Episode 7 Rip Off Britain

We asked you to tell us what's left you feeling ripped off

and you contacted us in your thousands.

You've told us about the companies that you think get it wrong

and the customer service that simply is not up to scratch.

It's my money and it's not right for anyone to rip you off.

I don't understand how they get hold of my information.

You've asked us to track down the scammers who stole your money

and investigate the extra charges you'd say are unfair.

You don't get compensated, it takes a long time to get things done

and nobody cares.

In the end, I told him no because I knew it was a scam.

And when you've lost out but no-one else is to blame,

you've come to us to stop others falling into the same trap.

So, whether it's a blatant rip off or a genuine mistake,

we're here to 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 programme that's here to investigate what's gone wrong

if you have been left out of pocket

by the companies with whom you've been dealing.

Which I have to say has happened in spades with those people

whose stories we're going to be looking into today.

Some of them, one way or another, are down thousands of pounds,

and all due to the actions not of themselves, but of other people.

Which, of course, absolutely should not be the case

when you've handed over your cash in all good faith.

So, as we try to get to the bottom of what's gone on,

we'll be hoping to establish which of these situations were just

an unfortunate mistake and which of them were deliberate.

Because, as you're about to see,

it's pretty clear we've got examples of both.

Coming up, thousands of pounds in unpaid rent

and the extraordinary reason why the letting agent

really should have known what was going on.

Well, I was destroyed

because I realised that he was deliberating deceiving me.

And car clocking.

Why when fraudsters target newer cars,

it's easier for them to get away with it.

Oh, I was absolutely distraught

and I was absolutely shocked to hear that.

I just felt ripped off and totally scammed.

Now, here's a really shocking story

that's cost the woman at the heart of it

not just thousands of pounds, but ultimately her home.

And none of it, by the way, through any fault of her own.

She had a house that she needed to rent out

while she was working abroad.

And, like many property owners, she was worried about what sort

of tenant they might end up with, so she decided to appoint

a letting agent to sort everything out on her behalf.

But I'm afraid things went terribly wrong in a way

that she never could have expected.

And believe me, this story has a twist that you won't see coming.

The woman I'm about to meet lives in this rented flat in Chelmsford.

And the reason she can't live in the house she bought in Epping

is every bit as extraordinary as the situations

she's faced in her career.

-Imelda.

-Hi!

-How are you? Very nice to see you.

Imelda Salajan is a campaigner, aid worker and journalist,

and in the past she's done work for the BBC.

But whether she's been in former conflict zones like Bosnia

or training reporters in places such as Hungary and Romania,

she's spent most of her working life overseas,

whilst still retaining a home back in the UK.

So how important was it for you to know that you had a base in England?

I bought my home because I wanted to have a family,

and that was my whole passion, was to make sure that when

I did want to come back home with the family,

that I had a home, but I, of course, had to rent it out

because I had a big mortgage

and that mortgage had to be paid through the rental.

For years, the house Imelda owned in Epping was rented out

by a reliable letting agent.

But in October 2010, she decided to switch to a different one -

Essex Lettings,

not to be confused with other companies of a similar name.

Its website advertised a unique and tailored service,

led by company director Stuart Clark.

And I had him for a year and he was fine

and during that year, everything went smoothly.

I got proper papers with, you know, the tenancy agreement

all written up, the money went into my account every month.

So he was an agent, and, as any letting agent should perform...

So you're abroad and, as far as you're concerned at this stage,

-everything's tickety-boo?

-Absolutely.

In January 2012, Stuart Clark found a new tenant for the house.

Imelda was in Indonesia at the time,

so she was very happy to let him do all the usual checks.

After all, that's what she was paying for.

So, with everything in order, the new tenant moved in later that month.

But her rent payments seemed very unpredictable,

and by early June, when she should have paid five months' rent,

she actually had only paid two.

So Imelda asked Stuart Clark what was going on.

He said, "Oh, don't worry, she's had a bit of a problem at the office

"but we've had a meeting with her

"and she's going to definitely pay you.

"In fact, she's just given me a cheque,

"so I'll put that into your account now.

"And she will put extra in for the next few months."

And so I was confident.

As promised, that payment did clear,

and another came a month later, but the tenant didn't pay anything

towards the three months she'd missed.

Still in Indonesia, Imelda asked Essex Lettings to investigate,

and again she was reassured that everything would be fine.

But just a few weeks later,

a neighbour passed on some unexpected news.

It seemed Imelda's letting agent had a connection to the new tenant

and somehow he had neglected to mention that.

And he knew her rather well.

In fact, she was his wife.

And then the bombshell dropped.

Well, yes, to discover that this was actually his wife that was

living in there, that it was his children and his pets.

He was always around with his family in my home.

-How did you react?

-Well, I was destroyed because I realised

that he was deliberately deceiving me and that he wasn't paying me.

Imelda was 7,000 miles away and unsure what to do next.

She decided not to reveal what she knew about who was living

in the house until she could get definite proof.

Instead, she repeatedly e-mailed and called Essex Lettings

about the unpaid rent.

I felt very vulnerable, very weak,

I didn't think I had a very strong chance

of being able to get my rent back.

By September 2012, when Imelda came back to the UK to see her family,

she'd still only received rent for four out of the nine months

that Stuart Clark's wife had been living in her house.

So she told the letting agent that she wanted to visit.

He put her off, saying the tenant just wouldn't be around.

But she was determined not to let it drop,

and so Imelda decided to visit the agency's office.

I went with my sister who's actually a lawyer

and we sat in his office, we didn't tell him that we knew it was him,

because I realised that I hadn't got any paperwork.

He hadn't given me any tenancy agreements,

he hadn't given me all the things

that he was supposed to have given me.

In that meeting, Stuart Clark reassured Imelda that the tenant

was trying to pay her rent, and that leaving him to chase

the payments would be much easier than taking action herself.

He kept saying to me, "Well, you know, in this country

"if you take something to the civil courts it takes months,

"and, you know, even if we went now, it would take months."

So, he was still trying to show that she would be a good tenant

and that I would be wasting my money trying to get it into court.

Following the meeting,

Imelda e-mailed Stuart Clark asking him AGAIN to chase the tenant

for the unpaid rent.

She also complained about the way Essex Lettings had managed her house

and told him if she didn't get answers

she would take legal action against the company.

But she didn't get those answers,

although by now she had been given the paperwork

that she should have seen right at the start of the tenancy.

A month later, her tenant moved out,

at which point Imelda discovered final demands

and debt collection letters for unpaid utility bills

and council tax in the tenant's name.

And there were even two letters addressed to Stuart Clark himself.

Now, work demands meant Imelda had to fly back to Indonesia,

but decided that next time she was in the UK,

she would reveal what she'd discovered to Stuart Clark.

So, when you finally confronted him, did he deny it?

No, he just said he wasn't prepared to discuss anything with me,

that he had lawyers and he would be speaking to them

and that he had nothing to say on the issue.

So he wouldn't discuss it at all?

Not at all, not at all, he wouldn't, and I tried to say to him,

"Well, what about thinking about paying me for those months?

"Surely this is a very important time for you to resolve this problem

"and not let it go to court."

And he said, "I'm going to talk to my lawyer

"and I'm not going to discuss anything with you."

Imelda did plan to start legal action,

but all her plans had to be put on hold,

when, after a routine examination,

she was diagnosed with advanced cancer.

So she moved back to the UK for good, had two major operations

and she's still being treated with chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

On top of everything else,

having lost what she believes is more than £5,000 in unpaid rent,

Imelda couldn't keep up the mortgage payments on the house

and eventually had to make the difficult decision to sell it.

That was going to be my home,

that was always somewhere that I would come back to,

and this was me coming back from Indonesia,

that was my plan, to move there.

With Essex Lettings no longer trading,

it seems that there's little Imelda can do to try and get her money back

beyond attempting court action.

When we contacted Stuart Clark, he told us that although he regrets

NOT telling Imelda of his relationship to her tenant,

there are "no rules or laws" requiring him to do so.

And in any case it "played no part in the unintentional events

"that occurred."

Events which could and do happen "with any tenant."

He said that he and his wife were separated at the time

and when she took out the tenancy, she "passed referencing checks"

and all procedures were followed

"in exactly the same way as for any other customer."

His wife then fell into arrears,

but he disputes the amount of rent that Imelda says she's owed.

And he maintains that he used the

"best, fastest and most cost effective way"

of resolving the problem for Imelda

in moving his wife out of the property.

He also stressed that the tenancy agreement was between

Imelda - the landlord - and his wife - the tenant.

Essex Lettings was simply the agent, and, as such,

he has no liability for the terms of the agreement not being fulfilled.

And although he says he did help cover some of the rent payments

from his own pocket

and later sorted out the outstanding bills,

he points out that "legal redress" is still an option for Imelda

to try and reclaim the money.

Imelda had chosen the agency

because it had a presence on her local high street,

but now she wants to make sure anyone considering letting out a property

thinks very carefully about who they choose to help them do it.

I'm very upset.

This programme is a chance to do something positive

with what is a very negative thing for me.

What's happened to me has been horrible

and I don't want it to happen to anybody else.

Now, some transactions are always going to feel a little bit risky,

especially if you're buying something from a person or business

you don't know and you're doing it online.

Worse still if you're buying second-hand

and you haven't been able to check out the goods in person

before you hand over your money.

So when the seller suggests that there's a way to protect your cash

until you're sure you're happy, it sounds like a no-brainer.

But, sadly, it's often a scam,

and one that could leave you thousands of pounds out of pocket.

Don and Lyn Dodson swapped their native South Africa

for Hampshire in 2000.

They run a factory that makes South African meat products

like biltong dried meat.

6.1 kilo.

And with business going well,

they decided it was about time they got round to replacing the old car

they'd bought just after moving to the UK.

We were getting to an age

where we felt we could spoil ourselves a little

and get something a little bigger.

Because we love travelling around the UK, we thought that would be nice.

The couple looked at a few local dealerships,

but couldn't find what they wanted within their budget,

so Lyn turned to classified website Gumtree,

where she spotted an ad for just what they were after.

The price was what we were looking at

and it seemed to be a good model and had low mileage, et cetera.

We got a response via Gumtree's e-mail system from the seller,

who then said that the car was available.

He, however, was in Germany on business.

The seller told Don that even though he wasn't in the country,

he wanted to make sure the couple were happy with the car

before they paid him for it,

and he suggested a way for that to happen,

thanks to a safe buying scheme he said was offered

not by Gumtree itself, but by the company that owns it, eBay.

Because we would be transferring the money into an eBay account,

we could feel secure in the knowledge that the money would be held by eBay

until such times as the transaction had been completed.

eBay do offer a service called Money Back Guarantee,

formerly called eBay Buyer Protection,

but it doesn't work in the way that Don and Lyn were told it did.

It protects most transactions on eBay itself from fraud,

but it doesn't apply to sites other than eBay.

Even if it did, it doesn't cover quite a number of purchases,

including car sales.

Unfortunately, Don and Lyn didn't see any need

to check what they'd been told.

Reassured that their purchase would be protected,

they confirmed to the seller that they wanted to go ahead.

He said, I will be contacted by eBay,

they will send you an invoice under their buyer protection programme,

and once you follow the directions on that invoice,

the money will be paid into the eBay bank account

and would be held until such time as the transaction was complete

and the vehicle was received by you.

Don did receive what he presumed were official e-mails from eBay,

just as the seller had said would happen.

So, feeling confident everything was fine,

the couple transferred the cash to what they believed

was a secure holding account.

But Don started to get worried

when it became hard to pin down a delivery date.

He said that he was busy and he was on business

and then after a very short period of time,

he just didn't communicate, didn't respond any more,

so that's when obviously it was quite clear that the car wasn't coming.

Though obviously dismayed, Don and Lyn didn't immediately panic.

After all, as far as they were aware,

their money was safe in that protected account.

But when they went back to their bank to arrange

for it to be transferred back to them,

they discovered to their horror that no such account existed.

They said that there wasn't much they could do,

because they had just done what I had asked them to do,

which was to transfer the money to a bank account.

Don and Lyn had fallen for a scam.

They'd simply paid their money into a regular bank account,

not a protected one at all,

and there was no way they could get it back.

It's the most awful feeling, the pit in your stomach,

that you've lost, actually.

We knew we'd lost £4,800 then and there,

and as much as we were hoping that we would be able to get it back,

I think we both knew that our chances now were nil.

You basically have to look in the mirror and say,

"I've been stupid, I've been duped,"

-and it's not easy to live with initially.

-No, not at all.

Over the past year,

we've received more than a dozen e-mails and letters

from people who've not only fallen for the same thing,

but, like Don and Lyndsey,

they'd been taken in on Gumtree,

a website that's effectively an online version

of the classified ads in your local paper

and, as such, won't be able to help you if something goes wrong.

Technology expert David McClelland says

when you're shopping on a classified site,

you need to be especially cautious.

Classified services are merely there to put the buyer and the seller

in touch with one another.

There's no guarantee,

there's no facilitation of the financial transaction

that goes along with that,

so, really, you're on your own at that point.

So, if any seller you've found on Gumtree suggests a purchase

comes with buyer protection, you can usually assume they're lying.

As soon as you start to scratch below the surface,

you find that in fact it is a bogus money transfer,

and your funds will not be safe after all

and it's incredibly difficult to try and recover those funds.

Gumtree is no stranger to fraud.

In fact, the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau

estimates that 249 cyber-crime reports every week

are linked to the site.

Despite that, the company told us it doesn't intend to introduce

a buyer protection scheme like its parent, eBay.

Gumtree aren't planning on introducing buyer protection.

That's because we're a classified site,

and it doesn't fit with our business model.

We don't provide the protections that eBay do,

because they're not appropriate when you are meeting face to face

and inspecting the item yourself.

eBay is a very successful business in its own right

and if people want the service that eBay provide,

we recommend that they use eBay.

Gumtree says the best protection when using the site

is to meet sellers face to face, so you'll know what you're getting.

We always recommend that people meet face to face

to complete their transactions. That way, you can inspect the item.

We don't recommend that people send money for items

that they haven't seen to sellers that they haven't met.

When Don and Lyn realised what had happened,

they asked Gumtree for help, reported the scam to the police,

and asked both their bank and the bank the money had been paid into

whether there was anything at all they could do to get it back.

Unfortunately, there wasn't.

It was a very significant amount of money to us, and still is.

I felt really ill, to the point of wanting to be sick,

because it's just the most awful feeling.

In hindsight, I would never do it again,

but, in hindsight, all the warning signs were there.

But these fraudsters are very clever.

Still to come on Rip Off Britain -

how hundreds of people who signed up to learn new skills

have ended up without what was paid for.

The whole thing was a complete sham.

They're taking money and they're not providing the correct training

and there was no comeback.

For one weekend only,

we opened up the doors of our Rip Off Britain pop up shop

in the West Midlands.

-Hi, I'm Julia.

-Nice to meet you.

Outside the shop, we had a packed schedule of workshops

full of tips and advice

on an extraordinary range of consumer subjects,

and holiday journalist Alison Rice had some shocking facts

on the medical costs you could end up having to pay

if you have an accident abroad

and don't have the right travel insurance.

To go home from Australia on a stretcher with a medical escort

-costs between £15,000 and £20,000.

-Oh, is that all(?)

A sprained ankle in Greece could possibly cost you £500.

Double check and double check that you've got the right policy

for your holiday and that you're well and truly covered.

We also set up our gripe corner,

where you came to have a good old-fashioned rant

about the things that get your goat.

At the moment, I think food prices in Britain

are way too high and I think we're all being ripped off.

I pay so much for my phone bill. I just think it's an absolute rip off.

I find travel insurance a massive rip off.

I get really annoyed.

My husband and I are over 65

and, because of that, we have to pay triple what most people have to pay.

After being a customer with the same energy company for over 50 years,

Janet Worton was shocked when she began receiving bills

from an another energy company,

saying she owed them nearly £2,000!

Financial expert Sarah Pennells was ready

with some urgently needed advice.

Since 2011, we've had bills from this energy company,

which we don't belong to.

We have had the same energy company for 57 years

since we've been in the house and the last few years

we've been bothered by this company sending bills and, at the moment,

we are up to £1,700 in debt for what? We have had nothing from them.

We've been to the police about being threatened with the bailiffs.

That didn't cure it.

We've had this company read the meter twice

and every time they read it -

"Oh, it's a different number on your meter to the one on my energy bill,"

-so what can I do?

-I have to say,

it is not the first time I have heard a story like this,

and I think this is something that the energy companies

really need to get a seriously grip on,

cos what seems to have happened

is they've got a record of your meter number,

which isn't the correct one, so they are sending bills to your address,

but it's not actually for any energy you have been using.

What I suggest is a couple of things.

Firstly, I suggest that you contact the energy ombudsman,

a free-to-use complaints scheme,

because if they think the company hasn't behaved as they should,

they may be able to get you compensation.

I also suggest you ring the company yourself,

and basically say, I'm not going to get off the phone

until you speak to somebody in the chief executive's office or

in their complaints resolution team.

And make a note of the calls you've already made,

and tell them exactly what you've done - that may work.

You won't speak to the chief executive,

but they quite often have a team that deals with complaints

where they've not been sorted out earlier.

And those are my two suggestions,

but I have to confess, I'm rather horrified.

I'm really annoyed.

You give me the details of the ombudsman,

I'll get on to it right away.

If you're happy, I don't mind taking your details and

ringing them direct myself and just seeing if I can shake

them up a bit and make them do something,

because for you to try and take them on for three years,

I just think it's a bit shocking.

So hopefully you'll get some resolution and get it sorted out.

Hopefully. Keep everything crossed.

For the millions of people who buy a second-hand car every year,

one of the biggest fears has always been that it might

have been clocked - in other words,

that someone has fiddled with the mileage to make it look

as if it hasn't travelled quite so far as it really has.

Now these days there's a simple,

free online check that should mean it's possible to find out

whether or not the mileage being claimed for a vehicle is correct.

But unfortunately, it seems there is a very big loophole with that,

and it's one which fraudsters have been very quick to exploit.

It's a trick that's been around for decades.

But when the old analogue gauge in cars, the odometer,

gave way to more hi tech digital counters,

and even on-board computers,

adjusting the mileage to make a vehicle more attractive

to buyers looked like it would become a thing of the past.

But, as Sohail Ashraf from Dagenham discovered, it hasn't.

Sohail was after an economical car for his commute to work.

And after searching online, he seemed to have found a real bargain.

It was a hybrid car priced at £7,500,

but what really sold it to him was the vehicle's age.

If a car is less than three years old, basically you've got

peace of mind - at least

the parts would still be covered under the manufacturer's warranty,

so if anything goes wrong at least you can go back to the manufacturer.

Sohail contacted the seller to arrange a viewing.

And upon seeing the car, although it was clear it needed a wash,

he couldn't spot anything he needed to worry about.

Apart from being dirty,

the car looked completely all right from outside and inside.

I examined the engine as well - it started fine.

Sohail bought the car on the spot.

But it was only when he got it home

and gave it a much-needed wash that he realised that the mud

had been hiding something - a chipped windscreen.

Believing his new car was still under warranty,

Sohail contacted the manufacturer to see if they would replace the glass.

The response he got wasn't what he was expecting for a car that

was still less than three years old.

I had a call from the manufacturer telling me that the car

cannot be repaired under the warranty.

First of all, he confirmed from me, "What's the mileage?"

I said, "54,000 miles."

He said, "No, we have got a different mileage on our system."

Sohail was stunned.

The manufacturer's records showed the car had

done 126,000 miles at its last service.

That was at least 72,000 miles more than it said on the clock.

And the car's total mileage was so high that the warranty was now void.

Oh, I was absolutely distraught

and I was absolutely shocked to hear that.

And I said, "Oh, probably I have lost my money."

Sohail started to delve deeper into the detail of his car's past life.

The logbook said that the vehicle had previously been

owned by a company, so he wrote to them to ask for help.

But when they replied, the bad news just got worse.

I had a reply from them stating that in March 2013 they sold

the car to a salvage agent, at 173,000 miles.

And we have contacted the salvage agent which has come back to us

stating that they had just done some repair work to the car after that,

and sold it to a private seller.

It wasn't clear whether the salvage agent or the seller that

Sohail ultimately bought the car from had reset the mileage.

But, either way, it meant that the car Sohail had paid £7,400 for

had done an incredible 100,000 miles more than what showed on the clock,

and as a result was worth a lot less -

somewhere between just £3,000 and £5,000.

So, at this stage I tried to contact the seller.

I tried to phone him up, he won't pick up my phone calls.

I tried to text him and he won't reply to my text.

The second-hand car business is worth £38 billion a year,

and a good chunk of that is made by unscrupulous sellers fiddling

the mileage figures so they can get the highest price they can.

One in 20 cars in the UK has done more miles than it actually

says on the clock.

But now that most cars have hi tech electronics,

how is it possible for that to be done?

Manufacturers introduced electronics in a big way in cars

and the electronic mileage is displayed on the speedometer.

And that, you would think, is more difficult to alter,

but in practice all you have to do is access the car's computers.

That gives villains access - they can alter the mileage with

a bit of kit which is frankly widely available for £150/£200.

It's not illegal to alter the mileage on the car, and people

take advantage of this by selling them as mileage correction tools.

Because the excuse here is,

"Oh, well, sometimes speedometers go wrong,

"you might have to replace the dashboard,

"and therefore you need to reset the mileage to what it should be."

Frankly, this is nonsense.

Very occasionally that will be justified, but nowhere

near the numbers that these adverts would lead you to suggest.

Although it's not illegal to alter the mileage of a car,

it is against the law to sell one

with a mileage you know to be incorrect.

But if you suspect a car's mileage is wrong,

there is one potential free check that you can do.

It's on the Government's Driver & Vehicle Standards Agency website,

and that could catch out the clockers.

If the car is over three years old, try looking for details

of the vehicle's last MOT.

If the recorded mileage is higher than the one shown on the clock,

alarm bells should start ringing.

Go to that website, put in the number off the MOT certificate,

or the VIN number of the car, and check the MOT history.

No reasonable seller will deny you access to those documents,

so if they do, be suspicious.

But, unfortunately, for hundreds of thousands

of second-hand car buyers who want a vehicle

which is less than three years old, that won't be the solution.

A vehicle below that age, like Sohail's, doesn't need to

have had an MOT, which means its mileage can't be so easily checked.

And that makes them especially attractive to fraudsters.

Clockers tend to target cars before they've had their first MOT,

so they're just under three years old. Typically,

a large company will turn over its fleet of cars

once every three years,

the villains will buy those from an auction or somewhere,

clock the car, take several tens of thousands of miles off it,

put several thousand onto the value

and sell it on to the unsuspecting customer.

It's estimated that clocked vehicles add £580 million

a year to the cost of second-hand cars -

not just because you might have paid over the odds

for a car that's not worth it,

but also thanks to the extra repairs you'll face

as a result of the wear and tear of those additional miles.

And Sohail has already been hit by plenty of those extra costs.

I just felt absolutely ripped off and totally scammed.

There are other ways to try and suss out if a car has been clocked,

whatever its age.

Several websites offer a vehicle data check service.

For a fee, these sites will run a check on the documented history

of a car to find out if it's ever been clocked,

as well as if it's been stolen, written-off

or has outstanding finance on it.

Also, an extra-careful look around the vehicle to see if its

condition matches its stated age and mileage is always worthwhile.

If it's supposed to have done 30,000 miles

but the bonnet is covered in stone chips,

that's a sign that it's probably done a higher mileage.

And also, be suspicious of something

where it's a brand-new gleaming bonnet, you know,

that might have been repainted to cover lots of stone chips.

If the driver's seat seems very tired and saggy,

it's a good sign that it's done a high mileage.

Have a look at the pedal rubbers -

again, do they look unduly worn for the mileage that's been stated?

Or be suspicious if they look absolutely brand-spanking new

because they can be replaced.

Just make sure you take some pretty obvious

and straightforward steps without having to be an expert about cars,

and do that before you part with any money.

But that's advice which has come too late for Sohail,

whose attempts to buy a car which is economical was anything but.

I had no idea at all whatsoever

before this that car clocking can be done.

The whole idea was to save the money,

and this is the opposite case.

If you'd like more advice about any of the situations

we investigate on the programme,

then log on to our website...

..which has a huge range of practical information on everything,

from cold calling and how to check a company's credentials,

to warnings on the latest scams to watch out for.

You'll also find hints and tips from the experts

and workshops at our pop-up shop,

some of which could really save you money.

Next, a murky tale of dashed ambitions, claims of malpractice,

and hundreds of people all let down by the same company.

In each case, big sums of money were paid in order for them

to get a qualification that, in some cases,

they urgently needed to continue in their job.

They'd signed up with a business that promised

the highest industry standards,

but it's clear that is not what they got.

Cottingham, in the East Riding of Yorkshire,

is home to Daniel Taylor, who is a mature student at Hull University.

He is juggling a degree in geography with his daytime

work in information technology.

Today I'm off to see a customer who has got a problem with a computer.

There is not much that Daniel doesn't know about computers.

-Hello, how are you?

-Hi.

-How you doing?

But to improve his business prospects, he decided to study for

a National Vocational Qualification, more commonly known as an NVQ.

I suspect it is the RAM.

Finding a course, though, was no easy task.

The further education sector is big business,

with around 3,400 companies offering courses across England alone.

It is loading fine, I have fixed the sound problem as well.

After searching online, Daniel found exactly the course

he was looking for, an NVQ Assessor Certificate for IT and customer

services, and it was with this company based in Warwickshire.

It is called Bright International Training Ltd,

but trades as Bright Assessing,

not to be confused with other companies with similar names.

At the time, the company billed themselves as, "The UK's

"leading training provider."

Their website boasted a remarkable list of credentials and endorsements.

There's lots of professional people standing around, doctors

and nurses, builders, that kind of thing.

'I'm a good chef. But when I got laid off, it knocked my confidence.

'And then a friend told me about Bright Assessing.'

They've got business awards, local and national.

-It all looks very professional.

-So, in February 2013, Daniel signed up.

And he quickly set to work completing the study modules

and sending in assignments to be marked.

The course cost him over £1,100,

but as an investment in his future he thought it was definitely worth it.

There were some companies offering to do it cheaper,

but I thought with Bright's quick turnaround

and all their great endorsements that they would be

an excellent training provider for what I needed.

Over the next few months, Daniel worked day

and night to fit his coursework around his day job in IT.

But he started to get worried that Bright Assessing might not

be the professional organisation he believed it to be.

There were several lost e-mails, there was a little bit of lost work,

and the notes that were part of the evidence for my portfolio

were just generic standard notes that they looked like they had

sent out 1,000 times and just changed the names.

So I did begin to wonder at this point that maybe there may be

something wrong.

Daniel continued with his course, but when all his work went missing,

his concerns became much more serious.

His qualification never arrived, and after months of waiting...

'We are sorry, the user you're calling is currently unavailable.

'Please call again later.'

..I'm afraid he still couldn't get through to anyone at the company.

At this point, I had already completed,

but by the time we got to February this year, I had still not got

a certificate or any acknowledgement even that I had finished the course.

Daniel's NVQ certificate was to be awarded by a government accredited

body called the Northern Council for Further Education, or NCFE.

And as Daniel was experiencing his problems, NCFE was also hearing

from others that all was not as it should be with Bright Assessing.

We first became concerned about Bright Assessing

when we were contacted by a number of learners.

The learners were telling us there were issues with the teaching

and the service they were receiving,

so we took that and we launched an investigation into Bright.

The focus of the investigation

wasn't into courses like Daniel's, which he had paid for himself.

Instead, it concentrated on the Bright Assessing training

funded by the government's Back To Work scheme, which helps people

get qualifications to boost their chance of getting a job.

Over the last two years,

Bright Assessing has been awarded contracts for over £2 million worth

of taxpayers' money to be used to

train unemployed job-seekers in this way.

But the NCFE's investigation raised serious concerns that things

were not going well.

What we found when we conducted the investigation was that the

teaching quality wasn't of the standard required,

Bright had not registered many learners with us,

so NCFE wouldn't be aware those learners were on the programme.

We found that assessors' signatures had been falsified,

and ultimately that certificates were being wrongly,

but knowingly wrongly, issued.

Faced with so much evidence of apparent malpractice,

NCFE, along with other similar bodies elsewhere in the country,

totally withdrew their accreditation of Bright Assessing.

This is the worst case of malpractice that we have

come across in seven years that I have been at NCFE.

We fully suspended Bright and stopped working with them.

But unfortunately, all this had serious repercussions for many of

the students who had already gained qualifications with Bright Assessing.

We, throughout our investigation, have revoked 225 certificates,

and as far as I'm concerned that is 225 too many.

That has left a lot of people in a really terrible position

and we are very saddened and disappointed.

If they come forward to NCFE and contact us,

we will try and find the right place for them to go and try

and get reassessed and ultimately get their qualification.

In total, over 1,400 students have lost out with Bright Assessing,

and, like Daniel, they have been left in limbo.

I have completed an accredited course at an approved centre

in a regulated industry, and I have been left with no money,

no qualification.

Daniel is now trying to go through the Small Claims Court to get

back the £1,100 he paid out to Bright Assessing.

But even if he succeeds, he has lost the best part of a year

studying with nothing to show for it at the end.

This kind of thing could happen again tomorrow.

There are just no safeguards in place to ensure that people's

money is protected.

When we contacted Bright Assessing,

they rejected the criticisms made against them

and blamed the entire situation on what they call

"inconsistent and inadequate external moderation by the NCFE".

They point out that, prior to the damning investigation, they had

been rated "good" or "excellent" by the NCFE on 20 previous occasions,

some of which were "just four months previously

"and for the same learners."

On hearing the NCFE's findings, they commissioned their own

independent audit, and found that there was "no endemic situation".

"The allegations of forgery were false,"

and while "the quality of the Back To Work course was

"not as good as it could be," that was because

"NCFE had not properly supported Bright as a centre".

As to why some learners hadn't been registered, they insisted

there was "no rule or requirement"

for that to happen until students have completed their course,

and that this had never been questioned before.

They then went on to blame NCFE for causing a backlog in registering

and certificating learners, and for withdrawing certificates

that they are adamant were issued correctly, although they did accept

that some had been done wrongly thanks to "a simple admin error".

And they accused Daniel

and others of waging a campaign against the company on social media.

Whatever has gone on, it is

clear an awful lot of people have seriously lost out because of it.

But as far as the NCFE is concerned,

if you have been thinking of starting a distance learning course to

improve your job prospects, none of this should put you off.

People thinking about distance learning can be assured

that the system works as a whole

and that awarding organisations like ours are around to help

and support in terms of pointing them

in the direction of organisations that will deliver training for them.

It is a rarity to have cases of this magnitude of malpractice.

Even so, Daniel remains bitterly disappointed, and just can't

understand how a situation like this was able to happen.

The whole thing is a complete sham.

They are taking money and they are not providing the correct training,

and there was no comeback.

Here at Rip-Off Britain we are always ready to investigate

more of your stories.

Confused over your bills or feel you are paying over the odds?

They don't tell you when they put the tariff up or change it.

They just do it.

Unsure what to do when you discover you have lost out

and that great deal has ended up costing you money?

It has always annoyed us and it looks like it is going to get worse.

You might have a cautionary tale of your own and want to share

the mistakes you have made with us so that others don't do the same.

-I am more wise now, but I was taken in.

-Yes.

You can write to us at...

Or send us an e-mail to...

The Rip-Off team is ready and waiting to investigate your stories.

Although the fallout from the stories

we have heard today has been far reaching

and in some cases disastrous, the good news is

that there are still very few companies that deliberately

set out to make a hash of things or to mislead their customers.

Which is just as well, because if they are determined to do that,

it can be almost impossible to spot

their intentions before they rip you off.

So, in the end, if that happens, it really can feel like the odds

are stacked against you as you try to sort the whole thing out.

But while you're not always able to put things right after

the event, we do hope that we have given you some pointers on how

to avoid getting caught out like this in the first place.

I'm afraid that is where we have to leave you today.

We will be back with more of your stories very soon

but until then, from all of us and the team, bye-bye.

-Goodbye.

-Goodbye.