Episode 6 Rip Off Britain

We asked YOU to tell us who has left you feeling ripped off,

and you contacted us in your thousands by post,

e-mail, even stopping us on the streets.

The message could not be clearer.

I think there's a lot of hidden information about your bills

that should be made a lot more clear.

I don't feel I get treated how I should be.

You've told us with money tighter than ever,

you need to be sure every pound you spend is worth it.

How do I get me money back? I just think I'm entitled to it.

So 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 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 once again to Rip-Off Britain,

the programme that gets to the bottom of why you haven't ended up

with what you thought you would for your money or indeed your time,

which of course is the reason the people we'll be meeting in today's programme

got in touch with us in the first place.

Because one way or another, they all feel rather let down,

as indeed we often do when we end up

with something that just did not live up to the hype

or even to our own expectations.

And of course we'll also have plenty of advice,

so that before you hand over your money, you've done

everything you can to protect it in case something does go wrong.

Coming up, the cash voucher system being exploited by scamsters.

They're actually picking on people that need the money

and that are vulnerable anyway.

Very nasty people.

And as yet more companies fail to deliver on promises of getting

back your mis-sold PPI, we'll reveal the best way to find out

if you really are owed thousands of pounds.

They're not a help to anybody. You don't need them.

You just can do everything yourself.

Now, if you're someone who thinks that you're just too savvy

to be taken in by a scam, well, don't be so sure,

because here's one that's not only fiendishly clever

but is very much on the rise.

So pay attention to how they do it, because remember,

the next person they target could very well be you.

It's a scam that always starts the same way, with a simple phone call,

as cake-maker Fiona Keen discovered in January last year.

'I was phoned on a Sunday night about nine o'clock'

by someone called Alex from a 24-hour fraud team

who seemed to know all my details - my name, my phone number, my address -

and he said I'd been a victim of a Section 24 fraud,

my Barclaycard had been, um, cloned, and all my cards had been cloned.

Claiming to be from Barclaycard, Alex told Fiona

that her details were already being used

to buy things like petrol and mobile phone credit,

and to prove that it wasn't her racking up the cash,

he needed to send a courier round to collect her cards.

I immediately said, "I'm not handing my cards over to you,"

and he said that if they put the cards through a machine,

it could be proved that I hadn't used the cards,

then I would definitely get the money back.

But she refused to hand over her cards.

And that is when things got really sneaky,

because Alex asked her to put the phone down

and call the customer care number on the back of her Barclaycard.

I put the phone down to Alex

and picked up the phone and I didn't listen for a dial tone

and then I phoned the customer care line on the back of Barclaycard

and I got through to a person and, you know, explained what happened.

He said, "I'm just going to put you through to the fraud team,"

and immediately I got through to this Alex.

But Fiona wasn't speaking to Barclaycard at all.

In fact, there's no such thing as Section 24 fraud.

Unbeknown to her, when she'd hung up the phone,

Alex hadn't disconnected his end of the call

and was still on the line, which is exactly where he kept Fiona.

And 30 minutes into the call, a man arrived,

supposedly a courier from the credit card company,

ready to collect all six of her cards.

When I was handing over the cards, I was shaking,

because I was giving away my personal things,

and it's just not something that I would normally do.

So the courier left, claiming to be

safely taking the cards across London

so that they could be checked and a block put on them.

Alex told Fiona she needed to stay on the line until he made it back

and was through police security.

He eventually got through,

and that's when he asked me to read out the PIN numbers

so he could block them.

Now eating out of the fraudsters' hands,

Fiona proceeded to give them the PIN codes for five of her cards

and she was relieved when Alex said

they could prove that she hadn't used them

and she'd be getting all her money back - if she unplugged her phone.

He said to me, "We need your line in order to wire the money back to you,"

and that he would tell me when to put the line back.

Fiona followed his instructions and disconnected her landline.

I do realise now it was so people couldn't contact me.

So as arranged, the fraudster rang Fiona again the next day

on her mobile, to update her

on the progress supposedly being made with her case.

He said that they had the CCTV,

they had the pictures of the people who had been frauding my cards.

And even though I had doubts at the back of my mind,

I just kept saying to myself,

"Oh, you're being silly, because they're sorting it out for you."

