Episode 20 Rip Off Britain

We ask you to tell us who's left you feeling ripped off.

I think this is very, very, very wrong, for what they've done.

The bank piles charges upon charges, upon charges, upon charges...

Legally it was right, morally...

that's where the question and doubt comes in my view.

And you contacted us in your thousands,

by post, e-mail,

even stopping us in the streets.

And the message couldn't be clearer...

You don't always get a straight answer. They try and fob you off.

Not happy at all.

There's always that very small print with a clause

you didn't realise.

We're being ripped off big-time.

'Whether it's a deliberate rip-off,

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

'we'll find out why you're out of pocket, and indeed,

'what you can do about it.'

Keep asking the questions, keep... go to the top if you have to.

We do get results, I mean, that's the interesting thing.

'Your stories, your money.

'This is Rip-Off Britain.'

Hello and welcome to Rip-Off Britain,

the series in which we

work tirelessly to assist you,

the consumer, to get a fair deal

and we hope we're able to help you avoid being ripped-off, don't we?

Absolutely! You've been sending letters and e-mails asking for help,

and we've also been out and about to hear from you,

face-to-face.

You know, one topic that comes up time and time again,

is when you feel that paperwork, you know, contracts, bills and so on,

are not fully explained, leaving you feeling most confused.

Now, in turn, this can often lead you into making bad decisions,

and above all, costing you money.

Also coming up on today's show,

this man spent nearly £6000 on hearing aids

that he says he can barely use.

Could he have got a better one free?

I thought, tops, it would be 2,000,

instead of which it was nearly six!

And more from the Rip-Off Britain pop-up shop.

Now, making sure that you get a good deal on every purchase you make,

is pretty tricky.

You may have been tempted by what seemed, at the time,

like a really good offer,

or even persuaded by a convincing sales pitch,

but either way, it's sometimes not until much later,

that you find out the deal you ended up with,

is nowhere near as good as you first thought.

Which is exactly what happened to our next viewer.

A peaceful retirement on the Kent coast.

That's what Sally Croft had in mind,

when along with her husband Neil,

she moved here to the Isle of Sheppey.

We bought into the site in 2004.

We saw an advert in the paper which looked very appealing.

Retirement homes etc, new buildings going to be built,

it was to your specifications,

two-bedroom, three-bedroom, four-bedroom.

It all sounded absolutely wonderful.

So wonderful that the Crofts spent £100,000

on this four-bedroom bungalow,

part of the Saddlebrook Park complex in Leysdown-On-Sea.

We was assured that we didn't need a solicitor

to buy on here,

the site would do everything for us, everything, so we didn't

need the expense of a solicitor,

because it was private ground and they was building all these

residential homes, they was going to do everything for us.

But not taking advice

is a decision they now regret,

because things weren't as straightforward as first seemed.

It turned out they'd bought a home they weren't allowed

to live in, all year round.

That's because, according to local planning regulations,

Saddlebrook Park is classified as non-residential.

It's regarded as holiday accommodation,

so the properties can only be occupied

for eight months of the year.

But the Crofts bought their bungalow

on the understanding that plans

to develop the park, would change all that.

And they say the site's previous owners

assured them that everything was being sorted with the council.

They sold us a residential retirement home.

All the plans had been put in to the council for extended,

because originally it was a holiday park, originally...

erm...all the plans had gone in for residential,

so we could live in here for 12 months of the year.

But according to Swale Borough Council,

no such plans were ever submitted,

so every year, as the end of October approaches,

the Crofts face the same fear.

The four months during the course of the winter is a very worrying time

and we're always faced with the fact we could pull into the gates

one day and they'd be closed and we'd not be able to get in.

We so look forward to 1 March

when we're officially legal again.

Sally and Neil have lived with this crippling uncertainty

for six years, and for some of their neighbours, it's been even longer.

I paid 10,000 extra to be beside a lake.

Sandra Anderson moved in eight years ago,

days before the winter started,

although at the time,

she had no idea that winter was even an issue.

We came down here in October 27, 2003,

and I was not given any form of paperwork

until July of 2004.

My understanding of the whole thing was that we were sold

a residential park,

you know, that was for the 12 months, this was our home.

Sandra is keen to sell up and move on,

but even if she could find a buyer,

she'd be unlikely to get anything like

the £120,000 she originally paid.

I would say, at the moment,

I might struggle

at getting 60,

if that.

We've done a lot in here, because this is our home,

and this is where we live.

We love our home

and we love this little bit round it,

but we actually hate the park,

and we haven't got a lot of feelings

for the people who did it to us, either.

Someone who's all too aware of the problems these residents face,

is local MP Gordon Henderson.

There are a number of people

who have bought holiday homes

on Sheppey, who did so, believing they were entitled

to all year round occupation,

only to discover at a later date,

actually they had to get out after eight months.

My very strong advice is, first of all,

before parting with a penny of their money,

they should take legal advice and make sure they see

a copy of the contract before they actually go out

and buy anything.

So why were these homes sold to people

who wanted to live there all year round?

We asked Saddlebrook Park's former owners Warden Bay Leisure,

who ran the site when the Crofts and Sandra bought properties.

They didn't want to comment,

but claimed that everyone saw leases before they moved in,

which of course,

is not what the residents have told us.

Saddlebrook Park has since been taken over by a different company,

who told us that they'd like residents to be able to

live there full-time, but this would require a special licence.

They've told us they are discussing it with the Council.

But, for now,

many residents are well and truly stuck,

desperate to leave, but unable to afford a huge

drop in the price of their properties if they were to sell now.

Six of us has have put in

for residency with the council ourselves, so we're

just keeping our fingers crossed that something will come of that.

So hopefully, at the end of the day,

we will finally get residency

that we can sleep at night, in our beds, properly,

through the winter.

Big companies don't always make things easy to understand

and it can be confusing trying

to work out why you haven't ended up with what you expected.

So if you feel bogged down

and don't know exactly what to do, we have put together a booklet

of tips and advice you can find the link to the free guide

on our web-site: bbc.co.uk/rip off Britain.

Or if you want to receive a copy in the post

send an A5 self-addressed envelope

to the address we give you right at the end of the programme.

Next: No one wants to hand over hard-earned cash

for something you can actually get for free.

But that is exactly what's been happening

with the sale of hearing aids,

according to an investigation by Which? magazine

and the Royal National Institute for the Deaf,

which is the UK's largest charity

for people with hearing loss and deafness.

Which? revealed that shops can often charge massive amounts

for products that are actually

available free on the NHS

and that report backs up what happened to Norman Squire.

He contacted us at Rip Off Britain

after being sold a hearing aid that ended up costing nearly £6,000.

Norman Squire's hearing had served him pretty well until 2010,

when, aged 92, he noticed that he was starting to struggle a little.

I keep asking people to repeat things.

Somebody's got something to tell you and there's a punchline

and you miss that, so you say, "Beg your pardon?"

So they keep telling me I need a hearing aid.

Norman's friend, Chris, was surprised his hearing was failing.

I've never had trouble having a conversation with him.

I think I've got the advantage

of having worked with the deaf, that I'm used to speaking clearly,

which is a benefit to Norman.

Though his problems seemed slight, Norman was pleased when one day a leaflet came through his door

from a chain of shops selling hearing aids, called Hidden Hearing.

They had a local branch, so he popped along to see what they would advise.

They offered me a hearing aid to try and put in me ear

and it was like a big marble.

So he said, "All right, try this one."

And he fits this one in.

And there was nothing else, nothing else was forthcoming.

So I don't know if they make anything else.

Norman agreed to buy two gadgets there and then,

but was surprised to find how much it cost.

I did have a friend who said they'd paid £2,000.

So I thought at tops it would be 2,000.

Instead of which it was nearly six.

Norman didn't have £6,000, but he was able to spread out the cost

with a finance agreement

that the shop arranged for him.

The name Hidden Hearing does suggest the shop specialises

in discreet devices.

Norman says he wasn't particularly concerned with how his looked,

so long as it worked.

But the small size of the aids immediately became an issue for him.

Well the main problem I suppose

is that it's a fiddling little thing to mess about with.

-I can get them in.

-It takes a long time, doesn't it?

I think the aid and its fittings are too small for Norman,

because his hands are big and he has arthritis.

After months of practice, Norman began to find it easier

to put the hearing aid in,

but as far as he was concerned, there was another problem.

Well on two or three occasions that little piece on the end

that goes right down into your ear,

it just didn't come out with the res of it when you took them off.

It was starting to look like Norman had spent £6,000 on hearing aids

that were not necessarily the most

suitable for him and it's money he may have needed to spend,

because the NHS can give similar aids for free.

Norman hadn't known that

and Hidden Hearing certainly didn't tell him.

So would he have been eligible?

We have arranged for audiologist Crystal Rolfe to check.

OK, Norman, I'm going to start off by having a look in your ears, OK?

One of the most important things to check

is whether that person will be able to fit it into their ear,

what their dexterity of their hands is like,

because hearing aids can be difficult to get in.

What I'm just going to do is just press the button for me

every time you hear a sound.

Norman would certainly be eligible for an NHS hearing aid,

based on the tests we did

and talking to him about his dexterity in his fingers,

I'd recommend the normal sized hearing aids behind his ear,

maybe not one of the very small ones,

just to make it easier for him to hold.

And you can get a couple of different designs I've got here,

on the NHS that would be suitable for you.

Whenever Norman has called into the shop and mentioned his concerns,

the staff have offered to fit his hearing aids for him.

But if he had to do that every time he has trouble,

it would mean a special trip into town.

We contacted Hidden Hearing on Norman's behalf.

They insist his assessment met all required standards

and good practice

and the hearing aids he bought were believed appropriate.

They say it would have been up to Norman's doctor

to explain he was eligible for an NHS one.

But in any way case, the particular model he got

would not have been available that way

and they claim they don't have any record of any complaint.

Although Norman insists he has raised it with staff at the shop.

Last year, Which? carried out an investigation

into a variety of shops selling hearing aids.

A third of the total number of stores they visited

were considered to have poor clinical assessments.

And one of the other high street chains

even risked breaking the law,

by giving misleading information about the NHS

in order to promote their own products.

Meanwhile Hidden Hearing say they're happy to discuss

changing Norman's hearing aids for a different model,

which could stop him worrying his expensive purchase

will end up in the back of a drawer gathering dust.

You lose confidence in them and don't bother to put them on,

which is a blatant waste of money, isn't it?

So for Norman it's been an expensive lesson

and he certainly feels let down by Hidden Hearing

and wishes he had never purchased his hearing aid from them at all.

Next time he's going to go straight to the NHS.

Well Angela King from Action Hearing Loss,

has some advice on buying a hearing aid.

And other issues to look out for.

If you're having difficulty hearing,

there is one thing you can do straightaway without any fuss,

and that is take the Action On Hearing Loss hearing check

and you can find details on our web-site.

If you need full hearing tests

to find out what the problem is, you have got two options.

You can either get your GP to arrange for you

to have those tests through the NHS.

Or you can go privately to a high street hearing aid dispenser.

If you're buying privately, make sure you can have a money back guarantee.

That means that you will have at least 28 days

to try out your hearing aids

and you can return them within that time if they're really not suitable.

Or it may be possible for them to be adjusted to suit you better.

Be wary of advertising claims,

because no hearing aid, however clever the technology,

can actually restore perfect hearing.

If you're thinking of getting your hearing aids through the NHS,

the waiting times are now quite short

between GP referral and actually having your hearing aids.

And they're of really good quality

and will make a real difference to your daily life.

Still to come on Rip Off Britain:

We asked you to tell us about the rip offs that have affected you

and your response was huge.

Hundreds of you took the time to visit us at our pop up shop,

where we heard even more stories

about things which don't seem to have been properly explained.

At this stage it is probably worth

picking up with Trading Standards, Citizens' Advice Bureau,

get them on board.

Now for many of you, your house will be the most valuable asset

to pass on to your children when you die.

But an increasing number of us

worry that as we get older, we may need to pay for some sort of care

and selling our house might be the only way to cover the cost.

So what if somebody told you

that there was a way to safeguard some of the value of your house?

Harold and Joan Torkington believed

such a deal would give them peace of mind.

Joan Torkington has been a member

of the Hazelgrove Ladies Club for 50 years.

Once a week she and her friends meet for a chat

and to enjoy the guest speakers.

In the spring of 2011, one such speaker

was from a firm called National Legal Assistance.

He explained to Joan and her friends

that people with assets such as property or savings

usually have to pay for any care needed in their old age.

But if they signed up to something called a family property trust,

it would mean their homes would be protected.

I thought, well, this is right, if I'm taken into a home,

they won't be able to take my house off me, and good idea.

Joan hurried home to tell her husband, Harold.

Both liked the sound of it, as they were keen to protect

their home and savings for their children and grandchildren.

We didn't wanted to be cheated out of our house.

Other people who didn't have quite as much money

were going to get paid for

and we'd paid our taxes and dues

over the years, and it didn't seem fair.

The Torkingtons asked a representative from the company

to visit to give them more information.

He said it puts a complete ring fence round everything you own.

And in effect it no longer belongs to you.

It belongs to the people in the will you're leaving all your estate to.

He said, although you can spend it, you can sell your house,

and change and get a smaller house, all we will do - that's them -

we'll put the smaller house into the ring fence

and that will be included.

Such trusts can be complicated,

so we asked solicitor, Gary Rycroft to explain exactly how they work.

A property trust is an arrangement

where the owners of a property transfer ownership from themselves

to a separate trust arrangement.

So they no longer own the property themselves.

It's useful if you're concerned about care home fees,

because you can transfer the ownership of the property you live in

into a separate trust arrangement.

This means that if you are assessed for the cost of care fees,

you don't have to declare ownership of the house that you're living in.

It all seemed to make sense to Joan and Harold

and they agreed to sign up.

He said the whole thing would take five or six weeks.

Obviously it would cost a bit.

But in our case when he totted it all up, he could do it for £2,395.

Initially I thought, "My God, you can get your will for £300."

But thinking about it, I thought, yeah, and we agreed.

But after sleeping on it and studying the paperwork further,

the Torkingtons started to have second thoughts.

They called their bank to put a stop to the cheque they had signed.

He says, "I'm sorry we can't cancel it, it's already been cashed."

And I said, "But that's silly, how can that possibly be?

It's usually three to five days before a cheque is honoured."

"Yes, well...

"they happen to use the same bank."

And they cashed it without question.

The Torkingtons then contacted National Legal Assistance directly.

Harold was told if he returned the cancellation form within seven days,

they would get their money back.

So he sent it by registered post and waited.

And waited.

Nothing happened.

So he got back in touch.

They'd received our cancellation,

but the computer in the accounts department had broken down

and they were running late and bear with them and all the rest of it.

The Torkingtons didn't know what to do next

and that is when they contacted Rip Off Britain.

We've discovered on average

you should expect to pay £500 for a property trust.

Far less than the £2,395 Harold and Joan had paid up.

If I'd known that in the first place,

or had any idea that was the going rate,

the fella wouldn't have had a chance.

I'd have reported him

as soon as he tried to sell me something for 2,395.

Not only that, but solicitor Gary Rycroft believes the couple

should never have been offered the trust in the first place.

The thing about property trusts

is it's better to do them sooner rather than later.

In this case, if the couple had gone into care

within six or 12 months of making the gift,

then there was a significant risk

the local would overturn the gift.

And in that case, the fees they had paid to set up the property trust

would have been wasted.

I think the point is that it is risky

and so if you're entering into this kind of arrangement,

the risk needs to be pointed out to you.

We contacted National Legal Assistance,

but have had no response from them.

Which perhaps isn't surprising.

It's part of a company that has been officially wound up

by the Insolvency Service

after concerns were raised about their sales techniques

and business conduct.

It's unclear where this leaves customers like Joan and Harold,

and there are lots of them.

It's known the companies closed down by the Insolvency Service

made more than £1 million in sales.

You can only put it down to experience,

but they're experiences that we don't need at our age.

And it's, you know, our time for...

-Wasted three month of our life really.

-Yeah!

Nothing's happened, only arguments.

The money doesn't really matter.

-We've written it off.

-It's the principle.

-It's the principle.

Opening up our very own pop-up shop on Rip Off Britain

has turned out to be a wonderful idea.

So many people have turned up.

We have all the experts and we're very happy to help.

It's been great to meet people face to face.

BBC Learning have been helping people improve their maths,

which should help avoid those rip offs.

And our experts have been pointing people in the right direction,

like John and Jane Lamb

who want advice on broadband from phone expert Mike Wilson

about an unwanted TV package.

So obviously you had your broadband and phone with this provider

and then just out of the blue they sent you this TV box to add on.

-Yeah.

-And then instantly started taking the direct debit as well?

-Yes.

Just extended it, didn't they?

They changed the amount you actually originally paid.

The box has been returned, I've sent to cancel the direct debit,

to stop them taking any more money off me.

Well that also meant cancelling me broadband as well.

It sounds like you have had a case on your hands

and what you can go back to them and say, "I've not had a contract."

"If you'd have sent me a contract..."

As a consumer you would have had 14 days to cancel at that stage.

That's not happened, so they've not given you that opportunity.

I'd say it is worth picking up with the likes of Trading Standards,

Citizen's Advice Bureau,

make sure you keep hold of all the documentation,

keep an account of everything you're paying and have done

since the issue arose in the first place.

Follow up with Trading Standards,

if you don't get any joy, you can escalate it

to two people within the communications industry.

You can go to a group called CISAS.org.uk.

And they are the Communications And Internet Service Authority.

You can also go to the ombudsman's service as well.

Without a shadow of a doubt you're in the right here.

Make sure you stand up for yourselves

and make sure they give you a full refund.

Remain persistent and get the money back you're owed.

Very good advice.

How to complain successfully has come up time and time again

in our pop-up shop

as our Rip Off researchers have been telling us.

What about the general sense that people, it's not that they don't know how to complain,

they do complain, but they never get any satisfaction -

has that been something that has come up?

Yes, a lot of people seem to think that it takes too long to complain.

You're having to complain over and over again

to different people every time you speak to a company.

I've spoken to a lot of people today who have found

that they do want to complain but they don't have the time to do it.

A lot of people coming in today

have exhausted every possible option

that they think is available to them

so speaking to our experts today

has really fired them up again to fight these big companies.

For more tips on how to fight back,

if you feel you've been ripped off, do visit our website at:

Next, a couple who did everything they could

to plan for their family's future but it still went completely wrong.

Roger and Francois wanted to leave their children

financially secure and avoid them being hit by inheritance tax.

So, they took advice on the best products available.

But 10 years later,

they were told the value of what they had bought

had plummeted and suddenly, it wasn't worth

anything like what they thought they had been guaranteed.

I think it's very important to prepare for the future.

One reads every day in the press about

the huge numbers of people who die without having a will

or having made plans for their children or grandchildren.

Like many parents, Roger Middleton and his wife Francois

planned to leave all their assets, mainly the house,

to their three children, divided equally between them.

When we took out the initial mortgage,

we had an insurance policy which was running in tandem with it.

And when the mortgage was cleared, we reviewed that.

They were worried about how their children would pay

any inheritance tax on their estate

so 12 years ago, they took out a whole of life insurance policy

with Scottish Provident.

It had a face value of £160,000

and would pay out when both the Middletons had died.

One wanted to make sure

that we were leaving financial matters as tidy as possible

and giving as much protection as possible to our children.

Though the premiums increased slightly each year

for the next 10 years, Roger and Francois knew this meant

the payout would keep pace with inflation

and hoped it would be a huge help to their children in the future.

We were feeling very good about it.

We continued to pay our premiums each year.

We eventually managed to get out of them

that at the current valuation,

it was worth 243,000 in round terms.

So, we felt pretty good about that.

But not long after that new valuation,

the couple were shocked

to find that following a review of their policy,

they were now faced with two options,

neither of which they liked.

Option one was to maintain the current value of the policy,

i.e. the original 160,000.

But for that, we would have now to pay something like £3,400 a year.

Not impressed at all.

Option two was to continue to pay what we were currently paying,

this year,

but the value would then fall to 38,000.

In other words, a quarter, approximately,

of the original face value,

i.e., the original 160,000.

So, we were not amused.

The brochure for the policy

does state that it would be reviewed after 10 years.

However, Roger and Francois maintain

they were never told the review could have such a dramatic result.

I think and the time, if one had known the sort of uplift

there was going to be, 10 years, 12 years on,

we would probably have not gone with that option.

Reviewable premiums on policies like these

is something the financial ombudsman service hears about a lot.

The consumer is saying that

if it was made clear to them at the start of the policy

that the premiums could increase substantially,

they'd have made a different decision about taking out the policy.

Sometimes, they are left in the position of deciding

whether they'll take a doubling of the premiums

or a big cut in the lump sum they can receive at the end.

This can be quite significant because if somebody

has been planning for the future,

and then learns the amount they can expect to pay out is much smaller,

they can be very disappointed.

Roger is amongst the people

who have taken their complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service.

It ordered the company to refund three years worth of premiums

because the review had been done three years later

than it should have been.

It is better to get something back then nothing,

but the real bitter pill is the fact that the £160,000

or its increased value - 240 odd thousand,

has just vanished into thin air.

Scottish Provident is now part of Phoenix Life Limited,

who told us that given the Middletons' age

when they took out the policy,

it was inevitable their premiums would increase

when there was a review as the chances of a claim would be greater.

They agree they made an error doing the review late

and are sorry the Middletons were shocked to hear its effect

but say it was the responsibility of the couple's financial advisers

to insure they understood exactly what the review would mean.

So, we spoke to those advisers, a company called Brewin Dolphin.

They emphasise that using insurance products of this type

to minimise tax liabilities isn't suitable for everyone

but insist it did make sense for Roger.

They are adamant the Middleton's knew there would be a review

and had been given an option to avoid it by paying higher premiums.

They're sorry Roger was surprised by all this

but say they find it difficult to see how he could have been.

But the couple feel

the choice they have been left with is no choice at all.

Pay the same premiums and end up with less

or pay higher premiums and still get less.

It's impossible, really, for us to continue and therefore,

we will have to see if they are any other viable options.

So, Roger has decided that the best option for him now

is to surrender his policy for no value.

He's sticking to savings so he's in charge

and there will be no review around the corner.

You know the old saying, where there's a will, there's a way,

well, that saying could act

as a warning to someone who chooses to employ

a will writing service to draw up their will, as opposed to a lawyer.

The legal ombudsman, this year,

issued a warning about the will writing business

because currently, it's totally unregulated.

In other words, anyone can set up shop, offering their services,

indeed, charging whatever they like.

Meet Jude Southwick. She looks happy, doesn't she?

Well, she's feeling triumphant after a recent victory

here in court, where she won back more than £400

that she had paid to a will writing company.

It's a year and a half since she handed over the money.

Jude and her husband had approached the company,

asking them to make a couple of changes to their wills.

I told him that it was very simple alterations that I needed

and he said, no, no, no, you would need a new will

and quoted a price for the two wills for £199 and said...

And we arranged a meeting

and he said he would send a pre-visit brochure.

But the brochure from the company didn't arrive

before the arranged meeting, so when their will writer came around,

Jude says she was unable to make head or tail

of a lot of what he said,

including how the fees were worked out.

He proceeded with the meeting which was very, very drawn out

and confused my husband and I.

He asked us who we wanted to be trustees and executors

and what if they couldn't do it and it went on and on and on.

At the end of the meeting,

Jude was staggered to be asked for a cheque for nearly £600,

three times the amount she said she was first quoted.

I was very shocked but I did pay it,

so I wrote a cheque for £599, regrettably.

Already disappointed at paying more than she'd hoped,

Jude was even more unhappy when the company sent through the wills.

When the draft wills arrived, they didn't contain wishes.

He had put the financial adviser as adviser to our estate

and he had to put a corporation trust as trustees.

That was quite a long way down the will.

It was very difficult for us to understand them,

so we didn't know if they'd been written correctly or not.

There were other elements of the wills that Jude wasn't happy with,

or that she didn't need at all.

It took two months and several re-writes

before the final wills were sorted.

When Jude got the invoice, she spotted that part of the cost

was a charge of £200 just for the wills to be stored.

I wrote a letter and said that we hadn't ordered the storage

and he sent £100 back as a gesture of goodwill.

But Jude didn't think that was enough,

so she rang the advice service, Consumer Direct,

who told her that it sounded like the contract was invalid

because the company had failed to provide a cooling off period,

something anyone selling in a customer's home has got to do.

Jude took her various complaints about the wills to the County Court

and that's why she's smiling,

because the judge ruled that the company should refund her

a further £419.

The company has told us

that they disagree with Jude's versions of the events,

insisting its prices are competitive

and claiming that the issue only became protracted

because Jude was mistaken on various points and kept changing her mind.

Although the company Jude used does have plenty of experience,

she was surprised during her legal battle

to find that the will writing industry isn't regulated.

You don't need a legal qualification to write one.

Points she's raised with her local MP.

The Ministry of Justice is now going to have a full consultation on this,

which will be conducted by the Legal Services Board

and they're going to consult with the Law Society

and the Institute of Professional Will Writers.

I think you've got a success story.

Although her case is now resolved,

Judith's keen that other people don't go through a similar experience.

I really want to try and do something about it

so it saves other people the same thing happening to them.

It's something that we all shy away from,

but one of the most important documents

any of us will ever draw up is a will.

Traditionally, a trip to the solicitor would do the job,

but nowadays it seems that anyone can write up and administer a will.

Crispin Passmore, from Legal Services, is here to answer, why?

Crispin, call me naive

but how is it possible that anybody can write a will?

The regulation of legal services has grown around the needs

of the legal profession, perhaps rather around the needs of consumers

and needs of people that want to get their will written.

We're in place to change that and make sure

all the different bodies involved in looking after this area,

-do it in the interests of consumers.

-How tenacious are you about that?

We're relentless in the way we look at consumer focus on regulation

and the way lawyers and will writers operate in this market.

It's going to take some time to change things.

We're collecting evidence about will writers,

we're collecting evidence about how solicitors work.

There's as many problems as there are with regulated professionals

in this area as there are with unregulated firms.

It seems ridiculous to me

that something as important as a will can just be done by anybody.

We should remember that perhaps 80% or more of the wills

and the services around them are delivered perfectly well.

Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater.

But there are some problems we need to tackle,

but half the population doesn't have a will written.

People shy away from it altogether.

They do and if we push the price up and less people get wills written,

that's not a good outcome either.

In the old days, as far as my family were concerned,

you automatically thought of a solicitor

to draw up your will and to execute it.

But now that anybody can do it do you think it's because

people shy away from it and it's a cheaper option?

I don't want to go to the solicitor's office,

I'll take this person who will come to my house.

People seem to make a range of different things

to help them choose where to go.

We know consumers think will writers are more likely to be lower-priced,

but we know that lots of them are scared of going to a solicitor.

I always think we should say to consumers,

you wouldn't choose a television by going into one shop

or by inviting one person into your house

and buying the first thing they show.

Go and look around the regulated sector, the unregulated sector.

Ask about their prices,

about whether or not you can go to an ombudsman.

Ask about their insurance and ask to speak to satisfied customers.

If you don't think they're going to listen to you, go somewhere else.

We've talked about the mistakes will writing companies make

in that they put in executors

that maybe the client never even heard of.

But the same thing happens with banks

and with some solicitors in that when people, if they don't know,

the bank will go, "Do you want me to be your executor?"

They go, "That will be fine,"

not knowing you can charge almost as much money as you want

to execute the will.

That's not transparent and that's not fair.

No, and one of the things we're looking at

is about inappropriate bundling of services,

making sure people only buy what they want to buy

and that things that shouldn't be sold together aren't sold together.

We're working with the Solicitors' Regulation Authority

and the Office of Fair Trading and we've had some success

getting banks and law firms to change their practice.

We need to make sure all of them do.

-Crispin, I hope you make it happen.

-Thank you very much.

Here at Rip Off Britain we're always ready to investigate

more of your stories.

Confused over your bills?

Trying to wade your way through small print

that leaves you totally confused?

I might have been stupid for not reading it,

or I've read it and not took it in.

I could kick myself, I really could.

Unsure what to do when you discover you've lost out

and that great deal has ended up costing you money?

I thought this cannot be true.

It's totally unacceptable. I was so angry.

You might have a cautionary tale

of your own and want to share the mistakes you've made

with us so that other people don't do the same thing.

No-one knows about this, this is very strange to me.

I really would like to get this much clearer.

Don't forget you can always write to us.

Or you can always get in touch by sending us an e-mail.

Don't forget the Rip Off team is ready and waiting

to investigate your stories.

I have to say, and I don't know how you two feel about this,

but it's been very clear from the stories we've heard,

and indeed the amount of letters and e-mails that you sent us,

that when a company doesn't very clearly explain their procedures,

contracts and bills,

then you can very easily end up losing out.

Absolutely.

We always say make sure you go through your paperwork

with a fine tooth comb

and if in doubt, always get it checked out.

I agree with both of you implicitly.

Never ever be afraid to seek assistance

because it could end up saving you a huge amount of money.

Next time we'll be tackling more of your stories.

Until then thank you for your company

-and from all of us, bye-bye.

-Bye-bye.

-Bye.

E-mail [email protected]

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