Episode 10 Rip Off Britain

We asked you who's left you feeling ripped off

when it comes to your holidays,

and you came back with a catalogue of travel disasters.

This can't be happening.

It's a nightmare! Wake me up from it, please.

It was just a shambles.

That's the best way to say it, it was just a shambles.

So whether it's a deliberate rip-off,

a simple mistake or indeed a catch in the small print,

we'll find out why you were out of pocket,

and what you can do about it.

Your stories, your money.

This is Rip-Off Britain.

Hello, and thanks so much for joining us here in Tenerife

for our very special series that's investigating disasters

that can happen when you're away on holiday.

Now today, we're going to be setting our sights

on some of the biggest names in the travel business.

Some of them have been with us for years,

and have got years of experience.

Others, with more a recently-won reputation,

are, kind of, new kids on the block

but, either way, as far as you're concerned,

they are still getting it wrong.

Now, it may be that that's the reason you chose to book

with a particular company in the first place,

because it had a familiar name, a certain image -

or it's simply regarded as having the best deals -

but, while you might assume

that going with one of the bigger players

buys you better service if things do go wrong,

I'm afraid that isn't how the cases we'll be looking at

actually panned out. Far from it.

Indeed, the people who'll be sharing their stories with us today

all feel incredibly let down

by the way their situations were handled.

They'd hoped for better from a big name

but, in fact they'd say that,

instead of living up to expectations,

these well-known companies actually made things worse.

Coming up...

The hidden charge adding hundreds of dollars to American hotel bills.

So, what are you paying for?

And is it legal?

The hotel's being greedy and it's just spoiling it.

It's just spoiling all the holiday for people like me and my wife,

and anybody else who is going.

Your normal, average holiday-maker.

And how your home could end up being advertised on Airbnb

for holiday-makers to rent,

without you knowing anything about it.

When we eventually got the house back,

the damage was such

that there were burn marks on all the furniture,

so something had been going on in there -

I just don't know what.

When you book a holiday,

you'll typically assume that the price per night

that's been advertised or you've been quoted,

is going to be the total price that you'll pay

when you finish.

But not necessarily

because, if you're one of almost four million Britons

who regularly jet off to the United States each year,

you may well have spotted that an increasing number of hotels

are adding an extra charge to the bill.

And it's one that,

whether you use the services that it's supposed to be covering or not,

you've got no choice but to pay up.

Viva Las Vegas!

A city of high rollers and high living

that, from the moment they saw it,

convinced Colin Towel and wife Lynne

they'd won the holiday jackpot,

and they've been coming back ever since.

The reason why we like going back to Vegas

is because it's just a mad, exciting city.

It's got an atmosphere of nowhere else you can go,

probably anywhere in the world.

When you go in the hotels

and you see all these high-roller gamblers

from all over the world, it's so entertaining.

It's unbelievable.

And, though they enjoy a bit of action on the slot machines,

they don't gamble when it comes to budgeting for their holiday.

It's an expensive holiday, and it's something you save up all year for.

We try to get the best deal we can,

we're checking on the internet sites and things like that,

and with this travel agent.

But on their most recent trips,

they've started to feel that the odds are stacked against them

when it comes to working out how much cash they'll need to put aside

for their holiday...

because, when they've made it to the hotel,

they've found themselves being asked to fork out

a few dollars more than they'd like,

thanks to an extra "resort fee" slapped on the bill.

We've been going to Las Vegas since 2005

and, when we started going, there was nothing like any resort fees

but, in the last couple of years,

these resort fees have crept in.

It's an underhand tactic, the way they do it

because the price of the room

is in bold, big numbers,

whereas the additional resort fees is in small print.

Often, very small.

And sometimes, as we'll see,

it may not immediately be shown at all.

A hotel's resort fee is typically a fixed daily charge added to the bill

to cover anything from Wi-Fi

through to bottled water or a daily paper,

to the use of the pool and the gym.

12. 12. It's a winner.

Well done, well done.

Some of the services it includes

you might previously have expected to get for free

or you may have no interest or intention of using them -

but rather than being optional, they're mandatory,

so you'll be forced to pay

even if you didn't use anything that it covers.

I feel really upset about having to pay for something that I don't use.

If it's an extra, you pay for it as an extra.

You should not be paying for things that you just don't use at all.

But that's not the way most Vegas hotels see it.

And a charge once limited to only high-end resorts

has, over the last few years,

come to be the norm wherever you stay on the Strip.

Controversial these fees may be,

but they're also completely legal after being signed off by the

US Government's consumer protection agency,

the Federal Trade Commission, in 2012.

As long as hotels make clear what surcharges are for

before customers make a booking,

then a resort fee is totally above board.

But on Colin and Lynne's last trip,

because they hadn't known about the resort fees in advance,

they were able to successfully persuade the hotel

that they shouldn't have to pay it.

They hit us with them at the reception desk.

We argued it, and we says, "We didn't get told.

"We didn't know anything about these resort fees,"

and we got, you know, they let us off.

We got the resort fees waived.

But this year,

because the couple now did know about the fees before booking,

the hotel wasn't prepared to waive them

and, as the charge can quickly mount up,

in this case, the daily fee was an extra $32 -

Colin and Lynne felt they'd no choice

but to choose somewhere cheaper,

further away from the strip at the heart of the Vegas action.

Everything's happening on the strip,

but we've no option this time.

The only other option was...

just to boycott Vegas.

We just wasn't going to go.

After seeing what a money-spinner resort fees can be,

even those Vegas hotels that had initially held out against them,

have now embraced these extra charges,

leaving Colin and Lisa worried that they'll soon be priced out of

holidaying there altogether.

They're not just a small percentage of what your room rate would be.

They could be 25, they could be 30%, or more,

of what your room rate is.

But this time, what happens in Vegas

certainly hasn't stayed in Vegas.

Resort fees are now catching on

in many other popular American destinations, too.

In the Florida Keys,

you could have up to $39 a night stuck on the bill

and, in New York,

hotels may add around $43

to their nightly fees.

Such a big addition to your bill

is something you'll want to know about

as soon as you make an enquiry

on how much a room is going to cost.

But some say that doesn't always happen

and that the resort fee may be hidden away,

so you'll be drawn in by the lower headline rate.

That's just one of the reasons why American senator Claire McCaskill

has been campaigning against them.

There is a rate for a hotel,

and you think, "Boy, that's a good deal."

Then you get to the hotel, you check in and, when you check out,

there is a fee on your bill that you weren't anticipating

and, all of a sudden, that good deal turns into a very bad deal.

We believe that's deceptive.

I think we need to change that.

Senator McCaskill wants the States to fall more in line with the EU,

where hotel booking sites and travel agents are required to be clear

about all extra fees and what they're for,

which explains why, here in the UK, travel website Expedia

got into bother with the Advertising Standards Authority

over how clearly these resort fees were displayed.

The company was told to change an ad for a deal on a hotel in New York

which it stated included all taxes and fees

when, in fact, a resort fee of an extra $30 per person, per day,

would be added on.

And, as far as Colin is concerned,

it still isn't always easy to spot these extra charges

unless you really scour the small print.

The price for the hotel is showing in bold numbers

of a price of ?1,804 per person -

but, just below that, there's...

In small numbers,

it's showing a price which it's saying is due at the hotel,

but it doesn't say exactly what the money is for.

If they want to be fair,

the price should be in bold numbers,

so everybody can see what the price is, what they're going to be paying.

Our research team had a good look at the websites

of some of the biggest names in the travel industry,

and there's certainly quite a variation

in how the Vegas resort fees are made clear.

Ebookers, Expedia and Hotels.com

all reference them next to the headline price,

in a smaller font.

However, you do have to dig a bit deeper

to find out exactly what the charge is for.

Opodo and Booking.com also highlight the resort fee

close to the room rate,

but you could possibly miss it if you're not paying enough attention.

But Lastminute.com keeps the information about the charges to...

Well, the last minute.

We had to click through to book,

then select a drop-down menu

and read through a pretty lengthy bit of text

to find any reference to the extra fee that you'll need to pay.

The company told us it doesn't include the resort fee

in its final price because it isn't part of the actual room rate

and is paid directly to the hotel.