And he did say to me, "You won't need to contact your bank,

"I'm dealing with that for you as well."

The reassuring calls to Fiona's mobile continued.

But when they stopped, she reconnected her landline,

and that is when she was horrified to realise she'd been scammed.

I found all the messages on the phone

that people had been trying to contact me, and the banks, M&S,

to tell me... I actually felt sick.

Fiona discovered that the fraudsters

had quickly made full use of her cards,

spending a total of £15,000.

Now, luckily she could prove that she'd been a victim of fraud

and she got her money back within a week.

Barclaycard told us that they are aware of this scam

and would never, ever call asking for personal details

or requiring cards to be returned,

and anyone who receives a request like this

should end the call immediately.

But this is a very effective scam.

In the first eight months of last year, thieves managed to snaffle

ten times the amount of money from it as they did in the whole of 2011,

a cool £7.5 million.

So to avoid being caught out, remember, no bank will ever, ever

ask you for your PIN number over the telephone.

Meanwhile, although Fiona has her money back,

she's now on a security register

and will have to go through enhanced checks

when trying to get credit in the future.

This experience has really shaken me up,

but I'm very relieved to have all my money back.

It is an extremely sophisticated scam.

Next, three letters that have become a real financial hot potato

over the last couple of years, PPI.

I'm sure you know by now that stands for Payment Protection Insurance,

a policy that turned out to be mis-sold to million of people

right across the UK.

And as a result,

what seems like no end of companies have sprung up offering to help you

claim back money that you should never have paid in the first place.

Well, we've investigated some of those companies before,

but I'm afraid they show no sign of going away,

despite the fact that most people don't even need their help anyway.

You'd be much better ignoring the middle man

and claiming your money back yourself,

something this next couple wishes they'd known BEFORE they signed up.

Like many people, grandparents Ann and Michael Costello

had no idea that they might be entitled to money

that they were owed in mis-sold Payment Protection Insurance,

until, that is, two years ago, when Ann received a call out of the blue.

A company called Tucan Claims called me,

saying they could get me PPI back from any credit cards

or any loans that I've had over so many years,

and they said they'd already refunded

lots of money for a lot of customers.

So she signed up, agreeing to pay Tucan Claims 10% of whatever

they recovered on her behalf plus an upfront fee of £250,

although she did wonder why that was necessary.

I thought that if they did the job right,

if they were charging the 10% fee, that's their way of being paid.

Tucan Claims told Ann that seven different companies

could owe her money,

but in order to access her records, she needed to pay each of them £10,

which she did.

But it took over a year before Tucan sent her a confirmation letter

to say that they'd been successful with a claim.

They stated that they'd negotiated a refund of £802 from a credit card.

Of course, I was really pleased, because this was the first time

any money looked as though it was coming back to me.

Well, it may have looked like cash was on its way,

but sadly, it never materialised.

So Ann rang the credit card company that was making the refund

to check why they hadn't sent the money on to Tucan.

And what she was told next came as quite a shock.

They'd already sent the money to Tucan Claims, so that was it.

My money had gone into Tucan Claims's bank.

I've not seen it since.

Although they'd certainly received her money,

Tucan Claims had not sent one penny of it on to Ann.

So what HAD they done with it?

I was calling two or three times a week

to try and chase up where this money was.

Excuse after excuse.

I never got an answer to when the money was coming at all.

Ann and her husband decided to do their own research

into reclaiming Payment Protection Insurance,

and they soon discovered a website

that they wished they'd known about in the first place.

It just said "Download this information

"and you can send off and find out yourself

"if you've got PPI on any loans or any credit cards," which he did.

And within five weeks, he got a cheque back into the bank.

So while her husband Michael had got his PPI payment back

without paying a middle man,

Ann was left bitterly regretting that she'd ever agreed

to let Tucan Claims reclaim money on her behalf.

I just feel totally disgusted with Tucan Claims.

They're just not a help to anybody. You don't need them.

You can do everything yourself, and I'm absolutely...

fed up.

In February of last year,

three months after Tucan Claims had cashed the cheque,

Ann got in touch with them once again.

On the advice of the Citizens Advice Bureau,

she threatened them with court action if they didn't pay up within 28 days.

I've not heard a single word from them. They're just not interested.

Ann isn't the only one unhappy with Tucan Claims.

In April of last year, the Ministry of Justice,

which regulates companies like these,

prohibited them from providing any further claims-management activities.

And that line of action happens regularly.

In the last year,

the Ministry of Justice has banned or warned 252 PPI claims companies.

That about a quarter of the industry.

As for Tucan Claims, the company has now gone into liquidation,

which perhaps explains why no-one from the company responded

to our calls, e-mails or letters.

They were ordered to repay all refunds to customers by last May,

but Ann still hasn't got her money back.

She can try to claim it back through Tucan's administrators,

but so far, she's had no luck. However, there is some light on the horizon.

From later this year,

Ann and anyone else who has lost money through claims

management companies will be able to take their case to the legal

ombudsman, who will be able to make sure compensation is given

where appropriate.

But for the time being, Ann has learnt the hard way that

if you want to reclaim your PPI, the best way is to do it yourself.

For more information on how to do that, you can

always log on to our website.

It's bbc.co.uk/ripoffbritain.

Rip-Off Britain has opened up a pop-up shop.

Inside, our team of experts is ready

and waiting to help consumers with their problems.

You know you're in the right

and almost certainly your case will be upheld.

And one of the first to see Trading Standards expert Sylvia Rook

was Aisha. She needs steering in the right direction after being

ripped off by her driving school.

I paid for 10 block-book lessons and I only got seven of those lessons,

and then the driving school closed down, and I didn't get my money back.

-How much did you pay?

-£180.

-What is the situation with that, then, Sylvia?

Unfortunately,

the problem that you face, that the company that has been bought

out by a different company, and as soon as a company takes over

another one, the liabilities of the previous company go, so,

unfortunately, the existing company are under no obligation at all

to give you a refund.

You didn't pay only credit card or anything, did you?

If you'd paid by credit card,

there might have been some way of getting your money back.

Are you saying she has got to write that off to experience?

She is never going to get the money back?

I'm afraid that's the only thing I can say. Yes, I'm afraid so.

Not the answer Aisha was hoping for.

But the good news is she has now passed her test.

Now, we are told paying bills by direct debit will save us money,

but personal finance expert Sarah Pennells' next case Anera

is being penalised because she would rather not pay that way.

All the other companies that I have my regular bills with,

one in particular, I get charged £5 every month

if I don't pay by direct debit.

Companies absolutely love direct debits.

They say they like direct debits

because they are much cheaper to process.

The real reason they like direct debits is that once you pay

by direct debit, you are much less likely to check your bill,

you are much less likely to switch away.

I think you've got a couple of choices.

Firstly, you could try and escalate it with this company and say,

"Is there a way that I can pay regularly?" Some other way

that is low-cost for them to process without getting penalised.

Secondly, the other choice is to vote with your feet

and switch to another company.

-Thank you for your help.

-You're very welcome.

Now, unfortunately, there is always someone out there who is

prepared to do absolutely anything to part you from your hard-earned cash.

And they're always on the lookout for new ways in which they can do it,

so you can bet that whenever some bright spark comes up

with an idea that is supposed to make our lives easier, someone else is

immediately going to find a way to turn that to their advantage.

And judging from the e-mails and letters you have sent us,

that is exactly what seems to be happening with Ukash vouchers -

a very simple but increasingly popular way to make payments -

but scamsters are using them to rip you off.

And here is how they're doing it.

In May last year,

Karen McCracken from Nottinghamshire was thrilled

when she received a call from a withheld number claiming

she had won £10,000 from Royal Mail.

'They phoned up at half past ten 10 the morning, saying that'

I had won this £10,000, and it was from Royal Mail.

'It was quite exciting, to be fair, I must admit.'

But to claim it, they asked her for a £50 admin fee, which she

would have to pay using a Ukash voucher.

Well, I said that I would have to speak to my husband about it,

and they turned around and said,

"You don't need your husband's permission for this.

I says, "Well, I think I do,

"cos I haven't got that kind of money to give you anyway."

And he says, "Oh," he says, "I'll phone you back on Monday."

He did call back on Monday morning,

still falsely claiming to be from Royal Mail,

but when Karen declined the offer, he became aggressive, insisting

they must have that admin fee whether she wanted her prize or not.

