmen. | 0:30:45 | 0:30:49 | |
To be a member of the trade association, a tradesmen must | 0:30:49 | 0:30:52 | |
often have the right qualifications and sign up to a code of practice. | 0:30:52 | 0:30:56 | |
In return, they can use the association's logo | 0:30:56 | 0:30:59 | |
to reassure and attract customers. | 0:30:59 | 0:31:02 | |
Customers like home owner Kevin Price. | 0:31:02 | 0:31:05 | |
The roof itself was in a bit of a mess. | 0:31:05 | 0:31:07 | |
It was about 30 years old, possibly even 40 years old. | 0:31:07 | 0:31:10 | |
Last year, Kevin decided to carry out some major roofing work | 0:31:10 | 0:31:13 | |
to his house in Staffordshire. | 0:31:13 | 0:31:16 | |
He turned to the internet and before long found the right person. | 0:31:16 | 0:31:19 | |
Or so he thought. | 0:31:19 | 0:31:21 | |
The gentleman was very amenable on the phone. He sounded very friendly. | 0:31:21 | 0:31:25 | |
He seemed to know what he was talking about. | 0:31:25 | 0:31:27 | |
He was very quick to get the quotation to me. | 0:31:27 | 0:31:30 | |
And Kevin was reassured that the roofer | 0:31:31 | 0:31:34 | |
appeared to be a member of various trade associations. | 0:31:34 | 0:31:37 | |
This is the quotation that he actually sent through. | 0:31:37 | 0:31:40 | |
Here is the list of jobs that he said he was going to do. | 0:31:40 | 0:31:44 | |
At the bottom you can actually see some logos, which I thought | 0:31:44 | 0:31:47 | |
at the time was a good sign that he was an accredited tradesmen. | 0:31:47 | 0:31:52 | |
But the logos that really got Kevin's attention | 0:31:52 | 0:31:55 | |
were the ones for an organisation called CompetentRoofer, | 0:31:55 | 0:31:58 | |
a government backed scheme. | 0:31:58 | 0:32:00 | |
I gave the gentleman the contract to do the job because of the logo. | 0:32:00 | 0:32:06 | |
Ray Horwood is the chief executive of CompetentRoofer, | 0:32:07 | 0:32:10 | |
which was set up to help improve standards in the roofing industry. | 0:32:10 | 0:32:14 | |
The CompetentRoofer scheme allows members | 0:32:15 | 0:32:18 | |
to certify their own work for building regulations. | 0:32:18 | 0:32:21 | |
They also have to meet strict standards. | 0:32:21 | 0:32:24 | |
To be a member, you have to be vetted | 0:32:24 | 0:32:26 | |
both in terms of the paperwork and on-site. | 0:32:26 | 0:32:29 | |
In terms of paperwork, we check the credit rating of the company, | 0:32:29 | 0:32:33 | |
we check they have got the correct insurance and liability insurance. | 0:32:33 | 0:32:37 | |
We also check they have the qualifications necessary to do that work. | 0:32:37 | 0:32:41 | |
We then send someone out to inspect them and check some work | 0:32:41 | 0:32:45 | |
actually in progress to make sure they are competent to do it. | 0:32:45 | 0:32:49 | |
Ray believes that while no scheme is perfect, his is not far off. | 0:32:49 | 0:32:54 | |
If there is something wrong with the roof, | 0:32:54 | 0:32:57 | |
we will go back to the company and ask them to fix it. | 0:32:57 | 0:33:00 | |
If the company for example becomes bankrupt in the ten years, | 0:33:00 | 0:33:03 | |
they have got a warranty that covers it. | 0:33:03 | 0:33:06 | |
So, really, it is the best guarantee you can possibly have. | 0:33:06 | 0:33:09 | |
And so Kevin thought his tradesman, | 0:33:10 | 0:33:13 | |
complete with his CompetentRoofer membership, | 0:33:13 | 0:33:15 | |
was bound to do a good job. | 0:33:15 | 0:33:17 | |
But not long after employing him, things started to go wrong. | 0:33:17 | 0:33:21 | |
The first thing that we noticed | 0:33:22 | 0:33:24 | |
was that the tiles on the gable end looked more like a jigsaw. | 0:33:24 | 0:33:28 | |
They weren't in line, they weren't as straight. | 0:33:28 | 0:33:31 | |
As you can see, that was the job that was left by the builder. | 0:33:31 | 0:33:35 | |
This completely contravenes any building regulations whatsoever. | 0:33:35 | 0:33:38 | |
As Kevin would find out, | 0:33:38 | 0:33:40 | |
this was just the beginning of his roofing woes. | 0:33:40 | 0:33:43 | |
We went inside the property and opened the loft hatch | 0:33:43 | 0:33:45 | |
where my father-in-law was actually showered by all of the foam | 0:33:45 | 0:33:50 | |
that had just been left in the loft space. | 0:33:50 | 0:33:53 | |
Half of the work that he was claiming to have been done | 0:33:53 | 0:33:56 | |
hadn't been done. | 0:33:56 | 0:33:58 | |
Kevin was now so concerned about the roof he felt he had no choice | 0:33:58 | 0:34:02 | |
but to ask a second company to come over and take a look. | 0:34:02 | 0:34:05 | |
What they found was even more worrying. | 0:34:05 | 0:34:07 | |
The tiles themselves were not fitted correctly. | 0:34:07 | 0:34:10 | |
They were loose and if there was any high wind | 0:34:10 | 0:34:13 | |
all of those would have been ripped off the roof | 0:34:13 | 0:34:15 | |
because none were nailed in place. | 0:34:15 | 0:34:17 | |
And they actually removed some of the tiles | 0:34:17 | 0:34:20 | |
to find the batons inside had been cut. | 0:34:20 | 0:34:23 | |
They basically said this had been laid by almost an amateur | 0:34:23 | 0:34:26 | |
and the whole roof had to be taken off and redone. | 0:34:26 | 0:34:29 | |
Kevin was left wondering how this disastrous turn of events | 0:34:29 | 0:34:33 | |
could have come about. | 0:34:33 | 0:34:35 | |
After all, he had hired a reputable company which seemed to have the | 0:34:35 | 0:34:38 | |
backing of a government approved scheme and had the logo to prove it. | 0:34:38 | 0:34:43 | |
I thought I was going to get a quality service | 0:34:43 | 0:34:45 | |
and I was going to have a standard of workmanship | 0:34:45 | 0:34:48 | |
that would be expected of a trading professional. | 0:34:48 | 0:34:52 | |
Finally, Kevin had had enough. | 0:34:52 | 0:34:54 | |
He contacted CompetentRoofer in the hope that they would intervene. | 0:34:54 | 0:34:58 | |
But he was in for a shock. | 0:34:58 | 0:35:00 | |
I was advised that the logo was actually fake, | 0:35:00 | 0:35:04 | |
that the gentleman was not a member of their organisation | 0:35:04 | 0:35:07 | |
nor had they ever received an application from either him or from the business | 0:35:07 | 0:35:12 | |
and they basically advised me to get in touch with Trading Standards. | 0:35:12 | 0:35:17 | |
Kevin had been the victim of a simple deception known as logo abuse. | 0:35:17 | 0:35:20 | |
The fake accreditation had duped him into hiring a rogue trader. | 0:35:20 | 0:35:24 | |
All the way through, he kept telling me that he wasn't a cowboy, | 0:35:24 | 0:35:27 | |
he wasn't ripping me off. | 0:35:27 | 0:35:29 | |
I have since found out that he's been ripping off a lot of people. | 0:35:29 | 0:35:33 | |
There are other people who have suffered at his hands. | 0:35:33 | 0:35:37 | |
So what is CompetentRoofer doing | 0:35:37 | 0:35:39 | |
to prevent fraudulent use of its logo? | 0:35:39 | 0:35:42 | |
Chief executive Ray Horwood says they take action wherever they can. | 0:35:42 | 0:35:47 | |
Anybody who runs any kind of successful business | 0:35:48 | 0:35:51 | |
or successful mark will know that however many strengths | 0:35:51 | 0:35:57 | |
you put into your work in guaranteeing that logo, | 0:35:57 | 0:36:01 | |
people can copy it. | 0:36:01 | 0:36:03 | |
So we get it on a semi-regular basis | 0:36:03 | 0:36:07 | |
and any report of misuse of logo, | 0:36:07 | 0:36:11 | |
we go straight to Trading Standards and they follow it up. | 0:36:11 | 0:36:14 | |
The use of fake logos is a prosecutable offence | 0:36:14 | 0:36:17 | |
and can carry a hefty fine. | 0:36:17 | 0:36:20 | |
But that's not enough to prevent widespread logo abuse. | 0:36:20 | 0:36:23 | |
Kevin's roofer wasn't just faking CompetentRoofer logos. | 0:36:23 | 0:36:28 | |
Trust Mark is the Government's flagship approved trader scheme. | 0:36:28 | 0:36:32 | |
He was also faking the Trust Mark logo | 0:36:32 | 0:36:34 | |
and he's not the only faker out there. | 0:36:34 | 0:36:37 | |
We spoke to Trust Mark who told us | 0:36:37 | 0:36:39 | |
they have been the victim of persistent logo abuse | 0:36:39 | 0:36:43 | |
with over 200 companies found to be falsely using the logo in one year alone. | 0:36:43 | 0:36:47 | |
Kevin took the roofing company to the Small Claims Court. | 0:36:48 | 0:36:52 | |
Judgment in default was entered against them | 0:36:52 | 0:36:54 | |
because they failed to respond to the proceedings. | 0:36:54 | 0:36:57 | |
Fake Britain tried to contact the company for comment, | 0:36:57 | 0:37:00 | |
but nobody responded. | 0:37:00 | 0:37:02 | |
For Kevin and his family, | 0:37:02 | 0:37:04 | |
the ordeal has taken a huge emotional and financial toll. | 0:37:04 | 0:37:07 | |
The gentleman charged us £3,360. | 0:37:09 | 0:37:13 | |
It cost a further £2,510 to put right what he had done. | 0:37:13 | 0:37:17 | |
I have resigned myself to the fact | 0:37:17 | 0:37:19 | |
that I'm never going to see a penny of that money ever again. | 0:37:19 | 0:37:23 | |
Fairy lights used to be just for Christmas. | 0:37:31 | 0:37:35 | |
Now, they can glitter away all year round | 0:37:35 | 0:37:37 | |
at parties, events and in shops, | 0:37:37 | 0:37:39 | |
adding a bit of sparkle and colour to our lives | 0:37:39 | 0:37:42 | |
or just making us feel more cheerful. | 0:37:42 | 0:37:44 | |
But as with anything you're going to plug into mains electricity, they need to be absolutely safe. | 0:37:44 | 0:37:49 | |
So I don't think I'll plug these ones in. | 0:37:49 | 0:37:51 | |
Because they are fake. | 0:37:51 | 0:37:53 | |
From our homes to our shops, we love LED fairy lights. | 0:37:56 | 0:38:00 | |
They are a cost-effective way of bringing sparkle to our surroundings. | 0:38:00 | 0:38:04 | |
Will Lightburn from West Sussex | 0:38:05 | 0:38:07 | |
decided to get some to spruce up his house. | 0:38:07 | 0:38:09 | |
Driving around, I kept seeing all these houses | 0:38:09 | 0:38:12 | |
with these fancy new LEDs, like blue ones. | 0:38:12 | 0:38:15 | |
And I thought, they look quite nice. | 0:38:15 | 0:38:17 | |
I ought to put a set of those up because my place looks pretty dark | 0:38:17 | 0:38:22 | |
in comparison with other places around. | 0:38:22 | 0:38:24 | |
Will decided to look online for some fairy lights | 0:38:24 | 0:38:28 | |
that would brighten up the front of his house. | 0:38:28 | 0:38:30 | |
He ordered some and they arrived a few days later. | 0:38:30 | 0:38:33 | |
Will couldn't wait to use them. | 0:38:33 | 0:38:35 | |
Looked all right. I unwrapped them and put the lights on the trees. | 0:38:37 | 0:38:42 | |
I tested them out and they worked and they looked really good. | 0:38:42 | 0:38:46 | |
So far, so good, but the plug was about to be pulled | 0:38:46 | 0:38:49 | |
on the new look Will had given his home. | 0:38:49 | 0:38:52 | |
One evening I came home and I noticed some of them weren't working | 0:38:52 | 0:38:55 | |
and I thought I must go and investigate what's up with those. | 0:38:55 | 0:38:58 | |
So I started just going through them, | 0:38:58 | 0:39:01 | |
starting at one end and flexing them, | 0:39:01 | 0:39:03 | |
looking at them for broken wires | 0:39:03 | 0:39:06 | |
and when I got to pretty much the end one, | 0:39:06 | 0:39:08 | |
the one furthest away from the control box, | 0:39:08 | 0:39:11 | |
suddenly I got an electric shock. | 0:39:11 | 0:39:14 | |
What Will hadn't realised was that his new fairy lights | 0:39:15 | 0:39:18 | |
were live with mains electric current. | 0:39:18 | 0:39:21 | |
It was painful, | 0:39:21 | 0:39:23 | |
but I dropped them straight away as soon as I got the shock. | 0:39:23 | 0:39:27 | |
The reaction was to let go of the lights. | 0:39:27 | 0:39:30 | |
But I was more surprised than anything | 0:39:30 | 0:39:33 | |
because it hadn't even crossed my mind that there could possibly be | 0:39:33 | 0:39:36 | |
any mains voltage on those tiny little | 0:39:36 | 0:39:40 | |
low-voltage LED lights. | 0:39:40 | 0:39:42 | |
Will was surprised he had received a shock from lights | 0:39:44 | 0:39:47 | |
that were carrying clear safety markings. | 0:39:47 | 0:39:49 | |
They said that they were certified to safety standards on the listing. | 0:39:50 | 0:39:57 | |
The seller looked pretty legitimate. | 0:39:57 | 0:40:00 | |
The listing looked OK. | 0:40:00 | 0:40:03 | |
Their feedback was OK and it had the address of the company. | 0:40:03 | 0:40:06 | |
It was an English address so it's coming from England. | 0:40:06 | 0:40:10 | |
So yes, I'm surprised they could get away with something like that. | 0:40:10 | 0:40:13 | |
It turns out that Will's fairy lights aren't the only unsafe ones | 0:40:15 | 0:40:18 | |
with safety markings out there. | 0:40:18 | 0:40:20 | |
Ian Smith from Northampton Trading Standards recently raided an online | 0:40:21 | 0:40:25 | |
seller of fake fairy lights very similar to those purchased by Will. | 0:40:25 | 0:40:29 | |
We had considerable concerns with regard to the safety | 0:40:31 | 0:40:33 | |
of the fairy lights in question and we felt | 0:40:33 | 0:40:37 | |
we had no option but to take away those that he still had in stock. | 0:40:37 | 0:40:41 | |
These are the fairy lights as we found them | 0:40:41 | 0:40:44 | |
in the unit that was posting them out. | 0:40:44 | 0:40:46 | |
This is how he received them, apparently. | 0:40:48 | 0:40:50 | |
If we open one up... | 0:40:50 | 0:40:52 | |
..we should find an example of the fairy lights that were being sent out. | 0:40:55 | 0:40:58 | |
Brand-new. | 0:40:58 | 0:41:00 | |
Ian sent the fairy lights to independent test house TUV, | 0:41:01 | 0:41:05 | |
where expert Richard Poate carried out some safety checks. | 0:41:05 | 0:41:08 | |
He was very concerned by his findings. | 0:41:08 | 0:41:11 | |
I can put my finger on here. | 0:41:12 | 0:41:14 | |
If I did this for real and this was plugged in, | 0:41:14 | 0:41:16 | |
I would be having a serious mains electric shock right now. | 0:41:16 | 0:41:20 | |
This electrocution risk could only mean one thing | 0:41:20 | 0:41:22 | |
for the safety markings on the fairy lights. | 0:41:22 | 0:41:25 | |
Symbols that are moulded into it are obviously intended to fool | 0:41:26 | 0:41:31 | |
the authorities and consumers into believing that this item has been | 0:41:31 | 0:41:36 | |
properly tested and complies with the European safety standards. | 0:41:36 | 0:41:40 | |
But it isn't the case. | 0:41:40 | 0:41:43 | |
The markings are fake. | 0:41:43 | 0:41:45 | |
Fake safety markings but very real safety risks, | 0:41:45 | 0:41:48 | |
as Trading Standards discovered when they examined | 0:41:48 | 0:41:51 | |
a load of faulty lights returned by disgruntled customers. | 0:41:51 | 0:41:55 | |
Consumers have returned items that have clearly either melted, | 0:41:57 | 0:42:00 | |
got hot or in some instances clearly appear to have been on fire. | 0:42:00 | 0:42:04 | |
On this one, the mains lead, | 0:42:04 | 0:42:07 | |
the insulation of the wire along the mains lead appears to have melted, | 0:42:07 | 0:42:11 | |
indicating that it has obviously been subject to a fair bit of heat. | 0:42:11 | 0:42:15 | |
And the melting of the insulation also raises the possibility | 0:42:15 | 0:42:21 | |
that a live wire could be exposed to a consumer as well. | 0:42:21 | 0:42:25 | |
Ian thinks that fake fairy lights like this | 0:42:26 | 0:42:29 | |
could be putting lives at risk across the country. | 0:42:29 | 0:42:32 | |
If one of these items did catch fire in somebody's home, | 0:42:32 | 0:42:35 | |
there is the potential risk that they will cause a fire | 0:42:35 | 0:42:40 | |
and the follow-on risk of that is that | 0:42:40 | 0:42:43 | |
if somebody's house is on fire it could lead to fatalities. | 0:42:43 | 0:42:47 | |
Back in West Sussex, | 0:42:47 | 0:42:49 | |
Will Lightburn is realising what a narrow escape he had. | 0:42:49 | 0:42:52 | |
Luckily, I am quite a strong healthy chap. | 0:42:52 | 0:42:55 | |
But you know, if a child had gone and touched it | 0:42:55 | 0:42:58 | |
or one of my dogs had gone up and sniffed it with a wet nose, | 0:42:58 | 0:43:01 | |
it might have been a different matter. | 0:43:01 | 0:43:03 | |
That's all from Fake Britain. Goodbye. | 0:43:09 | 0:43:11 |