But, it says the relevant information is made clear...

Meanwhile, the headline hotel price on Virgin's website

doesn't include the resort fee either.

We had to scroll right down to the bottom of the page

to find any mention of it being an additional charge, paid locally.

Virgin told us, however,

it does adequately reference these charges on its site across...

But it says it will now go even further,

and has added additional information

to its main Las Vegas page.

Finally, Thomas Cook's hotel prices

don't take into account those Vegas resort fees,

only flagging them at the very final stage,

when you're about to pay.

The company told us the information

is clearly set out in the hotel information section of the website,

but it's taking steps to make sure that the information is included

earlier in the process.

Well, all the travel companies we contacted stress they try to be

as open and transparent with pricing as possible,

and it's clear, at least, that some of them

are as exasperated with resort fees as the rest of us,

with several big names saying they're one of the most...

Colin would agree with that and,

while it's the hotels he is most irritated with

for bumping up their prices,

he does feel that holiday companies should always include resort fees

in the main advertised price.

What they could do to make it fairer

is include the resort fees in the total price.

That's the only fair way to do it.

You shouldn't have to be paying for something that you don't use.

Our travel expert, Simon Calder,

has all the secrets to save you money on your travels.

He's also full of tips on everything -

from how to avoid the crowds

to the best way to steer clear of those tourist traps.

This time, he's got tips on how to avoid some new

and very classic scams.

How long does it take to get from an airport into town?

Usually a good half-hour, isn't it?

Sometimes an hour. But sometimes, unscrupulous taxi drivers

have been known to say to people, "Oh, is it your first time here?"

And if you say, "Yes, it is,"

they'll take you for a run right around the houses.

Costing you big bucks.

I think we've all been there.

Ask at the information desk at the airport

how much the fare should be and whether it's a fixed rate

or if you pay what's shown on meter.

Here's a taxi problem that's particularly acute

in countries where they have high denomination notes.

You've got 50,000 pesos or roubles, or whatever.

You hand it to the driver.

Ahh! He drops it.

Even more mysteriously,

when he picks it up, it's turned into a 5,000 note.

So, that means you'll get change from that

and he has pocketed 45,000 of your money.

The way to avoid it, well,

when I'm handing over a high-value note,

I say, "I'm giving you 50,000,"

so there's no room at all for any dispute.

Good man, Simon. And if you've survived the journey in from the

airport without being ripped off... Thanks very much.

..don't let your guard down.

Popular destinations for tourists

are also popular with street criminals.

Almost all the locals you meet have your best interest at heart,

but there are the occasional rogues.

Watch out for pickpockets.

If you get a warning like that, what's the first thing you do?

You check your pockets,

revealing to the whole world exactly where your valuables are.

These days, plenty of us take valuable technology on holiday

in the shape of laptops and Smartphones,

but I'm afraid we don't always bring them home.

Summer in the city, and it's the best of all possible worlds.

You've got a glass of wine, you're checking your messages,

and then a fellow tourist arrives to seek your help.

Of course, you're happy to oblige,

giving directions as best as you can.

So nice to be able to help a fellow tourist -

and only then do you realise your phone's gone. Ahh!

Holiday scams are designed to take advantage of your good nature,

so Simon has one last warning of a time-honoured con.

How many times have you been in a big tourist attraction

and somebody has asked you to take their picture?

But it's not always as innocent as it looks.

As you find out when you...

hand the camera back.

They're going to swear that you dropped it and you've broken it,

and YOU have to pay them some money,

otherwise it's going to turn very nasty indeed!

Now, when the online rental company Airbnb

came storming onto the market nine years ago,

it transformed the travel industry.

it transformed the travel industry.

Homeowners got the opportunity to make money

by letting out their property and tourists were able to stay in places

giving a more authentic, and often budget-friendly, taste of a city.

Now, the company's growth since then

has been nothing short of spectacular

and it's now estimated to be worth, wait for it...

$30 billion.

But, as we highlighted last year, the opportunities it's created

have also been exploited by fraudsters who've used Airbnb

to advertise accommodation that simply does not exist,

leaving holiday-makers stranded on arrival at their destination.

Well, now it seems that there's a new problem,

and it's one that really does raise questions

as to whether Airbnb is doing enough to police its own site.

It promises to be a unique holiday experience

where, instead of being simply a tourist,

you can immerse yourself in the culture of a city

by staying in the home of a local as if it was your own home.

'Wherever you go, don't go there.

'Live there.

'Even if it's just for a night.'

Airbnb's rental website has helped over 60 million people

in 191 countries either to stay in someone else's home

or welcome holiday-makers into theirs.

And until recently, Peter Mannion from Bristol has been a big fan.

I've used it for holidays all around the world.

We've had some lovely holidays -

Cape Town, Hawaii,

Los Angeles, San Francisco -

and we've used Airbnb in all of them

and we've stayed in some super places.

Now, as that suggests, Peter loves to travel,

so much so that -

as well as staying in various Airbnb properties around the globe -

several years ago, he bought a holiday home of his own

near Alicante in Spain.

It's a detached house in a piece of land with its own pool.

It's a nice property, very quiet, very remote.

But, four years ago,

Peter realised that work commitments meant he was no longer

getting quite as much use out of his Spanish property,

so he decided to rent it out to tenants instead.

It was interesting, going from having it as a holiday home,

and only using it ourselves exclusively,

to then letting it on a long-term let

and knowing that your house is now going to become...

almost owned by somebody else for 11 months,

and that was a tough thing to do, for me,

because we actually watched this house being built.

It was half built when we saw it and decided to buy it.

And so we had some great times as a family.

Peter let his property out through a Spanish management company,

at a cost of 750 euros a month,

and everything with the arrangement appeared to be going very well -

until, that is, early last year,

when he began to receive complaints from his Spanish neighbour.

She started to tell us

that there were lots of different people visiting the house

and she could never contact our tenant,

who was in there.

The security company monitoring the property then rang to say that -

when an alarm had gone off -

it, too, hadn't been able to get a response from his tenants.

So, Peter contacted the Spanish management company

and asked them to take a look.

We spoke to the management company, and they would go round there.

The difficult part was that they

suddenly couldn't get access to our house.

DOG BARKS

There were two terrier-type dogs, big ones,

Staffordshire bull terriers or something -

ugly things, I've seen a film of them...

..that just barked consistently at the gate.

He never answered the gate.

Our agent went there

20 days on the trot, twice a day,

and couldn't get access to anything.

And that really was the catalyst for,

"Right, we need to go out there,

"take a look and see what's going on."

Peter's wife planned the trip

and went straight to the Airbnb website

to find somewhere they could stay close to their own property.

But, when she did, she made a startling discovery.

One of the properties she came across looked very familiar

and it didn't take too long to realise that,

without them having known anything about it,

their home was being advertised for rent on Airbnb.

I thought, "That just can't be right. That's such a surprise.

"Why...? How could somebody do that?"

Good question. And, to be sure it wasn't a mistake,

Peter asked one of his friends

to try and make a booking through the Airbnb site

and, sure enough, the tenant quickly confirmed that the property

was indeed available for rent.

Peter worked out that, by letting the home on Airbnb,

his tenant would have been making a very tidy profit.

My property was listed at ?707 for a week.

So, that's about ?100 a night and that was in June.

So working on that principle,

in one week, he could pay his monthly rent.

But by subletting the house without permission,

Peter's tenant was not only breaking the rules of his tenancy agreement,

he was also putting Peter into a very difficult situation

and he might have been doing it for years.

The issue is my liability,

as the owner of the property, and there are certain obligations,

under Spanish law and under insurance and coverage

for the people letting it.

Now, you might think that,

as soon as Peter explained the situation to Airbnb,

that the company would remove the listing...

but you have to think again.

First, trying to actually speak to anybody there

proved a nearly impossible task.

There was no-one to talk to, you can only e-mail,

and that became, then, impossible

because the responses were clearly coming from a computer.

And when Peter did eventually hear back from Airbnb,

he was quite simply gobsmacked by the response.

My house could only be removed

by whoever had done it in the first place.

The frustration of that was incredible

because I'd explained to Airbnb

that this was my house and the tenant was breaking the rules.

It seemed to matter little.

Peter even resorted to e-mailing

the title deeds of the property to Airbnb to prove ownership,

but the company continued to insist

that only the member who'd put up the listing

was able to take it down.

I had no control over the situation.

It was impossible for me to be able to do anything.

I couldn't talk to my tenant, I can't talk to Airbnb

and I certainly can't talk to the subtenants,

so my lack of knowledge and my lack of ability to know what's going on

in my own house was of deep concern to me.

Understandably.

Unable to get Airbnb to remove the listing,

Peter even tried contacting the tenant to request that

the listing was removed, but he didn't respond.

So, Peter had no choice but to start formal eviction proceedings.

Two months later, the tenant finally left

but without having paid for the damage to the property,

paying the utility bills, or the last two months' rent.

All of which Peter estimates totted up to 6,000 euros

and, on top of that,

the Airbnb listing was still active.

We asked him once again, after he'd left,

would he please take the house off?

And eventually he took it off Airbnb and it's no longer on there.

With the listing finally offline and the tenant evicted,

Peter was, at long last, able to access the property

but I'm afraid it had been left in a pretty poor state.

When we eventually got the house back, the damage was such

that there were burn marks on all the furniture

and, I mean, most of the furniture was wrecked anyway.

We had to throw it away.

So, something had been going on in there.

I just don't know what and I'm unable to find out,

which is equally annoying.

The fact is that, as far as Peter's concerned,

it appears to be relatively simple

for someone to advertise a property on Airbnb

that they don't even own.

This experience tells me that they don't know who is the owner

and who has the ability to let that property

and whether they're breaking any laws.

Unfortunately, it seems that Peter's case isn't an isolated one.

Here in the UK, a growing number of landlords

are launching possession proceedings against tenants

who have sublet their property via Airbnb without permission.

When we got in touch with the company, it told us that it does ask

advertisers to certify that they have...

And it reminds them to check and follow local rules before they list

and indeed to check all of that throughout the year.

It adds that isolated incidents are rare

and it takes appropriate action on issues brought to its attention.

It says, in this case, it passed on a letter from Peter to the tenant,

who did eventually remove the listing.

Well, clearly, after all he went through, Peter thinks that Airbnb

should do more checks on its advertisers

but solicitor Gary Rycroft doesn't agree.

When you are booking through a site like Airbnb,

it's important to remember that they are just a booking site.

They are putting you, someone who wants a room,

in touch with someone who has a room available.

They aren't taking on responsibility

for checking out the facts about that room,

they aren't checking out if that person has the legal right

to rent the room to you

and they aren't giving any warranty as to your safety

while you're staying there.

So you, as the consumer, as the person booking the room,

have to take it upon yourself to do diligent checks

to make sure you're getting what you expect to get

and that you are going to be safe while you're there.

But you know, those checks are easier said than done.

Unless, before you confirm any booking on the site,

you're prepared to ask the person renting the property

to e-mail proof of ownership.

Which is why, I'm afraid, Peter, once such an ardent fan of Airbnb,

is now no longer confident of ever using it again.

I'm very concerned about how I go forward in the future.

There needs to be a change in terms of how Airbnb monitor properties

and how they validate whether the property is owned

and who owns the property.

My concern now is, when I book a property on Airbnb,

am I allowed to?

If you've got a story you'd like us to investigate,

we now have even more ways to get in touch.

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Or you can log onto our website...

..where there's plenty of advice and fact sheets

full of tips on how to avoid getting ripped off.

If you'd like to send us an e-mail,

then our address is...

Or if you want to send us a letter,

then our new address is...

Well, I think it's pretty clear from our stories today that,

just because there's a big name involved,

doesn't necessarily mean that they're going to assist you

in the way that you would expect if things start to go wrong.

Well, if you feel let down by a big name, and not just in

the world of holidays, then do please tell us why.

We've got lots of programmes coming up,

covering a huge range of consumer topics

and it's your experiences that shape them all.

For now, though, thanks a lot for watching and, from all of us here,

goodbye. Goodbye. Bye-bye.

You surely don't think that we could

set up house together like man and wife?