'They just kept saying that I would need a solicitor, and he went,'

"I'm going to send the police round to your door

"to get this money, because you're breaking the law not giving me it."

'And it got me really scared, to be honest.'

Then, when I come off the phone, I cried.

Karen didn't fall for what the man was saying but only

because the previous year, she had been targeted in a similar way.

She had again been told that to claim a £10,000 cash prize,

she would have to pay an admin fee, and that time, she had done it.

They told me I needed a Ukash voucher and they then told me

where the shop was, what street it was on and stuff like...

And I had never heard of them before.

Ukash vouchers are prepaid shopping vouchers that can be

purchased at shops across the country.

You buy a voucher for the amount you want

and then use the unique number printed on it to spend the money.

The woman on the phone to Karen said that she would call back

to get the code, once she bought the voucher.

So, I went and got the £50 voucher,

and then they said that that would be it, I would get the cheque.

Karen had just unwittingly handed over £50 she would never see again.

The woman who called her

was using the simplicity of Ukash vouchers to scam her.

Karen only realised that when her winnings failed to arrive.

'The cheque never come after Christmas, cos we thought,'

"Oh, Christmas time, it'll be lovely.

"We'll get the kids something nice." But it never come.

Ukash is a convenient way of paying online at websites

if you don't have a bank account or debit or credit cards,

but once you have handed over the serial number,

the payment is completely untraceable.

It is as if you had used cash, and, unlike using a credit or debit card,

you have absolutely no protection...

..as Karen learned the hard way.

Then I went, "Oh, we've lost 50 quid."

And it was my last 50 quid out of my bank, to be fair.

Cos we didn't get paid till the week after.

After the second incident, she reported the calls to the police

and to Nottinghamshire Trading Standards,

who issued a warning about the scam.

These particular kind of cold calls are particularly difficult

because of the aggression that is used.

'They are possibly targeting people who haven't got the facility

'to use credit cards and debit cards so readily.'

Ukash vouchers are a brilliant idea.

They work in a lot of circumstances, but you do need to remember that

when you give that number over, it is effectively handing the cash over.

Across the UK, whether it is on the phone or online,

Ukash vouchers are being exploited by crooks in all sorts of ways.

In London, conmen have claimed to be police,

needing a fee paid with Ukash to remove illegal content from PCs.

In Dunbartonshire, targets have been told

they are entitled to money from unclaimed insurance policies.

And in Gloucestershire, a recent scam was more elaborate still.

A woman reported handing £600 worth of Ukash vouchers to a man

who had first rung to say she was entitled

to £4,000 worth of mis-sold PPI, then turned up at her house

with very convincing forms for her to sign.

So, are Ukash doing enough to keep consumers safe?

'Let's see what the company's chief executive David Hunter has to say

'about the way that the system is being abused.'

These criminals are exploiting the fact that people can be

convinced to use the product in a way it's not designed to be used,

against our strict terms of use, against the alerts we have

put on the vouchers saying, "Please do not give details away to anybody.

"Only use at participating Ukash websites." This has been exploited.

So, David, what it is the key advice you would give people to make sure

they don't get taken for a ride and don't have their money taken?

I think it is really important that people recognise this is like cash.

That number, that is the security of their value.

Please don't give that to anybody, over the phone or by e-mail,

unless you want them to have the value.

Following our last programme featuring this issue,

Ukash says it has seen

a 45% reduction in new victims

of this kind of scam coming to them,

and in January, a criminal gang

with a similar operation was arrested abroad.

They're actually picking on people that need the money,

and they're vulnerable anyway, so they're going to take the money.

Very nasty people. Very nasty people.

We all make mistakes, and big companies are no exception.

It is what they do to put those mistakes right that can leave you

feeling ripped off, so you need to know what your rights are

and where to go when you don't think you have been treated fairly.

So we have put together a booklet of tips and advice.

You can find a link to the free guide on our website.

It is at bbc.co.uk/ripoffbritain.

Or to receive a copy in the post, send a stamped, self-addressed

A5 envelope to the address that we'll give you at the end of the programme.

Now, if you're really being honest, which one of us hasn't at some

stage dreamt of what we could do if we won that small fortune in cash?

So, imagine how you would feel if you suddenly received

a letter in the post saying that you had won thousands of pounds.

Not that you stood a chance of winning it,

but that already the money was definitely yours.

On average, every household receives 377 pieces of junk mail

through its letterbox each year, and it can be very hard to decide

what is junk and what is a genuine offer or promise.

A dilemma faced by Alan Downing last year when he started getting

letters saying that he had won huge cash prizes.

"We hereby confirm that the amount of this cheque is £15,500."

15,500, 15,500, 15,500,

15,500 and 20,500.

If all this did come to me,

I would be one of the richest men in Manchester.

The letters came from a mail order company called Star Shopping,

which has a post office address in Dublin.

They said they guaranteed a cash prize.

And with such a clear promise,

72-year-old Alan just couldn't resist replying.

When I saw the documents, I thought,

"Well, we can all do with 20 and a half grand for doing nothing."

I was quite wary it was going to be a scam,

but I thought, "I will continue, because it only costs me a stamp."

Star Shopping quickly wrote back.

Not with a cheque, but with an assurance that

if Alan ordered something from the catalogue they had sent,

the money would be dispatched right away.

Their catalogue said I didn't have to buy anything,

but, if I did, it would speed it up.

So, Alan placed an order.

I got the goods.

I got this plastic squeegee thing on a piece of plastic but no cheque.

And, funnily enough, there are still hasn't been.

Although over the next six months Alan received a further 25 letters

insisting that the money was still waiting for him

at Star Shopping's headquarters,

and all he had to do to get it was order more.

20,500, this one.

"Mr Downing, this is the best day of your life."

I thought that was my wedding day.

"You are the one and only

"lucky winning beneficiary of the Big Bank cheque for 20,500."

They don't give up with this.

But I'm afraid Alan has given up on ever receiving his prize.

Still, at least he didn't waste too much money.

Unlike John Cooper from Bournemouth.

He received the same letters from Star Shopping and indeed from

other mail order companies, some of which appear to be connected.

He was also told that as soon as he ordered from the catalogues,

his five-figure prize would be on its way.

I probably placed about 16 to 18 orders with Star,

and with their other mail order firms, probably about another 10.

Generally speaking,

I suppose the orders would come to about £15-20 each time.

When John contacted Star Shopping to see where his winner's cheque was,

three of the company directors assured him

in writing that it would be sent to him shortly.

Believing that his winnings were on their way,

John spent £350 on Star Shopping products alone.

He also spent almost £200 on goods from the other catalogues,

because they too promised that he had won big cash prizes.

There's probably about 300 different pamphlets,

envelopes and letters, all of which are clearly pointing out that

a massive prize has been won by myself.

When something makes a statement like that in business,

on a contract, and firms make that contract, then they must stand by it.

And if it is lies or deceit, it is fraud.

Now, you may also have received catalogues like these.

Many of them have addresses in either the Netherlands or Belgium,

and several of them

have links to a Belgian mail order company, a business

that the Office Of Fair Trading has taken action against in the past,

all as part of an ongoing battle about these kinds of prize draws.

But I'm afraid that hasn't stopped the same sort

of misleading letters being sent to countless households across the UK.

We contacted all the companies who had written to John to ask

why neither he nor anyone else we have heard from has ever

received the prize they were supposedly guaranteed.

Not one of them replied.

So, Alan has some words of wisdom for anyone who receives

a letter like this, suggesting they have won a cash prize.

My advice to anyone who gets these is don't even look at.

Just stick it in the bin. Or return to sender.

Cos you're not going to get it.

Here at Rip-Off Britain, we are

always ready to investigate more of your stories.

You can write to us at...

Or send us an e-mail to...

So, as we have heard today, sometimes we need to manage our own

expectations before getting too excited about an offer

or a promise that may not be quite as good as the website

or the ads would have us believe.

But even so, when you are forking out good money,

you really should expect to get what you pay for

and if you don't, then you need to make sure that you know your rights

so that you know the most effective way of getting your money back.

And do think about the way you pay for things.

Remember that paying by credit card will usually give you protection

if something does go wrong.

Well, that's all we've got time for today, but we hope you can

join us next time when we will be looking into more of your stories.

-Till then, from all of us, bye-bye.

-Bye.

-Bye.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd