Episode 9 Rip Off Britain

We asked you to tell us who's 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 couldn't 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 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 it is that

you're out of pocket and what you can do about it.

Keep asking the questions, 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 a huge welcome to Rip-Off Britain,

the series that fights your corner, when you're feeling

well and truly ripped off - which is especially the case with

some of the people we're going to be hearing from today.

And that's because of the fact that they have ended up hundreds

of pounds out of pocket when it's absolutely not their fault.

Now, none of us likes losing money at the best of times,

but when it's all down to the fact that someone else has messed up,

well, that really does make it worse, don't you think?

Sure does, and while we all make mistakes good customer service

is about putting those mistakes right.

But as we'll see, too often that doesn't happen.

And even though it's someone else who's to blame it's YOU that

ends up paying the price.

Coming up. How two of the biggest names on the High Street

managed to lose almost £1,500 of one customer's money for an entire year.

It's just draining. You have to spend so much time

and so much effort actually having to chase money that they

should have paid into the correct account to start with.

The credit mix-up that's left this woman with no identity

and chased for massive debts that she simply doesn't owe.

There's times that I haven't slept, because it's worrying,

you know, I just haven't known how to clear my name.

And we open our doors to try

and solve some of your problems on the spot.

We declare our pop-up shop open!

Anyone who has bought or sold a home will know that it's usually

considered right up there with bereavement and divorce

in terms of stress. Even if things are going well, there's a constant

fear that it will all go wrong and fall through at the last minute.

Which is why you rely so heavily on your solicitor to make sure

that every last piece of information and paperwork is in place,

so that the sale goes ahead smoothly.

But the devil is in the detail and if some of that detail is missed

the effect can be devastating, as this next couple found out.

With her children grown up and having flown the nest,

Chris and her husband decided to sell their home

in the south of England and move back to Chris's hometown

in Lancashire.

We thought, "We'll go there."

We can afford to pay cash for a nice little bungalow,

nothing extravagant, just what suits our needs.

So five years ago, in 2007, they put their house on the market,

and within weeks not only had an offer on it,

but also found themselves a bungalow to move into.

All was going well.

The people wanting the house were coming round,

measuring up for curtains and carpets, like you do.

They'd even planned where the Christmas tree was going.

But then came the news that any house mover dreads.

The buyers were pulling out.

My first reaction was numb, I just couldn't take it in,

because my husband had just given his notice in, so he had no job.

I just felt... I was gutted.

I just can't find the words to express how I feel.

I felt as if I'd been dealt a great big hefty blow.

What made it worse was the discovery that the sale had fallen through

because of an extraordinary complication with the title deeds

of Chris's property - one that would put off most other buyers, too!

Because, although they'd known nothing about it till now,

the deeds contained two clauses - the first forbidding them

to sell the house without their next door neighbour's permission,

and the second saying any structural changes to the home would

have to be agreed by the neighbours as well!

So, technically even if they wanted to knock a wall down inside the house

they'd need to go next door to check that was OK.

This is why the people pulled out of buying the property,

because they weren't prepared to take the house on

with those restrictions on, which is fair enough.

We wouldn't have taken it on if we'd have been told about it.

It emerged that Chris's house was built on land

which originally belonged to next door. And when the land

had later been divided up, the correct details weren't added to the Land Registry.

And though that sounds like a minor detail, it's caused Chris

a major problem and made her house extraordinarily difficult to sell.

She couldn't understand why her solicitors hadn't picked up on

these restrictions on the deeds when she bought the house 12 years ago.

So she asked them.

He admitted they're wrong, he's admitted they could've been corrected

and they admit that basically I've been badly served.

An opinion shared by an independent solicitor

who we asked to look at Chris's case.

I feel very sorry for these people.

The firm should have picked up on this and advised them

and dealt with it accordingly at the time when they bought the property.

For Chris, the fact that they didn't has had far-reaching consequences.

Not only has she paid other solicitors £1,250 in failed attempts

to get the problem sorted, she feels she's stuck in a house

she can't sell and can no longer afford to stay in.

Running costs are a lot higher here in this house than they would be

if we'd moved to where we wanted to go.

My husband could've retired, whereas now he's forced to work.

We feel robbed.

Chris's former solicitors did offer to handle a future sale for her

free of charge - and offered her £485 compensation.

But Chris doesn't think it's nearly enough considering everything

she's gone through.

I couldn't believe it!

I thought at first there was a few noughts missing.

It's an insult.

We contacted the solicitors in question and though they accept

they made a mistake which they could have corrected,

they don't believe it should have created the problems it has

because, as far as they're concerned, it could easily have been rectified

by the solicitors who Chris was using to sell her home.

But when we contacted that firm of solicitors, they disagreed,

saying that though they tried to fix all this, they couldn't.

None of which is any help to Chris who wants the situation

finally put right.

Because although the restriction on her selling the house

has now been lifted, the one saying alterations

need to be run past the neighbours remains in place,

leaving her feeling she's paid a high price

for someone else's mistake.

They're the legal profession.

It's their job to know what all this is about, what conveyancing's about,

what those words on those papers mean.

We paid them good money to read that and to act in our best interest.

They didn't.

Now, changing the subject, here's a question for you - what's in a name?

Well, quite a lot if you end up in the same horrendous position

as our next viewer.

Now many of the things that most of us just take for granted,

even something as simple as buying a telephone, she just can't do.

All because her name has been muddled up with somebody else's.

Susan M Brown couldn't get a mortgage. Her store card applications were turned down.

And even getting a mobile phone contract was impossible.

I'm quite an independent person

so not being able to get a mobile phone and not being able,

you know... Even if I wanted to get a credit card, I couldn't.

And like, the car, we've had to do that

in my husband's name and, you know,

it's everyday, little things that people take for granted.

Susan had lost her identity. And it's all because of her name.

It is very frustrating, it makes me really angry at times as well

and I have got upset at times, there's times that I haven't slept

because it's worrying, I just haven't known how to clear my name.

Susan's troubles began seven years ago, when her name changed.

I got re-married. Before that I'd been Susan Margaret Eamus

and I married in May 2005 and became Susan Margaret Brown.

In January 2007 I had a letter from Dorothy Perkins saying that

I owed nearly £500 pounds.

As she'd never even had a Dorothy Perkins store card

this really baffled Susan, and of course she just threw the bill away.

She assumed it was simply a one-off mistake.

Then about a month later I had a letter from a debt collection agency

saying that I owed nearly £15,000, which as you can imagine

was quite a shock and, you know, a lot more money.

So I rang them and they said, "Oh, yes, sorry we've been given

"the wrong details, it was Experian that gave us your details,

"you need to contact them and let them know

"that they've made a mistake," which, you know, is what I did.

It appears that this Susan M Brown's credit file had been muddled

with another Susan M Brown's file.

Experian, which is Britain's biggest credit reference company,

worked alongside Susan to clear her file,

and advised her to contact the other credit reference companies.

And while at first this did seem to help the problem, I'm afraid,

soon returned.

At the beginning people said, "Oh, yeah,

"sorry, we've got the wrong person, and so therefore

"we'll take your address off file," but then it continued.

However hard she tried, she just couldn't convince everyone

that she was a different Susan M Brown to the one they thought.

The problem that I faced is that the lady that owes the money,

we share the same date of birth.

We found 484 Susan M Browns on the Electoral Roll,

but by sheer fluke the two that have been mixed up

just happened to share the same birthday.

Determined to clear her name,

our Susan M Brown went to great lengths to prove who she was.

There was a consumer advice guy that I went to and he advised that

I changed my name by deed pole to Griffith-Brown, which is what I did.

But that hasn't made any difference.

The letters are still coming through

and in fact people have said that it's an alias,

it's an alias that I use and I'm trying to hide behind another name.

I went to Citizens Advice. They just gave me a print out of things to do.

But on there it said that I could give a notice of correction

to Experian and Equifax which is what I did.

I typed a letter and just said, "You've got your facts wrong."

I've sent them photocopies of my birth certificate,

my marriage certificate, you know, all the documents I've got,

proving who I am and I've sent that to numerous debt collection agencies.

And the whole sorry saga was even affecting her marriage.

David was even doubting me, thinking that I did owe this

amount of money and that I hadn't been honest to him

about how much debt and everything I was in.

So yeah, that was tough, that's a real tough thing to face.

And the demand letters just kept on coming.

I was threatened with either arrest or bailiffs, and then you

start to think, "Well, actually this is not going to go away."

There was a time when I had a solicitor who wrote to me

and said that they were going to attach litigation

to me and to my property.

I've had letters saying that they're going to bankrupt me, you know,

it's been quite a horrible journey really.

So, 5 years down the line, still battling to prove who she is,

Susan contacted Rip-Off Britain for help.

On her behalf, we again got in touch with Experian,

to find out why this problem just won't go away.

Certainly, as far as your Experian report's concerned,

there's no longer any confusion, there's no data on there

about the other person.

Of course, some of the organisations that are still looking

for their customer might still have your details and as a result,

you know, might still be getting in touch or even passing those

details on to other organisations that they're working with.

But James says that there is an organisation that might

be able to help - the Credit Services Association, or CSA.

They will look into any malpractice that's alleged

against their members and they'll take that very seriously.

If you're still being contacted and, as I say, the organisations

aren't listening to your very clear information

they've got the wrong person, then certainly, I'm sure the trade body

would be, very interested to have a look at that for you.

I now know that there is somewhere else I can go, and hopefully,

if I report all the issues that I've had to them,

that will be an end of this situation.

The Credit Services Association told us they're working to resolve

Susan's case and their members are "Sorry for any distress caused."

They say cases that like this are uncommon but by no means unique

and they're trying to find a permanent solution to this issue.

It's robbed me of my identity and, you know,

I'm seen as somebody who has bad debt and somebody not to trust

and that's hard, that's tough to live with that.

Well, we're keeping everything crossed that Susan's problems

will now finally have come to an end,

and she won't have any more of all this in the future.

In the meantime our website

has tips on how to check your own credit history.

Our next case study, Len Kelundra,

is the kind of loyal customer that most companies absolutely love.

He's been with his phone company BT for over 30 years now,

so you'd think that they'd want to keep hold of him at all costs.

But his recent experience of their customer service has meant

that his previously steady relationship with them

is now looking just a bit shaky.

As the ads say, "It's good to talk" and with so many friends

and relatives abroad,

Len Kelundra spends a lot of time on the phone catching up.

He talks to people in Sri Lanka.

In India. And sometimes in Malaysia.

So what's your plan?

So to make all of that cheaper, he took out

BT's International Freedom Package, which for an extra £5 a month

gave him 600 minutes to talk to his friends around the world.

I can't afford to be without the International Freedom package

because it will be very expensive to be in touch with my family.

Happy with the phone tariff that he was on,

Len wanted see how BT measured up in other areas.

So he signed up for one of their broadband packages

after being offered three months for free.

BT contacted me several times boasting about their BT Infinity package

and it's much better for the price I'd pay.

They said I'd get a better speed and better performance.

So Len signed up to an 18-month BT Infinity package, including

broadband, and he thought, keeping his International Freedom add-on.

And after being a customer for nearly 30 years,

he expected the same reliable service that he was used to.

I was depending on BT to provide a very good service for me

and also they said that this will have no impact on any of my other

services that I have.

But it did. Len's direct debit suddenly rocketed

from £41 to £183 per month.

And due to ill health he didn't check his first quarterly bill

as thoroughly as he normally would have done, so it wasn't until

his next bill arrived three months later that he spotted the increased cost.

I noticed that BT was charging me for the international calls

which is supposed to be free with the International Freedom package.

I was very stressed and worried about why this has happened.

And no wonder.

Over the last eight months, Len's international calls had

cost him a total of £409, whereas normally, apart from the £5 a month

Freedom Package fee, those same calls would have been free.

Len rang BT to find out what was going on.

They said when the BT Broadband Infinity package was installed

there was a system error and they struck my International Freedom

calls due to the system error,

and they were charging full rate for my international calls.

So if Len's International Freedom package had been

removed by mistake when BT set up his broadband surely

that would be easy enough to sort out?

And at first it seemed that the answer was yes.

They said they will refund the money.

Relieved, Len sat back and waited for the money to arrive.

And then after few weeks nothing happens, then I call again.

And they say to hold the line for a long time and then they say,

the problem was due to the system error and they will sort it out.

But again Len heard nothing more and the problem wasn't sorted.

So he rang BT back and this time he got to speak to a manager.

He apologised and he said this is their mistake

and they will sort it out, let me investigate the bills.

And he asked me to hold the line,

I was holding the line for a long time, for more than hour.

The line got cut off.

Infuriatingly, Len spent a lot of time over the next few days

listening to BT's hold music.

Over the last few months Len has made more than twenty calls

to them to sort his problem out and twice been put on hold

for more than an hour and then cut off.

It keeps on going like this, the problem of contacting BT,

it's horrendous. I wanted to scream!

In their company report BT pledged that...

But, that was NOT Len's experience.

From the telephone calls I was not getting anywhere.

So then I decided to write to BT and send an email to them.

And almost two months since he'd first complained

Len got a resolution - although it wasn't the one he was expecting.

BT now said they WOULD NOT be refunding

his international calls as he hadn't notified them of the extra charges straight away.

It makes me very angry because I never asked them to cancel

my International Freedom package and they never asked me

and they never said it's been cancelled

so I can't understand why this is my mistake.

I feel that BT doesn't care about me

We put that to BT and they apologised for

the "disruption and poor service" that Len suffered

after they accidentally cancelled his International Freedom package.

They've now reinstated him on it

AND they've given him a full refund

for the international calls

that he was charged while he was without it.

But Len still feels let down by the company that he's been loyal to for so long.

I've been faithful to them for nearly 30 years.

So I would expect the same thing from a service provider -

to be faithful, to provide a good service to me.

If you think that you've been left out of pocket by a mistake

that a company has made,

or indeed if you feel that your complaint is being ignored

then here are just a few tips on how you can make your voice heard.

The first thing to do is to complain directly to the company.

So I recommend you either write to them or send an e-mail

and keep a copy of the correspondence.

It's important that when you complain you're very clear

about what's gone wrong and what you want the company to do right.

Make sure that you're calm, clear and logical

and tell them what you want by the way of compensation

if you want any compensation at all.

If you're not getting anywhere

then ask if your complaint can be referred up.

If you're doing this in writing, say that you want it dealt with

by somebody who's senior in customer services.

If you're dealing with somebody on the phone then insist

that you're not just passed from one call centre person to the other.

See if you can speak to a supervising manager.

If you're sending follow-up correspondence

to see how the company's dealing with your complaint then keep copies.

And if you're phoning them, make sure you keep a record

of who you spoke to,

when you spoke to them

and what they said.

Most companies these days

record their phone calls

and that could be useful for you

if there's a dispute later on about who said what.

If you're still getting nowhere, it may be time

to refer your complaint to one of the ombudsman.

It's free to complain

and the ombudsman can force companies to pay you compensation.

Another route is using social media such as Facebook and Twitter.

Quite a lot of companies have people monitoring

Facebook and Twitter comments and you may find you get a speedier result

than going down a traditional route.

Still to come on Rip-Off Britain...

How a mistake by the DVLA left this driver off the road

and hundreds of pounds out of pocket.

It was extremely frustrating and very upsetting

because it restricted almost everything one did.

We've opened our very own pop-up shop

at the Metro Centre in Gateshead...

We declare our pop-up shop open!

Overnight, we've transformed this space

into a one-stop consumer advice centre.

Hello, how are you?

So we can try and solve some of your problems face to face.

-Is this your good lady?

-Yes, it is.

-Hi.

For one weekend, our team of experts is inside,

ready to offer practical advice on a variety of consumer issues.

Gemma popped in to see personal finance expert, Sarah Pennels,

after a mistake by her bank, when she switched accounts,

left her out of pocket.

-Fire away, Gemma.

-When I changed my bank account over

and changed where my wages were going to be going,

they took all the direct debits out of the wrong account.

I was then charged by the mortgage company for a missed payment.

I'm worried now there's going to be something on my credit rating.

Well you said you've already made a complaint to the bank

so I think you have to wait for up to eight weeks

while they work out what, if anything, they're going to do,

and if they don't offer to pay back the £42 that they've charged you

then I would go and take the complaint

to the Financial Ombudsman Service which is free to use.

But I think more importantly,

you do need to get hold of a copy of your credit reference file,

just to make sure that that payment that was late

that wasn't your fault isn't marked down there.

Because if it is, that could cause you some problems.

-Yeah.

-If you look at your credit file

and you see something there that you think is not just,

what can you do about it?

If you think the information isn't correct

then you've got the right to dispute it and basically you should contact

the credit reference company concerned,

tell them what you think is wrong and they've got 28 days

to either get back to you and tell you,

"Yes we'll remove this disputed mark, "No, we won't and here's why,"

or, "We need longer to look into it."

You know we don't care whether your consumer problem is big or small.

-We just like to hear about it, right?

-Absolutely right.

And I can tell you that our gripe box is just the place

to get it all off your chest.

I'm really annoyed about the price of fuel.

It's ridiculous as to how expensive it is.

Car insurance is an absolute disgrace.

I paid £2,200 for my first year's insurance

and that's just a total rip-off.

I've come to complain about the high prices that holiday companies

charge during the school holidays.

I feel that the pensioners in this country are getting ripped off.

But one pensioner determined not to get a raw deal is Norman.

Norman, it seems to me

that you're someone who's got an eye for a bargain

but it sounds as if you very nearly got caught out by an optician.

Tell me what happened.

Well my wife and I decided to go and get new spectacles.

We saw an advertisement for a company offering 25% discount

for pensioners who went in and purchased on their quiet days.

So the assistant chose my wife's spectacles

and she eventually decided on two pair.

So the girl immediately got the calculator out

and said it wouldn't be any benefit, the pensioner's discount.

How much the spectacles would have cost you

with your 25% discount "special" for pensioners

and how much it would have cost you if you didn't have the 25%?

Well If I had the 25% discount for pensioners

and had insisted on that, they would have cost me £215.

If I didn't have the pensioner's discount

and went in as a normal member of the public,

-they would have cost £198.

-Crikey!

It sounds very strange

and I'm sure it's something

Trading Standards would want to look at.

If you're being offered a discount, you shouldn't pay more

than the people who aren't being offered the discount.

This a story where it really is "Read the small print" and "Buyer beware."

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 new 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.

Now, we hear a lot of examples of frustrating customer service,

but here's one that really takes the biscuit.

It all started with, as their own ads might say,

"Not just a mistake but an M&S mistake."

And it's been compounded by the people that, "Promise you extra."

The Halifax.

But in this case, the "extra" is confusion.

Between them, two of the best-known names on the High Street

have created a situation

that's left Natalie Harvey hundreds of pounds out of pocket.

And neither seems able to put things right.

It's money they can't afford to be without.

But for almost a year now, through no fault of their own,

Natalie Harvey and her family have been out of pocket by £1,456.

I literally was running backwards and forwards

between Marks and Spencers and Halifax,

with both of them saying, "I don't know where your money is."

I have to watch every single penny.

So £1,400, not having in my account,

is a significant amount of money for bringing up my family.

The trouble dates back to May 2009,

when Natalie cancelled her car insurance policy

with Marks and Spencer after an accident.

My car was written off.

So...I sent all my documentation off that I needed

to send to Marks and Spencers to cancel my policy

and as far as I was concerned my policy should have been cancelled.

But it wasn't and because Natalie's premiums

came out of an account she rarely used, she didn't notice that M&S

continued to debit that account for a further two years.

It's an account that I use purely for my son,

just for his birthday parties, school uniform.

I don't get bank statements and it's just a case of,

I look online every now and then to just see how much is in there really.

When I finally realised, I was absolutely shocked.

Natalie immediately contacted M&S,

who told her they had no record that her car was no longer in use

and she'd need to contact the DVLA to get the documents

to prove it had been written off.

Which she did.

Once they'd received the documentation,

they did, finally, admit that they were at fault

and they shouldn't have taken the payment.

Once M&S had the proof they needed,

they agreed to refund Natalie the money they'd taken in error.

I was over the moon.

I was so pleased because over the two years the total had come to £1,400.

What I'm going to do, count to ten, you've gotta hide

and I'll come and find you.

BUT two months went by and Natalie still hadn't received the refund.

So she called M&S again.

The good news was they insisted they HAD refunded the money.

But the BAD news was they couldn't confirm exactly

into which account they'd paid it.

And they couldn't give her many clues.

They couldn't give me the name of the card,

the bank detail, the branch or anything.

Rather than refund the money to the account they'd regularly used

to take Natalie's premiums, M&S said it had gone to one

she'd used four years ago to make a one-off payment.

But those last four digits were the only thing

they could tell her about it.

Marks and Spencers literally left the detective work up to me

to try and track down the account that it was actually relevant to.

So I literally had to do all the digging about myself.

Natalie checked all her bank accounts,

but the money wasn't there.

And when she couldn't find any card ending with those four numbers,

she went back to M&S.

Who suggested that maybe they'd sent the money to an account

that was now closed.

And if that was the case, the bank who had it would return it to them

but that process would take six months.

When they told me I had to wait six months,

I did think it was ridiculous.

But nonetheless I did wait six months and I called them back

for them to simply tell me that the money hadn't been returned,

so I must have it.

Natalie assured M&S that, no, she still hadn't received her money,

and persuaded them to investigate further.

It's just draining.

You have to spend so much time

and so much effort actually having to chase money

that they should have paid into the correct account to start with.

Meanwhile, Natalie had a breakthrough,

when she finally found the bank card

ending with the four digits M&S had given her.

It belonged to a Halifax account

that had been closed since December 2008.

But unfortunately, that wasn't the end of the matter.

I think last I spoke to her,

she listened back in to my phone calls?

When Natalie contacted Halifax, they couldn't find the money either.

They basically told me that no money had come in or out,

it's a closed account

and that the money must've been returned to Marks and Spencers.

Halifax said that to trace the payments,

they'd need some extra information.

So Natalie contacted M&S to get a unique code

called a transaction sequence number,

which both they AND the receiving bank would have.

But within a week, Halifax had some bad news.

The branch manager said that, "That particular account was closed

"and no money had come in and no money had come out"

and that she couldn't trace them at all.

Increasingly frustrated, Natalie went back to M&S

to say the numbers they'd given her HADN'T helped locate the money.

All they could do was reiterate that the money HAD been sent to Halifax.

With neither M&S nor Halifax able to locate her money,

and Natalie stuck in the middle of it all, she got in touch with us

to see if we could help.

And surprise, surprise, that's done the trick.

Both M&S and Halifax agree that the delay in resolving this case

has been "unacceptable", and that the standard of customer service

has been below their expectations.

And not only have they apologised to Natalie

and refunded ALL the money she's owed,

but they've given her compensation

for the inconvenience she experienced.

But Natalie still doesn't understand why it all took so long.

It is not acceptable for a refund to take a year to get back.

It's just absolutely ridiculous.

It should take... It literally should take a matter of minutes or days.

Now driving isn't always just about getting from A to B.

For some of us, it's a necessity. For others, it's a pleasure.

Either way, finding yourself without a licence,

let's face it, is a big deal.

And when that's because of an error that should never have happened -

well, you can imagine not just the inconvenience,

but the utter frustration.

So put yourself in the shoes of 83-year-old Alban

driven to distraction by the consequences of a careless mistake

that cost him, not just his independence,

but an awful lot of money as well.

Driving tests were first introduced in Britain back in 1935.

And since then, more than 98 million people have taken their test.

Amongst them, 83-year-old Alban Pearson.

Now to say that he enjoys driving would be an understatement.

He's been doing it most of his life.

I've been driving since 1946.

Prior to that, off-road in the fields with tractors.

Went into the forces at 21 after an apprenticeship.

One of activities I did there - I trained a lot of drivers.

I did a little competition driving both on motorcycles and cars.

Alban's driving skills are still very much in demand.

His friends rely on him, for example, for a lift to their bridge games.

Come wind, rain or shine - he's there, he picks us up

-and he's really, really good, isn't he, Margaret?

-Yes.

-We don't know what we'd do without him.

-Of course.

Alban's pride and joy - his beloved Rolls Royce.

A very stylish Silver Spirit.

And he was looking forward to a very special opportunity

to put it to good use.

The pending wedding of my grandchild,

we'd arranged to have me drive our Rolls,

which they'd looked forward to and I was going to ferry them

to and fro and certainly I was looking forward to that day.

But unfortunately, that was not to be!

All UK drivers over 70 have their licence reviewed every three years.

Now as part of that, the government licensing authority,

the DVLA, can also request an eye test.

They did that with Alban last year.

And when he'd been to the optician,

the results were sent on to the DVLA.

When they wrote back, Alban couldn't believe his eyes.

Because the DVLA were saying that following the eye test

they were taking away his licence.

Well, I was astounded really because the letter indicated that

I needed to be able to read a car number plate

at something like 20.5 metres.

This is something I had no problems with

and my eyes had been monitored for a number of years.

Good number of years now.

Baffled, Alban paid out of his own pocket

for ANOTHER eye test with a consultant.

He passed and immediately let the DVLA know.

It turned out that THEY had made an error

with Alban's first eye test and although they admitted that

and apologised for taking away his licence,

it took a full five months for him to get it back.

It was extremely frustrating and very upsetting

because it restricted almost everything one did

and obviously we were very upset at not getting, you know,

a good response from the DVLA with regard to it.

So through no fault of his own,

not only was Alban unable to do the driving at his grandson's wedding,

but for months the DVLA's mistake stopped him

from doing ANY driving whatsoever.

I think it's unfortunate that whoever is dealing with it

at the DVLA doesn't put themselves

into the position that I found myself in.

It meant that you were constricted in a way

that was like putting a fence round you, really.

The friends who relied on Alban to ferry them around

were also left stranded.

It was devastating for him, wasn't it?

It was stressful and I think he really felt it.

And there wasn't just an emotional cost.

Over those five months,

Alban drove up quite a few financial losses as well.

Including £314.70

for car insurance he couldn't use.

£175 for road tax.

And £320 to hire another car for the wedding.

And by the time he'd added up all his costs,

including that second eye test and a solicitor's bill for legal advice,

Alban estimated he was out of pocket by a total of £1,500.

So he asked the DVLA to give him that back.

After all, THEY had made the mistake.

We had only asked for

that we considered was an absolute direct consequence

of the action of the DVLA and, you know,

didn't really allow for all the trauma and the consequences

of not being able to drive on, you know, more normal occasions.

But when the DVLA responded they offered Alban £700 -

less than half of what he felt he was due.

For them to offer half that, again is, you know,

some indication that they didn't understand

and appreciate the consequence of their actions.

We contacted the DVLA, and they told us they're

"sorry for the error that was made", but point out that they

"Handle around 700,000 medical cases a year

"and mistakes are extremely rare".

And when mistakes DO happen, they insist they correct them

"As quickly as possible".

As for the amount of compensation- after we got in touch,

the DVLA upped their offer to £1,000, which Alban has now accepted

and he's absolutely delighted to be back on the road.

Oh, I'm very happy to be driving again,

I would never want to have that same experience again

and certainly my good ladies that I pick up for the bridge club

appreciate the fact that there isn't a problem again

and certainly it's a big relief.

A big relief.

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 never-ending small print?

We should read it but it's no in plain English, it's not...

it should be simple, you know, ABC, you know - very basic stuff.

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

and that "great deal" has ended up costing you money?

You get home, you get your bill and it's like £70,

when it's meant to be £35.

And it's just basically, you just get ripped off, don't you?

You might have a cautionary tale of your own

and want to share the mistakes you made with us,

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

We paid them good money to act in our best interest, they didn't.

You can write to us at...

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

Remember the Rip-Off team are always ready and waiting

to investigate your stories.

So as we've heard today, when you're paying for somebody

to do a good job on your behalf, it can be incredibly frustrating,

not to mention seem very unfair,

when it's YOU left counting the cost of THEIR mistakes.

And it's all the more maddening

when something that you'd hoped could be sorted very quickly

actually takes months, or maybe even longer, to sort out.

Now, I know it can seem a very daunting task

when you're taking on big companies,

even though YOU are completely in the right.

But there IS help out there, so don't give up!

And remember, if you don't get resolution,

or you feel you're getting a raw deal, come to us.

In the meantime, thanks for joining us, and until next time...

ALL: Goodbye.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd