Episode 8 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 street,

and the message could not be clearer.

It feels to me that I'm fighting a battle that I can't win.

Costs you a fortune and, when you actually get through,

you get fobbed off.

You told us that with money tighter than ever,

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

We ploughed thousands into it and we had nowhere to turn.

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.

Your stories, your money.

This is Rip-Off Britain.

Hello and welcome to Rip-Off Britain, the series that

tries to unravel situations where you feel you've had a raw deal,

or indeed been stuck with a problem that's not been easy to sort out

and you've come to us.

But I think we all agree

that there are usually two sides to every story.

And sometimes, perhaps when you feel you've been treated unfairly,

the truth is that it may not be that clear cut,

and the explanation could be that there's been a genuine

misunderstanding along the way.

Or indeed that both sides have an equally valid

perspective about what's actually going on.

That might not make it any easier to swallow but knowing that

no-one's deliberately taken you for a ride may soften the blow.

So, today, we'll be looking at cases where, as we try to get to the

bottom of stories you've asked us to investigate,

the result may not be as simple as it first appears.

Coming up on today's programme, the dispute that's left this

woman stuck with a gaping hole in her floor.

I thought, "You're having a laugh."

I can't believe a company can just sort of say,

"Actually, it's nothing to do with us."

How to beat the menace lurking on Britain's roads.

I feel absolutely livid.

I don't see why I should even have to suffer one penny's worth of inconvenience.

And we tackle more of your problems at the Rip-Off Britain pop up shop.

Here's a problem that most us have come across at some point.

It's a bugbear that won't go away and indeed,

thanks to a run of bad winters, is only getting worse.

It's unsightly, it's spreading on an epidemic scale

and it's an issue that can have a very costly impact on your car.

There's a danger lurking on our roads, one that can creep up

on the unsuspecting motorists and when it strikes,

the damage can run into hundreds of pounds.

Potholes - our roads are full of them,

and last year across England and Wales

an estimated 2.2 million of them were filled in.

But, every year, they're believed to be responsible for, wait for it,

£2.8bn worth of damage to cars in Britain.

And, according to the AA, the number of pothole-related insurance claims

more than doubled in January compared to the same month last year.

Mechanic Ken McBrian from Folkestone knows all about the damage potholes can cause,

but even he was surprised by what happened to his son's car last year.

He was driving down the road, he wasn't speeding,

he hit a pothole and wrecked his wheel.

Mark Scott from Crewe also suffered extensive damage to his car

after driving over a pothole earlier this year.

I hear an almighty bang, got out immediately,

had a look at the wheel,

a massive bulge the size of an egg on the outside of the tyre.

So, I knew immediately it had done some serious damage.

The pothole that Ken's son's car hit was eight inches wide,

five inches deep and 40 inches long -

enough to inflict some significant damage.

It had damaged the inner rim,

taken the tyre away from the rim,

rapidly deflated and damaged the tyre.

The damage that was caused come to a figure of approximately £200.

Meanwhile, to fix the results of his run-in with a pothole,

Mark has had to fork out an awful lot more.

The damage to the car was it completely destroyed

the allow wheel - it had bent it and distorted it -

and the lower suspension arm was damaged beyond repair as well.

The total bill was just short of £927, including VAT.

The AA report that a third of drivers have suffered some sort of

pothole damage to their cars in the last two years.

You see the damage it's done.

This customer paid us £150 for this wheel, approximately.

At this garage in Manchester,

mechanic James McGraw regularly fixes the problems they caused.

And while that's a good trade for him,

he sympathises with the motorist.

Potholes are good for business but I feel sorry for people.

Why should the customer have to pay out for that? It's not fair.

No-one can budget for that sort of thing.

The road should be in a good condition in the first place.

It's not right. Not right at all.

In the UK, the government earns an estimated £42.8bn from motorists

for vehicle excise and fuel duties,

and around £7.7bn is spent on roads and maintenance.

Most of the repair work on roads - in fact,

95% of it - is done by local authorities,

which is why Ken and Mark are adamant it should be the council that

foots the bill for their repairs.

My son shouldn't have to pay for this damage,

nor any other motorist pay for the damage that is sustained

to their vehicle.

The local authorities should pay for the damage as it

was their responsibility to maintain roads, which they failed to do,

which has caused this damage.

Absolutely livid. I think it's a rip-off.

I'm paying more road tax every year, year-on-year,

and I don't know what on Earth for.

The roads are in the worse condition than they've ever been

and no-one can explain to you where the money's going.

Local authorities can end up paying for repairs

when it can be proved that the road hasn't been sufficiently maintained,

or that a pothole, once reported,

wasn't fixed as quickly as it should have been.

In fact, between them, in 2012

they paid out £32 million in compensation

to drivers whose cars were damaged.

But for cash-strapped councils,

it can seem that as soon as one hole if filled,

another one appears.

And it's said that at the current rate of repair,

it would take 34 years to fill them all.

But drivers like Ken

and Mark feel they already pay enough for being on the roads,

without having to stump up for the costs of fixing pothole damage.

I feel absolutely livid.

This is money that I've had to spend on a car that was in perfect

working order before it hit the damaged road,

so I don't see why I should even have to suffer one penny's

worth of inconvenience.

But there was good news for Mark when we contacted Cheshire East Council.

They agreed that, in this case, they did indeed have legal liability

and they've offered him £800 to cover the cost of damage to his car.

They've reiterated that for a claim to succeed,

it needs to be proved that the road has not been maintained appropriately

and that this was the direct cause of the accident of damage.

And they've told us they're investing £25m in their road network.

Meanwhile, we also spoke to Kent County Council,

which maintains the roads where Ken lives.

They told us their approach,

recognised nationally as best practice,

has resulted in a reduction of potholes over the past four years,

despite the harsh winter weather.

They've invested heavily in dedicated find-and-fix repair teams

who've brought down the average time taken to repair a pothole

from a month and-a-half to 14 days,

which has led to a fall in compensation claims,

saving taxpayers' money.

But they say by the time Ken reported the pothole that damaged his son's car,

it had already been fixed and they've no record of having received

the compensation form they sent him.

But if you find yourself in a similar situation,

facing high repair costs,

marketing executive turned pothole campaigner Rory Buckley has

set-up a website with advice on how to go about making a claim.

If you hit a pothole in your car,

the first thing to do is photograph it.

You have to have a record that you were there.

Get witnesses, anyone on the side of the road,

any other motorists, get their statement, get their details

because you may call upon them in the future.

The second thing is to report the pothole to the council.

You are the eyes and the ears of the council.

They have a limited resource and you have to help them

in that you are the one seeing it every day.

Some councils say they weren't aware of a pothole

and therefore they're not liable for it - that's not true.

They have a responsibility to go out and inspect the pothole,

regardless of the circumstance.

They have to inspect it within a certain amount of days and,

if they're not going out and inspecting these potholes as they should be,

that's when really you have a case for a claim.

If you've hit problems with a pothole,

there's more information about what do on our website.

As I think most of us know, there are usually two sides to

every story and that's particularly highlighted by our next one,

which shows the difficulty that's faced by many local councils

as they wrestle with the tough choices that

are presented by limited budgets and reduced funding.

Of course, it's not always easy being on the receiving end

of the changes that they may make as a result.

And it's one particular change

that has led a group of residents writing to us.

More that 250,000 of the UK's older citizens live in sheltered

accommodation, where residents can maintain their independence,

safe in the knowledge that support from a warden is usually close at hand.

But in recent years, more than 20 local authorities have either

decided or proposed to remove resident wardens.

With the result that a number of residents,

like some of the residents living in this sheltered housing unit in Barnet, North London,

would say that they're no longer getting as much

support as they think they should.

When 76-year-old Elizabeth James first moved here, there was

a live-in warden on-site working 9-5,

but last year that was reduced to three to four hours every week day.

And that prompted Elizabeth

and 12 of her fellow residents to write to Rip-Off Britain.

These places were let to us on the basis that there was a warden

and that makes a lot of people secure.

If you've got a problem, you can pop down to our office,

he would come and talk to you, and that was part of the job.

They would pop in and have a chat.

There's a lot of people that never see anyone.

We never know what time they're coming Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday

and even Thursday...

Sometimes it's in the afternoon. Sometimes it's in the morning.

-Sometimes it's not at all.

-So, what happens at weekends?

There's no cover from Friday afternoon until Monday morning,

so you have to pull the chord if there's an emergency.

And while warden duties have never been about providing meals or

helping with personal care,

they can be enormously supportive in lots of other areas.

Duties include making daily contact with the residents just to

make sure that they're actually OK,

organising social events,

taking care of minor repair jobs,

and generally providing low level support as and when it's needed.

If someone's here on a regular basis,

they know all the tenants, the know what they're problems are.

They know exactly what to do.

A warden would help to build a sense of community in a building.

A warden would also be responsible for doing certain practical

things around the building.

Like changing light bulbs and stuff, you know.

But we've now been told that we have to be responsible

for our own small repairs.

And things like cleaning the shower head,

well, quite frankly, I couldn't do it.

-Maria, hi.

-Nice to meet you.

Elizabeth and her fellow residents feel they're

paying for a service that they're no longer getting.

Quite frankly, I think we should have somebody 24 hours,

whether it's a warden, a caretaker or something.

Like many other local authorities facing tough spending decisions,

after a consultation process, Barnet Homes have replaced

residential wardens with what's known as floating support,

which means each housing officer will be

shared across a number of sites,

visiting for approximately three to four hours, Monday to Friday.

But fewer hours means that some residents feel more vulnerable.

The present wardens are great - I love what they do -

but I think they're like pinballs.

They're here, there and everywhere.

And they're not necessarily here when we need them.

I had a social worker and she suggested I came here,

because it was a sheltered accommodation

and there was somebody on call all the time, but there isn't.

They think we're silly, old methane-makers and...

..they don't always consider what their action

is going to have on us mentally.

They don't treat us as grown up people. We're like children.

Absolutely.

Residents used to pay nearly £31 a week for a warden

to be on-site every weekday.

They now pay less, £19.50,

for a warden who is contracted to come for just a few hours every day,

but Elizabeth is adamant that even that is too much

for a warden that she feels they barely see.

-Now you pay just over £19 a week for the service.

-Yes.

Do you think you're getting good value for money?

I think we're getting nothing for it, really.

If we're all paying over £19 a week and you multiply that by 24,

that's £400 and something a week.

I'm quite sure that somebody would be more than happy to come

and work here full-time for that money.

The impact of the reduction of warden services

across the country is something that also concerns Age UK.

Joe Oldman is a housing policy advisor for the charity.

Joe, where does Age UK stand on the issue of

full-time wardens in sheltered accommodation?

Providing that level of support is really important to people

in terms of promoting their independence

and helping them to stay active,

and ensuring people have access to repairs and maintenance.

So, when that service is taken away and it becomes a part-time service,

what do you see as the detrimental effect on the people

who are living in sheltered accommodation?

Well, there may be short-term savings.

It can actually cost more in the longer term.

Quite often, the support that people gets means that there's less

chance of them going into hospital

or having to move into residential care,

so it provides a really important preventative role for many people.

We did answer Barnet Council to answer some of the issues

that have been raised by the residents.

They said, that with an increasing number of older people choosing

to stay in their homes rather than living in sheltered accommodation,

the council has adjusted the way it supports its residents.

And the shift in funding allows for care support to be targeted

on the basis of an individual's needs,

irrespective of where they are living.

They've told us that the previous system used a disproportionate

amount of the council's budget,

and reiterated that now, when a warden is not on-site,

residents can call a 24-hour emergency line.

And they have an alarm service provided free of charge.

They're confident that the reduced charge for the new service

not only represents very good value for money,

but it comparable to other authorities in the UK.

Tackling the changing nature of support for older people is

likely to become an even bigger issue for cash-strapped councils.

But Elizabeth remains convinced that the changes mean that she is

not getting the service that she expected.

I think it's disgraceful. I think we're not getting value for money,

and I feel really let down and ripped off.

Still to come on Rip-Off Britain,

the small print with big consequences if you lose your phone.

To my disbelief, Orange told me that my bill was now over £400.

One city,

one space,

one top team of experts.

Our pop up shop gives us the opportunity to hear first-hand

of the situations where you think you're being ripped off

and, here in Liverpool, you're really telling us.

Real Adjicor came in to tell her story

to financial expert Mike Naylor.

She wanted to know if she had any wriggle room

on a car finance agreement.

I bought a car and I don't think that the payments are appropriate.

I think I'm being ripped off.

What you can do about it really depends on how it was sold.

Did they explain what the purchase price was going to be?

-How much the interest was?

-No, it wasn't broken down like that at all.

The basic thing that me and the dealership discussed was,

"Can you afford to pay this payment comfortably over a certain

"amount of time?" Yes, I can.

Because Real had previously bought other cars from the company,

she'd signed up for the new one with little discussion over the deal.

The fact that you've had one previously doesn't really

affect how they should have sold this one,

so they should really have explained that this is the purchase price,

this is how much the interest is,

this is what the repayment's going to be,

this is how much it's going to cost you overall.

But Real thinks this information

wasn't pointed out to her at the time.

If they didn't explain things to you that they should have done,

then you might have a case there.

So, what I'd suggest really is,

if you go to someone like Citizen's Advice,

they will be able to look at the agreement,

work out if you've got a case that they could look at

and they will then be able to help you put together a letter,

and put a formal complaint in to the company

-and see what happens. OK?

-Thank you.

Real wasn't the only person feeling ripped off.

Outside, we had a designated complains corner where you

could air all your consumer gripes.

Angry, extremely angry, and frustrated.

I would like to get what I paid for.

People selling openly and transparently,

and not trying to hide the facts and the details.

We're not in the age of technology. We like to go face-to-face.

They just keep putting up the prices and it's not really fair.

Food, clothes, it's just all a joke.

Meanwhile, Steve booked in with financial expert

James Daly for a steer on what to do with his pension.

I've been paying my pension for the last 17 years,

it's a private pension. I've never upped the amount I've been paying.

The question was, is it an idea to keep it as it is

or to change it and to pay it into a mortgage?

Or is there anything better out there for me?

You did the right thing by starting saving into a pension,

and the great thing about pensions is the tax relief.

So, if you pay in 80p,

a pound goes in because it comes out of your gross salary,

so you don't pay any tax on it.

But now Steve has got a new job

and he could join the company pension scheme.

Now that you're with an employer that offers an employer scheme,

you should start putting that money into their scheme

because then you're going to get your contribution from them.

Cos, at the moment, you are effectively giving up free money.

And you have to find out how much they put in on your behalf.

You could be turning down somewhere between

five and ten percent of your salary.

Would you say it would be a good idea for me to freeze my current

private pension and then just put all that into my workplace pension?

What you need to think about with the one you've built up so far

is whether or not there are any transfer fees to move it

across into the new one.

It's often easier to just leave it where it is,

keep it there, growing, invested.

And when you come to retire in 30 years' time, go back,

find out how much is in it and then take it out then.

I'd suggest, if you can afford it, just a little bit more than

£60-a-month and that will put you on track to have a liveable pension

-when you come to retire.

-That's what we all want.

And it seems James' advice was just what Steve was looking for.

Pensions are obviously a very confusing thing for most people,

so it's been really good advice.

If you've asked a company to make improvements to your home

and something goes wrong, the question is, who is to blame?

Now, the answer may sound obvious but, you know,

it can be more complicated than you'd expect

to establish exactly where the responsibility lies.

And while everyone involved continues to disagree over

who should put things right, you may find, like our next case,

that your homes ends up stuck with a very unwelcome additional feature.

Carole Lambert's extension has some very appealing features.

Big, bright windows giving a great view of the garden,

lots of extra space,

but also a large hole in the middle of the floor.

A hole so big that Carole has to cover it with her sofa to

stop her pets and grandchildren falling down it.

It's now become a bit of a joke in the family, although how it

appeared and why it's still there is not funny at all.

I moved here in October, 2010 and I had a conservatory in my old place.

And I love conservatories,

so I decided that I would have one put here.

Carole, who lives in Chippenham,

chose a well-established local firm called DL Windows,

not to be confused with companies with similar names,

to build her dream conservatory at a cost of over £23,000.

I went to the showroom and had a look at a few brochures,

and it all looked pretty good and quite exciting.

With planning permission secured,

designs agreed and everything ready to go,

Carole signed a contract for DL Windows to supply

and fit the conservatory.

And, at some point,

it was agreed that rather than pay all the money to them,

she would make separate payments direct

to the builder and the fitter.

I didn't think anything of it. They were just asking me.

I thought I was being helpful so, yeah, I paid them.

With the first payments made, work began on Carole's new conservatory.

I was very impressed with the professionalism of the guys

who did the work.

The fitter was really good and so was the builder,

and I was really happy with the conservatory.

But Carole's happiness was short-lived.

17 months after it was finished,

the conservatory started to have a distinct aroma.

There was a little bit of an unpleasant smell

and we were all looking to blame somebody, even the cats.

We did sort of look a bit further

and found out that our drain was full up to the top.

The drain under the conservatory had backed up.

Carole had to ask her son-in-law to unblock them.

It wasn't the nicest of jobs but, unfortunately,

he had to do it twice in as many months.

Clearly, something wasn't right.

The third time it happened, I thought,

"I better get the professionals in and they might have to put cameras down",

which they did. And, on putting the cameras down,

they realised that there was a problem down there,

and they said it could possibly be caused by the foundations

of the conservatory.

Carole was told that the drain which ran under the new conservatory

had collapsed and that was causing the horrible smell.

It was all very unpleasant. It was very smelly.

And he got rods down there and it was clearing it.

Carole couldn't be sure that it was the building of the new conservatory

that had caused the problem, but nonetheless her first call

was to DL Windows who quickly sent someone round to investigate.

They dug a hole in my conservatory to see what the problem was but,

unfortunately, after looking into this rather large hole,

the builder said that he

didn't believe it was the problem of DL Windows.

And now he didn't feel comfortable about repairing what was

going on down there.

And...off he went.

So, now I've got a big hole in my conservatory and I'm thinking,

"What shall I do?"

So, I contact my insurance company and ask if they can help me,

and they sent their drain advisory team around the very next morning,

because I did explain that I now had raw sewage running

through my conservatory.

The drain advisory team investigated the hole

and reported their findings back to Carole.

They concluded that the fault did indeed lie with

the creation of the conservatory.

"This would indicate that the poor practices evident in the

"excavation during the survey are the results of works

"undertaken during the construction of the conservatory."

Carole forwarded the insurance company's report to DL Windows,

hoping it would prompt them to fix the drain and fill in the hole.

But when she didn't get a reply,

Carole called the company's managing director.

He said that he has been told by his builder that it was not their problem

and seemed to pay no attention to the report.

I was quite shocked and saddened

and very disappointed by his attitude,

because, up until then, he had been perfectly nice with me.

And things went from bad to worse.

As a result of the report, the insurance company

said it wasn't their responsibility to put things right.

So, faced with another brick wall, Carole took legal advice

and wrote a formal letter to the boss of DL Windows.

There was a very immediate response.

I got a letter basically telling me that, actually,

I might well have paid him £19,000.

But, because I paid my builder £4,500 and my fitter £1,800,

but because I paid the builder direct,

my problem was with the builder.

Now, of course, Carole had paid the builder and the fitter separately,

but however many companies she had made payments to,

as far as Carole was concerned,

she'd only entered into a contract with one of them

and that was DL Windows.

So, she wasn't happy with what they were saying.

I thought, "You're having a laugh.

"I employed you. You employed the builder."

But DL Windows were adamant that

because Carole had made three separate payments,

she had three separate arrangements -

one with them, one with the builder and one with the window fitter.

And because it wasn't them who had been paid for the building work,

they were not liable to fix it.

I employed DL Windows to do my conservatory,

so if I get a leaky window, do I have to go and chase the fitter,

wherever he may be?

And not go back to DL Windows?

I can't believe a company can just sort of say,

"Actually, it's nothing to do with us.

"You paid the builder direct - go and sort it out with them."

Carole did get in touch with the builder and,

although he has been round to take a look,

he's confident that the problems couldn't have been caused by him,

as he says his work wasn't in the same vicinity as the pipe.

But, in any case, he's bounced responsibility back to DL Windows,

saying that the contract was only ever between them and Carole,

leaving her no closer to having things resolved.

It's going to cost quite a chunk of money to repair

and it looks like it's going to be down to me.

But Carole doesn't think it should be her

who has to pay to put things right,

and she keeps coming back to the original contract that she

had with DL Windows.

It refers to their builders

and clearly states that they would supply, and fit, the conservatory.

So, with all sides equally convinced

that they're in the right, it's stalemate.

We showed the contract to Trading Standards

and asked for their advice,

and it seems that Carole is right about where responsibility lies.

Because the wording states that DL Windows will supply

and fit the conservatory.

If they had just said supply, they wouldn't be liable.

But because they had promised to supply and fit it,

it does suggest that is DL Windows who should fix the problem.

And the fact that Carole paid the fitter

and the builder separately shouldn't get them off the hook.

That's because, while paying someone direct can sometimes be

seen as evidence of who a contract is with,

it's not conclusive.

The best evidence is always going to be the paperwork and, in this case,

there's nothing in writing to suggest

the initial agreement had been changed.

When we spoke to DL Windows, they told us they've consistently

said that if it is this job that's damaged the sewer pipe,

then they'll fix at their own cost.

But they've reiterated that they don't believe the damage was

due to the conservatory's construction.

Nor do they accept the report commissioned by the insurance

company that found otherwise.

They feel that may be due to the insurers wanting to avoid

paying out on any claim.

They believe they've done everything in their power to resolve the issue,

and stress that they have an impeccable

and hard-won reputation for providing a quality service.

But Carole had no idea the issue of paying separately could

so easily muddy the waters.

And while the disagreement continues,

her home is left looking like this.

As you can see, it's a pretty big hole.

Everyone keeps telling me

a different story about who is responsible for it.

I'm trying to take the words of professional people

and then other people say it's not their problem.

And no-one's doing anything about it, really.

And I'm trying to live around it, and it's just a bit of a drag.

Where would we be without the mobile?

But there is a term called "bill shock" that the mobile phone industry

uses when a customer receives a bill that is unexpectedly high,

sometimes when their phone is stolen

and someone else has used it to make expensive calls.

Well, last year,

over 800,000 mobile phones were reported stolen in the UK,

and countless others lost,

and that can be more than annoying.

It can also prove very expensive indeed.

Because although someone else might start using your phone to

make those costly calls abroad, unless you've followed

one key piece of advice, it'll be you who ends up footing the bill.

The mobile phone celebrated its 40th birthday this April

and we've come a long way since the days when we used to call them

bricks and couldn't even fit them into our pockets.

Now the UK has a higher number of mobile handsets in use than

there are people living here, and we rely on our phones so much,

it's hard to imagine life without them.

Catherine Evans can't - like most 22-year-olds,

she's inseparable from her phone.

In fact, it's such an important part of her life that, like over a third

of mobile users, Catherine pays extra every month for insurance.

I was paying £31 per month for phone insurance,

which they told me would cover loss, damage or stolen.

Catherine was confident she wouldn't be out of pocket

when her phone went missing on a night out last Christmas.

I thought, "Maybe I've put it down myself or maybe it was lost

"and someone had handed it in genuinely to the bar."

I checked everywhere.

I checked in the area that I'd been sitting, I checked outside,

I checked in lost property behind the bar, and I checked all the way

through my bag, like a million times, but there was still no luck.

Thinking that one of her friends might have picked it up

by mistake, or staff in one of the bars might find it at the end

of the night, Catherine didn't report her phone missing.

Something she'd come to regret.

Well, the next day I just used like social networking

and managed to get in touch with people through that

and told them what had happened and asked them maybe if they had it.

Because I just thought maybe my friend had picked it up for me,

but, no, there was no luck.

With no sign of her phone, Catherine called Orange thinking that

all would be fine because she had that mobile phone insurance.

When I spoke to Orange the morning after,

they were really reassuring that everything will be OK

and that they would send me a new phone out.

Catherine paid the insurance excess of £25 for the new handset

and the new phone arrived just in time for Christmas.

'I had a lovely Christmas and New Year,'

I hadn't thought twice about the fact that my phone had been stolen.

It was only when she got her January bill that Catherine realised

she'd missed a key detail in the small print of her insurance.

The policy made it clear that she would still have to pay for any

calls made between the phone going missing and the loss being reported.

To my disbelief, Orange told me that my bill was now over £400

because there had been calls called up to Romania

on the night that my phone had been stolen.

Whoever had got hold of Catherine's phone that night had used it

to make more than six hours of calls to Romania, adding more than

£360 to Catherine's bill - a bill that Orange insisted she had to pay.

Almost instantly they said to me, "Well, this isn't our fault.

"You need to pay this amount or else we're cutting

"you off from your contract."

I obviously then said to them that obviously this isn't my fault,

it's now obvious that someone has stolen my phone.

I would never have rang anybody in Romania in the past.

And then they continued to say that, no, you will pay the bill.

I was extremely angry and I was actually really close to tears.

Catherine had no idea that her mobile phone insurance didn't

cover her for the cost of calls made before she reported

the phone as lost or that she'd have been in exactly the same

situation whichever phone company she was signed up to.

We checked with every one of the big phone operators

and discovered that until your phone is reported missing

and the SIM card is blocked, it's the customer who's

liable for the cost of those unauthorised calls.

But unable to instantly find the extra £369 added to her bill,

and, in any case, thinking she shouldn't have to pay for calls she didn't make,

Catherine decided not to pay while she tried to resolve the problem with Orange.

I asked them if there was any alternates to how

I could deal with this situation outside of the Orange network.

Orange suggested that I got in touch with the police to see

if they could give me a crime reference number.

But the police told Catherine they couldn't assign a crime number unless

there was proof that the phone had been stolen, which she didn't have.

In the meantime, though, because she hadn't paid the bill,

Orange froze Catherine's account and cut off her phone.

Orange then cut me off because I wasn't willing to pay the full

amount of money they thought that I should be paying,

the bill that someone had run up after stealing the phone.

They're still charging me my monthly contract fee

and the bill is just getting bigger and bigger.

And now Catherine is being contacted by debt collectors

trying to reclaim the unpaid money.

Orange didn't comment specifically on Catherine's case,

but reiterated that they advise...

If a phone is lost or stolen, they stress it's important that they're informed as soon as possible

to prevent being charged for someone else's calls or data.

They also recommend using the phone's security pin

to prevent unauthorised use.

Now, discovering, like Catherine, that you've run up an unusually

large phone bill is something that the industry calls "bill shock".

Telecoms regulator Ofcom estimates that in a typical year,

more than a quarter of a million people experience bill shock

from calls made after their phone has been lost or stolen,

but they're very keen to bring that number down.

So, what is being done, then, for the average mobile phone user

who may lose his or her phone?

We're working with providers to find ways that they can better

monitor people's usage. It's quite difficult because

if your phone falls into the wrong hands, billing doesn't necessarily

happen in real time, so it's hard for them to actually monitor it

and to do something about it.

With all the technology, surely a phone company would be able

to recognise unusual activity immediately?

Unfortunately, it's not quite that simple.

Some of them can, some of them can't and we're asking them

to invest money into those sorts of systems

so they can do that much better than they do now.

It does seem a bit unfair to me, though,

as a mobile phone user, that if I lose my phone or

I have it stolen, that I have unlimited liability.

That's strong.

Yes, that is. It is something that we're conscious of

and we also would like to see something done about that.

We have asked the government to look at

whether they can introduce some legislation to basically limit

liability, but, as the law currently stands,

you are liable until such time as you report it.

So, overall, what kind of advice would you offer to people?

If you think you've lost your phone or it's been stolen,

report it immediately.

Don't spend time wondering and worrying and thinking about

where it might be and ringing around friends, actually just report it.

As soon as you've reported it,

then you're not responsible for the use after that time.

You can also protect yourself by making sure your phone

and your SIM card have a password set on them.

Without knowing your password,

a thief won't be able to make calls at your expense.

According to official statistics, the time that British consumers

spend dealing with problems that arise from things to do with

goods and services amounts to a staggering 59 million hours.

Now that is an awful lot of our lives spent trying to sort out

things that have gone wrong.

But the good news is that the plight of the consumer

has not gone unnoticed. Earlier this year,

a new Consumer Rights Bill was unveiled that's designed to

reduce the effort that you have to make to get a problem sorted.

Hailed as the most radical overhaul of consumer law for three decades,

the draft bill was mentioned in the Queen's Speech in May 2013

and the intention is that when the proposals become law,

they'll give consumers greater protection as well as much

more clarity on our rights and what we're entitled to.

So, how would these proposals work in practice?

Well, to find out how they just might make life

a little easier for consumers, we've taken some

of the most common scenarios about which you write to us

at Rip-Off Britain to Richard Lloyd from the consumer magazine, Which?

And first we asked how the new rules will change things if, say,

your plumber comes to fix a leak, but, after he's gone, it comes back.

The law has been really unclear for people that are dealing with

services with plumbers, with other tradesmen,

where it's about the quality,

the standard of their work rather than the product that they sell you.

From now on, under these proposals,

you'll be able to ask that plumber to come back

and fix that leak within a few days of you spotting it, that will

be part of your new rights as a consumer.

The draft bill also boosts the rights of consumers who've

come up against some sort of dodgy car dealer or rogue trader.

What they can do now under these new proposals is to take action

against that rogue trader on behalf of everyone that's been effected.

That means you could get your money back along with everyone else,

without having to take that action individually on your own.

The proposals will also cover gaps in the law around

new technology, so how would they beef up your rights if you're

downloading an app or something else online and it doesn't work properly?

Well, under the new proposals, you'll be able to get the repair or

replacement of that app or that film or that digital download.

Your rights will be clear and, in some circumstances,

you'll be able to get your money back.

That's good, that's new, that's been missing from the law up till now.

All of these measures are just draft proposals at the moment

and have to be approved by Parliament.

So, if that happens, will they really give us more rights?

Well, we asked Consumer Minister Jo Swinson just that.

Why has it taken so long to make this new change

that you're talking about?

Well, I think it is really important to get the details of this right.

I know that consumers will be impatient to get change,

as am I, as Consumer Affairs Minister,

but we also want to make sure the change is right

and it'll work both for consumers and for businesses, and that's why

the kind of really complicated mess the law is in is a big problem.

There's law for consumers split across eight different pieces of

legislation and, you know, it's not necessarily easy to follow,

so having some real clarity about that with some

very plain English messages about what people can expect,

I think is going to be really helpful.

So, when will it be law, if it all goes through?

Well, we're hoping to introduce it either later this year or

early next year after this period of further scrutiny.

Then it takes about a year usually to get a law all the way through

the House of Commons and the House of Lords,

and then it would obviously be in force. So, possibly 2014 -

-more likely to be in early 2015.

-Minister, thank you very much for talking to us, thank you.

Thank you very much.

Here at Rip-Off Britain,

we're always ready to investigate more of your stories.

And we'd especially like to hear from you if you've had

a problem on holiday or while travelling at home or abroad.

So, if you feel let down by your airline,

disappointed that the hotel looked very different from the glossy

pictures in the brochure,

or maybe you're angry about hidden charges that

weren't clear when you booked.

You can write to us...

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

The Rip-Off team is ready and waiting

to investigate your stories.

INAUDIBLE CONVERSATION

Well, as we've been hearing, sometimes when it seems that you've

been ripped off, in fact it could be that what's really needed is

just an explanation or perhaps a clearer way of delivering

the same message, because it can make situations feel

so much worse when you've had a decision simply imposed on you

-without anyone taking the trouble to tell you why.

-Too true!

Having a better understanding of the other side of the coin isn't

much consolation if you've ended up paying more money or it's been

difficult getting a problem resolved,

but at least you'll know that someone isn't trying to pull a fast one,

which, as we know, does sometimes happen.

So, please do keep sending us all your stories,

whether someone's intentionally ripped you off or a company

has failed to make their rules clear.

It's by sharing your experience that you can really lessen

the chances of the same thing happening to somebody else.

Well, that's where we leave it for today,

but we'll be back to investigate more of your stories very soon.

-So, until then, from all the team, bye-bye.

-ALL: Bye-bye!

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