Episode 8 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, and the message could not be clearer.

Things weren't right,

it was costing me time and money, and it was like, does anybody listen?

But unfortunately, I think these companies are more motivated by their share price,

than they are by actually looking after their customers.

You've told us, that with money tighter than ever,

you need to make sure that every pound you spend is worth it.

How do I get my money back?

Cos 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...you know, 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 programme that is

never afraid to take on those companies both big and small

that you believe have either let you down, or treated you unfairly.

And, boy, have you given us plenty to get our teeth into today,

haven't they?

You sure have. Well, the thing that comes over loud and clear is

that you feel really ripped off when things don't turn out the way

you expected. Maybe you didn't realise exactly what you'd signed up to.

Or perhaps there was a key detail that you simply weren't told.

But, you know, either way, it can result in a very unwelcome

surprise later on down the line - which is exactly what

happened to the people whose stories are coming up today.

Coming up... The families hit with huge care home fees they didn't expect.

Just because it's legal, doesn't make it morally or ethically right.

This is charging the dead, really, for a service they've not had.

And more of your problems solved on the spot at our pop-up shop.

When money's tight, it can be bad enough keeping on top

of your own finances, let alone being dragged into somebody else's.

So imagine suddenly being told you had to pay off a debt that

belonged to someone else

and there was nothing at all you could do about it.

I was lying in bed, it was the middle of the night

and I just heard this almighty hammering on the door.

For Jo Day, that loud knocking one wintry night in December 2011,

was to prove a very rude awakening indeed.

I opened the front door,

and there were two men standing there just saying that

the car was being seized because there was a loan outstanding on it.

So, shocked and confused, I gave them the car keys.

Terrified, Jo had no idea at all what was going on.

But these men were debt collectors

chasing a loan she'd never even heard of.

Living alone with my daughter it was scary to have two huge men

banging on my door at that time of night demanding my car keys.

The men left her with a letter explaining there was a loan

held against her car, and it needed paying.

Jo was shocked because she'd never taken out such a loan,

and she'd only got the car - a £500 second-hand Nissan Micra -

a few months earlier.

But from that letter she was able to start piecing together what

had happened,

and could trace her problems back to something that had

occurred three months earlier, when she'd tried to tax the car.

It was then that I realised that I didn't have the

full V5 document that you need when you're taxing the car.

That V5C document - more commonly known as the logbook -

is the certificate issued by the DVLA when a vehicle is registered.

It contains the car's details, and information about any

previous people who've had the car - known as its registered keepers.

I phoned the DVLA. They confirmed that the vehicle wasn't

registered in my name.

When Jo's parents had bought the car, which they

gave to her as a birthday present, they HAD been given -

as is correct - part of the logbook.

What the seller should have done next was to send the remaining

part to the DVLA, notifying them of the new registered keeper, Jo.

In this case that hadn't happened.

So, to try to put things right, Jo sent the part of the logbook

she did have to the DVLA, along with some identification.

I received a letter back to say that they had received the paperwork

that I sent and the new logbook would be with me shortly.

Days later, she received the logbook from the DVLA.

At last, the car was officially registered in her name.

But it was because Jo was now traceable as the car's keeper

that a few weeks later she received that frightening

visit out of the blue from the debt collectors.

By them having that information they were actually able to come

to my home in the middle of the night and take that car away.

The reason the previous owner hadn't sent their part of the logbook

to the DVLA was because they didn't have it.

At some point in the past it had been used to take out a

so-called logbook loan with that vital certificate handed

over as security to borrow cash.

If I'd known that there was money outstanding on the car,

I would... My dad wouldn't have bought it for me,

that's as simple as that.

30,000 logbook loans are recorded in the UK every year,

and the industry is said to be worth around 40 million pounds.

And although they'd no idea at the time - when Jo's family had

bought the car, they'd been landed with the loan attached to it too.

Having spoken to the logbook loan company, they said there had

been various owners after the logbook loan had been taken out,

but they'd been unable to track the car down and actually seize it.

And Jo was staggered to find that now the car had been seized,

the only way to get it back was for her to pay off the loan.

She had no option but to pay £500 to cancel a debt that wasn't even hers.

£500 to me is my month's rent, a week away with my daughter.

I'm a single mum, I don't earn a great deal.

It was just soul destroying.

The logbook loan company Jo paid the money to is called Mobile Money.

They say they'd normally expect their recovery agents to

work in daylight, and accept that the time and nature of this

visit were...

They apologise for that,

and say they stopped working with the recovery company as a result.

Even so, they say they were acting within the law

and the relevant code of practice.

They stress, "Advance notice wouldn't normally be given to recover assets"

and...

..to be mindful of the fact that the seller...

But, since Rip-Off Britain intervened,

Mobile Money have now sent Jo a cheque for the £500 she had

to shell out to get her car back.

It's estimated that as many as a quarter of second-hand cars

sold may turn out to have some sort of outstanding finance deal

or debt attached.

The best way to make sure a possible purchase doesn't is to get

a finance check done before you buy it. That way, should something like

a logbook loan be discovered later on, you may have some protection.

But as Jo hadn't done that, she'd been left with two choices.

Pay off a complete stranger's loan, or lose her car.

It just doesn't seem fair or just that I have to do that,

but I had no choice.

I needed to get my car back.

Now here's a holiday nightmare that most of us can identify with,

you know the story, you book a hotel which looks

great in the brochure, only to find that when you arrive,

that your dream accommodation is in fact...a building site.

Well, for one couple that got in touch with us,

it was even worse than that.

MUSIC: "Young At Heart" by The Bluebells

When Lynn Eaton from Carlisle was thinking to herself,

how to mark husband Jim's 50th birthday,

she knew she wanted to do more than simply throw him a party.

We were just having a cup of coffee and I could see this

sign in Thomas Cook's window saying something about Vegas,

and I just said, "Do you fancy Vegas instead of a party?"

And he said, "Yes."

After a look through the brochure,

and a chat with a friendly agent, they booked a week at The Imperial Palace Hotel,

very handily placed for Vegas's legendary Strip.

It was small and it was friendly,

and we thought it is in the middle of everything

and it's not the most expensive.

But the couple's luck began to change

when the day of the trip dawned,

and they had a chance conversation with another passenger on the plane.

I told him we were stopping at the Imperial Palace

and he said to me, "Are you sure, because we've been moved out of there

"because it is getting major renovation work?"

Obviously concerned,

Lynn and Jim sought out a Thomas Cook rep as soon as they landed.

She explained, "Yes, there is major,

"major work being done on the hotel."

I said, "Well can we be moved?"

And she explained that we were not actually with Thomas Cook,

and there was nothing she could do.

Well, this was news to Lynn and Jim.

They'd certainly been under the impression

that they were on a Thomas Cook holiday.

But then the rep explained that in fact their holiday had been booked

with a separate part of the Thomas Cook Group, called Flexible Trips.

We were on a Thomas Cook flight.

As far as we were aware we were with Thomas Cook,

we had booked in a Thomas Cook shop, but she made us aware that we

were actually with Flexible Trips, which we had never heard of before.

So they set off for the hotel and quickly encountered more

surprise from their taxi driver about where they were headed.

He said, "Are you sure?" and we said, "Yes."

He said, "It's getting torn down", and when we got closer to it

he didn't know how to get into it.

I was stunned, I was lost for words

and the taxi driver was saying at this point,

"I may have to leave you on the strip here cos I can't find a way in."

And as you can see from what they filmed on their video camera,

things got only worse when they eventually found their way inside.

First thing we saw was the scaffolding.

But behind that were diggers, heavy machinery,

guys with big drills, jackhammers, noise.

Everywhere you looked there were construction workers.

There were bits boarded up, you know, with tape on it,

and danger areas.

Whole parts of the casino bit were all cordoned off.

With the whole trip turning out to be a disaster, Jim managed to

get through to the Flexible Trips' helpline.

They explained at that point in time there was nothing they could do for

us and they would arrange something the following day, which they did.

But it seemed the two alternatives suggested really

were in the wrong part of town.

I want to be central.

I don't want to be miles away from anywhere.

I certainly don't want to be in an area where

somebody was gunned down the night before.

By now desperate, the couple looked into going home,

but couldn't get flights.

They were devastated that the trip had gone so wrong.

Thomas Cook let us down,

simple as. I think they should have been a bit more careful about

their description of the hotel, and the resort, and where we were going.

When Jim and Lynn returned home in June,

they got straight onto Thomas Cook.

But the company's response was not what they expected.

The final letter we have received up to now is an offer of

£150 in vouchers to book another holiday through them.

That wasn't an offer they were prepared to accept.

So Lynn and Jim wrote to us,

and once we got involved there was very good news indeed.

Thomas Cook sent us a statement from Flexible Trips,

saying they're... ..about the couple's experience

and they've now offered a full refund of the accommodation costs in cash.

They're...

..and in particular, have asked their local ground agent

why they weren't advised of the building work

when other tour operators,

including, of course, the parent company Thomas Cook, were.

Meanwhile, for Lynn and Jim, an offer to refund the accommodation costs

doesn't make up for the fact that such a special trip was ruined.

It marked the birthday for sure. Scarred me for life, I think.

But no, it is something I will never forget.

We've opened, here on Rip-Off Britain, a pop-up shop,

so that we can hear your problems on the spot -

and offer advice to get them resolved.

I really don't know what my rights are...

What can she do about it?

And, as Sylvia Rook from Trading Standards has been hearing,

our next case didn't exactly get the best seats in the house.

I bought some tickets last December

for Elton John, I was lucky enough to get front row seats.

When I arrived there I could not see anything at all.

-How much did you pay for the tickets?

-£105 each.

-£105!

-That's a lot of money, isn't it?

-For a restricted view?

-It's obscene.

-The restricted view tickets were about £35-40,

but I chose to get the £105 tickets because I wanted a front row view.

What chance does Charlotte have of getting money back?

I think you've got a very good chance

and it should be the promoter that will solve the problem.

If the promoter doesn't then you should talk to the

online ticket agency as well.

If nobody is offering you any financial recompense then

you may have to consider going through the courts.

So, Charlotte, has it put you off Elton John for life?

It's a shame because I have been to see him before and he was fantastic.

Well, we followed up Charlotte's case.

The promoter says that her seats weren't sold any differently

to how they normally would be at this venue.

But they're very sorry that she was disappointed.

So, as a goodwill gesture they've offered her free tickets for

an upcoming show by a different performer.

If you're having to face the very difficult subject of moving

a relative into a care home,

it can be a very stressful time.

And amongst all the things that you're going to have to consider,

getting your head around the paperwork

may not seem to be a top priority.

And, indeed, it could be that the terms and conditions aren't

especially clear.

Many care homes have a clause in their contract which,

if you're not expecting it, can come as a particularly

unwelcome surprise later on.

When Isobel Wilkerson's family made the difficult decision to put

her 93-year-old grandmother Olive into a care home,

they were determined to find the perfect place.

We looked at lots of homes around Cambridge and some of them

I wouldn't put my dog in.

But we found a local one, which was lovely.

Olive, who suffered from dementia,

received exceptional treatment at the home they chose.

The cost was £650 a week, which included accommodation,

food and drink, and round-the-clock care.

It was a massive relief that we'd got her somewhere safe where

she was being looked after really, really well...and she loved it.

Olive spent a happy two and a half years there,

but in March 2011, she passed away.

She just went to her bed and became very, very poorly.

And she basically just slipped away, and the staff were brilliant.

Isobel cleared Olive's room the very next day.

So she was shocked when she received a bill for her

care for the two weeks after Olive had died...at a cost of £1,365.

I was livid. I spoke to the solicitor about it,

and she said it was quite common that these are...

These clauses are put into contracts

and some homes can charge up to four weeks.

So it was classed as legal.

And, unfortunately for Isobel, it did say in the terms

and conditions that the contract would only be terminated

two weeks after a death, or when the room was cleared, if that was later.

I was informed that it was a period to allow the family time

to clear the room and for them to make it suitable

for somebody else to then move into.

But Isobel thinks the £1,300 bill is unfair,

because it covered not just the cost of accommodation,

but also all of her grandmother's care, food, drink, lighting,

heating - even laundry done on the premises.

Services that, of course, in the two weeks after her death...

she hadn't used.

I couldn't understand how it could be legal that you could

charge for a service that you weren't actually giving.

I could have understood if they'd charged us a percentage of the fee

to allow us time to clear the room etc, but not for the whole lot.

What frustrated Isobel even more was that she normally paid the fees

from Olive's pension, which had stopped the moment she died.

So she has no more income, but is still expected to pay bills.

In fact, it's not at all unusual for care homes to have that

sort of charge.

When Helen English and Rob Sewell's 93-year-old father Jack died,

the home he'd lived in deducted nearly £2,000,

the equivalent of three week's care, from their initial deposit.

The home claimed that this was part of the contract, and indeed,

there it was. They require one month's notice of a termination.

They require one month's notice of a termination.

We felt that that money, or at least most of it, should have been

given back to us because Dad was in no position to give a month's notice

of termination, because he didn't know when he was going to die.

Rob and Helen had read the terms and conditions,

but now feel that they weren't clear,

because they hadn't realised the clause about

termination of residency also applied to death.

They certainly don't specifically mention what happens in the...

in the event of... of the resident dying.

When the Office of Fair Trading looked into care home contracts,

they were concerned about the "lack of clarity" with these fees,

which, they say, are often "not drafted in plain intelligible language."

And though they concluded that a charge for up to four weeks may

be fair if the room was unoccupied for all that time - they said

that any fees after a resident's death should be made "clear and prominent"

in the contract, so that consumers are fully aware of them.

We asked both of the care homes involved

whether they think the charges were fair - and made sufficiently clear.

Only the one Olive lived in replied, saying that the

costs of their care are...

..with this fee...

..and...

They say it's...

that Isobel doesn't feel that this was clearly explained.

But Isobel remains angry

and upset about the charges that she's had to pay.

There isn't a choice.

Even if you challenge it beforehand, you've got to do the best for the

person and it's a big decision moving a loved one into a care home.

When you feel you've had a raw deal

it can be hard to know what to do or where to turn.

So, to help you,

we've put together a booklet full of practical tips and advice.

You can download the free guide on our website...

Or, to receive a copy in the post,

send an A5 stamped and self-addressed envelope

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

If you're a sport or a music fan desperate to see your heroes,

then a company that promises it can get you those hard to find or

even sold out seats can seem just the ticket.

But those companies can often deliver an unexpected result,

as one of them did for our next viewer.

He was determined to get to Barcelona for a football game -

but the company he used kept moving the goalposts.

Aside from his day job, there's only one thing that really

takes up the time of Bes Sezer.

And that's his beloved Arsenal.

Arsenal.

Arsenal's in my blood, I was raised an Arsenal fan by my father

and my uncle, it's just a love of mine.

So in February 2011, when Arsenal beat Barcelona in the first

leg of their Champions League tie, there was no doubt about what

Bes would need to do next.

The very next day, I was straight online looking to buy some

tickets to go out there and watch the game.

This website came up, onlineticketexpress.com.

In hindsight, I didn't put any research into this company whatsoever.

The match tickets weren't cheap.

But as it was such a crucial game,

Bes wasn't put off and he ordered two -

one for himself, and one for his brother Oz -

at a total cost of £524.

The very next thing that was asked was that I returned an e-mail

signed back to them via fax to confirm that I was definitely

making a purchase of these tickets. I did that immediately.

I'd never made a purchase online for a sporting event before,

so nothing triggered my mind that there was anything abnormal about that.

Tickets apparently sorted, Bes set about organising what should

have been the perfect holiday.

Sun, sea and Arsenal.

Then, the company sent him an unexpected request.

I received an e-mail requesting that I make scanned copies

of my passport and the card that I'd used to make the purchase.

I called them and spoke to a lady who said to me

that this is completely normal.

I said, "OK, I'm going to need to question that, really."

I contacted Barclays and I was told under no uncertainty,

do you ever send scanned copies of your passport, to anyone.

So Bes said no

and Online Ticket Express told him

that without the documents the purchase couldn't be completed.

Despite that, four days later

they took over £600 from his account.

Bes asked them to refund it -

and though they agreed on the phone that they'd do just that,

they then stopped acknowledging any further calls or e-mails.

At that point I realised that I was just being taken for a fool

and I got very worried and thought, well,

am I going to be losing this money now?

But with his flights

and hotel already booked, a few days later Bes flew to Barcelona

resigned to watching the game from outside the stadium.

Enough for Gunners. C'mon!

The atmosphere was brilliant, the buzz was amazing,

but it absolutely killed me that I was not going to the game.

Bes couldn't resist buying a ticket outside the game.

I managed to purchase a ticket,

which I had to pay a lot of money for, but I was all... I was out

there already in Barcelona so, you know, I had to see that match.

But it really was a game of two halves because

when he got home, Bes found an e-mail waiting for him.

Headed "Last Call", it had been sent by onlineticketexpress.com

just a few hours before the game, instructing him to pick up

his tickets from an unspecified area "near the box office".

Bes was baffled.

As far as he'd been concerned the purchase hadn't gone ahead -

and he'd still been waiting for a refund.

But he was worried to see that the e-mail also stated that

regardless of whether these tickets were collected,

they would be considered delivered - with a refund not an option.

I immediately contacted Barclays and informed them of this,

at the same time I contacted Barcelona FC and asked them

if they knew about this company.

Barcelona FC immediately told me, you know,

this company, we've heard their name before.

We always have people coming and asking where is there a pick-up

point for this company, no such pick-up point exists.

Upon hearing this, Barclays returned the ticket purchase price to

Bes' account in full.

However, the ticket site played the game too well,

and as the final whistle blew, they had one last shot.

I realised that this amount of money had gone back

out of my account again. I then contacted Barclays

and asked them what was going on here, and Barclays told me

that the amount had been disputed, counteracted by the company.

Onlineticketexpress.com argued that as Bes had signed the terms

and conditions, he had agreed to the company's trading methods.

And, regardless of the fact that the purchase hadn't been completed,

and that his tickets had never materialised,

the bank agreed with them,

and Bes lost his money.

Barclays said that there is nothing they could do, that the

terms and conditions had been signed,

and that the charge-back scheme had been challenged.

We contacted onlineticketexpress.com

who are based in Andorra.

They didn't reply.

We also got in touch with Barclays,

who said they did approach Bes to see if he wished to continue

with the dispute, but due to his delay in replying, they are...

I didn't do enough research and it's really cost me now

because I'm out of pocket by £600 because I never got what I paid for.

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

more of your stories.

We're particularly keen to hear from you if you've had a problem

when travelling abroad or on holiday.

You can write to us at...

Or you can send us an e-mail to...

Well, it isn't always easy to plan for the unexpected.

But as we've seen too often, some people have learned the hard

way that a little more checking upfront could have spared them

a lot of hassle, and even grief, later on.

And that is so sad, because you really cannot assume that even if

something looks or seems OK, that that's how it's going to pan out.

And when it comes to signing paperwork, do make sure that you are

absolutely clear about what you're signing up for before it's too late.

And I would say that is all very solid advice.

But that's where we have to leave it for today, naturally.

I hope you'll join us again very soon

when we'll be investigating more of your stories,

and trying to get to the bottom of why you feel ripped off.

But until then, thanks for your company and from us, bye-bye.

ALL: Goodbye

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd