Episode 3 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 you think get it wrong

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

If you're paying for a good service, you expect a good service

and a good product, whatever it may be.

At the end of the day, we expect value for money.

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

and investigate the extra charges that you say are unfair.

The wool has been pulled over our eyes.

I don't think we get a fair price.

I think they should always put the customer first.

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.

-And no-one could sort that out for you over ten years?

-No-one has.

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 help

when it seems you have reached a dead-end

in trying to get your problems resolved.

Now, no matter how complicated or tricky your situation might be

we will try and find the answers

that you might otherwise be struggling to get.

But the stories you contact us about can often be pretty complicated.

There are unexpected twists and turns

that make it hard to predict what the outcome will be.

But rest assured we will be trying to get to the bottom of why

you have been left feeling right out of pocket.

And, as always, you can be definitely assured that we have lots of

advice to make sure you don't end up in that situation again.

Coming up, how offers to help sort out your pension

could lead to those savings disappearing altogether.

And what are the chances of me ever seeing any of it again?

I have to say that the chances are probably quite slim.

OK. That's actually just made me feel sick.

And the pitfalls of discovering a long-forgotten mineshaft

under your house.

I would like to know what's going on.

I don't want to come out one morning and find you in a hole, Roy!

What I want from the Coal Authority

is absolute assurance that the mineshaft is safe.

Now here's one of the things that you complain to us about most of all -

those dreaded nuisance calls.

It's no wonder that we're all hung up about them

because an estimated one billion of them are made every year.

What's, perhaps, even more frustrating,

as continues to be the case with so many of you,

is the fact that you're still being plagued by them

after signing up to the official services

designed to filter them out.

So, in the end, is there anything that can be done

to stop those companies determined to pester us in our homes?

PHONE RINGS

-We've all had them...

-Hello?

..and we could all do without them.

You think, "Oh, this actually might be important."

No, it's not. It never is.

I donated to a charity a few months ago and now they call me every day.

Every single day. Sometimes two or three times a day.

I don't answer them.

I just literally put the button down on them now.

I think they're absolutely awful.

The experience of Rita and Keith from Yorkshire will, I'm sure,

strike a chord with many of you.

There has been a gradual build-up of calls over the years,

from originally two or three up to...

The maximum has been seven in one day.

PHONE RINGS

The calls can disrupt home life at all times of the day and night,

much to the couple's annoyance.

Hello.

Goodbye.

It's just annoying that my space is being verbally invaded

by something that's unwanted.

Rita thinks that her phone number may have been sold

or passed on by a company she's previously contacted,

and she's probably right.

Maybe I've bought something over the internet,

or bought something through a magazine,

and then they've passed my details on to somebody else,

on to a third party,

which is wrong, because I don't want that.

Bye.

Rita signed up to the Telephone Preference Service,

a free service supposed to stop unsolicited marketing calls.

Because once your number is registered, by law, companies

shouldn't call it without consent, but I'm afraid Rita's phone still

hasn't stopped ringing.

Hello.

It's annoying that they are somehow deviously finding a way round them.

This service was set up to stop these calls, to stop unwanted calls.

But whilst for most of us these are, as the name suggests,

simply nuisance calls, for others, they can have a far greater impact.

You all right, Mum? How are you today?

I'm OK, thank you.

87-year-old Catherine

is known locally for her terrific craftwork, selling greetings cards

and knitting little outfits to donate to the local hospital.

But she was recently, diagnosed with dementia

and can struggle to remember things, so her son Terry

and daughter-in-law Jenny call in ever day to check on her.

-Have you had breakfast this morning?

-Yeah.

-What did you have?

Eh... What did I have?

Toast.

-OK. Make it yourself?

-Yeah.

And it was on one of those visits that they realised

that there was a risk to Catherine that they hadn't really anticipated.

We discovered she was getting a lot of

pestering phone calls, if you like

from various companies, like PPI,

but very pressurised,

bearing in mind she's very vulnerable and old.

Jenny and Terry discovered that Catherine had been bombarded

with phone calls from companies asking her for money.

-You can't remember how many you've had in the last week or so.

-No.

OK. But you've had a few, yeah?

-So I'm told.

-OK. You can't really remember.

-No.

Jenny estimates that Catherine now donates hundreds of pounds a month

to many different companies. And that many of these arrangements

were made as a result of Catherine answering a cold call.

This is why we're so concerned about her

and worried about the people out there

that are preying on her, basically.

Some may be legitimate, and I think some aren't.

I know she's bought some medication -

it's like garlic pills and things.

There's enough there to keep the whole street going for a month.

Jenny and Terry think that, despite being registered

with the Telephone Preference Service, Catherine probably gets

around 12 nuisance calls a day,

one of which even came while we were filming.

Hello. A laptop? Yeah. What about a laptop?

So I need to switch the laptop on so you can see what the problems are?

They're going to fix my computer because apparently it's got a virus.

As you can see, I have no computer in front of me.

We do not have a computer or a laptop

of any description in this house.

It is a scam.

If my mother had picked that call up,

I don't know what she would have done.

She might have told them she hasn't got a computer,

but she would have been very confused and very concerned

as to what's going on and why.

In 2014, the Information Commissioner's Office

received over 175,000 complaints

relating to nuisance calls and texts. And since 2015,

it's had new powers intended to make it easier to find

the people behind them.

But, despertate to stop the barrage of calls,

Jenny needed a more immediate solution.

And when she contacted her local Trading Standards team,

they had just the thing.

They offered to install in Catherine's home

a nifty little box that works as a call-blocking device.

And Steve Smith, the man who invented it, is going to fit it in person.

-This is Cath, my mother-in-law. This is Steve.

-Hello, there, Cath.

-Hi, Steve, nice to meet you.

-Very nice to meet you too.

Once the box is fitted, you load it up with friends

and family phone numbers and it lets them straight through.

Everyone else is blocked with a message asking them

to ring their carer if their call is important.

There are other similar boxes available to buy,

although, as we've reported before, watch out.

Some are a lot more effective than others.

This device, however, is the one that around 100 councils

right across the country are now

loaning out free of charge to those worst affected

by persistent unwanted calls.

OK, what I'm going to do is install the equipment.

We simply unplug the telephone from the phone line

and plug it into the back of the unit here.

Then we plug the unit back into the telephone line.

Then we plug the power into the unit. OK, we're all ready and set.

Fantastic. So, has it done the trick?

Well, Jenny says that Catherine's nuisance calls have now

stopped altogether, which is an enormous weight off her mind.

She knows if she picks the phone up it's going to be someone

she wants to speak to rather than somebody

that she's scared of speaking to,

or somebody that's going to prey on her.

We're just trying to give as much support and help as possible

to make her life more comfortable and less stressful, basically.

So if you or a relative is having real problems with nuisance calls,

it is worth seeing if your local Trading Standards office

does have something similar.

And you'll find more information about how to handle

nuisance calls on our website. It's...

I guess most of us know there's been something of

a revolution in the world of pensions recently

with the biggest shake-up that we've seen for decades

on how they exactly work.

Now, the changes have been broadly welcomed by most financial experts,

because they do give a lot more flexibility on how you support

yourself through retirement and they maybe even give you

an opportunity to cash in your pension early,

but it's not all good news

for anyone planning ahead for the future.

Greater access to our pensions has also opened the doors to

plenty of outfits who may try and entice you into taking advantage

of what could be described as free pension reviews,

a one-off investment opportunity or even a legal loophole,

so watch out!

In 2011, Garry Tough was really struggling financially.

Having lost his job as a manager at a software business,

he'd racked up some big debts and the repayments and interest

were getting increasingly unmanageable.

Over a period of time, financial pressures had grown

to a point where it had become clearly evident that

something needed to be done to release the pressure.

Desperate for a solution,

Garry contacted a company of independent financial advisors.

They told him about a scheme that seemed to be

the answer to his problems

by freeing up money from his pension.

On the surface, with the amount of monies it could release,

it sounded like a very appropriate way to go forward.

Garry was told that by signing up to a type of what's often called

a pension liberation scheme,

he'd immediately be able to make use of his entire £167,000 pension pot.

Half of it would be invested on his behalf,

but the scheme, run by a company called Ark Business Consulting,

apparently allowed Garry to get his hands on the rest, £83,000,

in a lump sum within just seven days.

It's almost like someone waving a lottery ticket in front of your face

saying, "This is the winning ticket and your money worries are over."

So that's life-changing.

Because at 47 Garry was too young to cash in his pension pot -

you normally need to be 55 to do that -

the lump sum would be a loan.

It sounded plausible to Garry,

but with so much at stake,

he wasn't yet completely persuaded.

I needed convincing that first of all this was a legal investment

and it was explained to me that this was brand-new,

this was literally weeks old,

that there was nothing out there,

it was a loophole being exploited quickly.

But once Garry had signed a contract allowing Ark to withdraw

all of his £167,000 pension, the seven days in which

he should have received half of the money came and went.

I went on to the internet, searched for the name of the company,

the investment vehicle, Ark,

and I could see that other people had commented in a blog that they

had concerns as well, that something had gone, as they said, "smelly".

It almost stops you being able to breathe, because you think,

"Oh, my goodness, what's about to happen here?"

When Garry spoke to his financial advisors, the news was not good.

Far from being the loophole that it first appeared,

the Ark scheme had now been declared unlawful by the Pensions Regulator.

That meant no lump sum,

as it was classed as an unauthorised payment.

It is as if someone has just taken that lottery ticket

and ripped it up in front of your face.

To say that that was the most challenging time of my life

is not to put too fine a point on it.

Garry's story is depressingly familiar to Sean Browes,

who investigates pension schemes on behalf of the Pensions Regulator.

He's currently looking into around 60 similar cases.

Many other people are encouraged to join these types of schemes.

Yes, they may be given access to a cash sum,

but the price they pay for that is being exposed

to significant tax penalties,

they run the risk of their pension funds

being invested in highly risky investments.

Some of the schemes that Sean and his team were investigating

were entirely bogus,

including the one that Jane Hammonds was talked into signing up to.

In 2013, she invested her £129,000 pension pot

into a scheme that was known as Iron Stream,

but it turned out to be totally fictitious.

You know, I get up and I do shift work for minimum wage

and these guys are probably sitting on yachts somewhere,

drinking champagne.

Jane has come to meet Sean to see if there's any hope

of tracking down her cash.

What are the chances of me ever seeing any of it again?

I have to say that the chances are probably quite slim.

The warning signs are there.

OK. That's actually just made me feel sick.

I'm not surprised.

-Yeah.

-We will do all that we can

to find this money.

If we can't find it, we will do all we can to go after the people

that have spent your money.

It's estimated that up to £1 billion has been lost

to pension liberation schemes like these,

with most of the cash disappearing into thin air.

But there could yet be hope for Garry.

When we asked Ark Business Consulting where exactly

his £167,000 had gone, it told us the scheme he'd signed up to

was taken over by the Pensions Regulator

before it had received his pension funds,

so it has no idea what's happened to his cash

and it insists that everything it did was transparent,

so we went back to Sean Browes' team,

who the Regulator appointed trustees of the Ark scheme.

While they're still working on this case,

they're optimistic that Garry may get some of his money back,

albeit with a hefty tax bill.

But with the government reiterating warnings about any such scheme,

personal finance expert Sarah Pennells has advice to keep in mind

if what seems like an opportunity comes along.

There's a magic age of 55 and if you're younger than that,

then you can't, under the rules,

take money out without either being seriously ill and only having

months or a year or so to live, or having to pay a large tax charge

and then for those people who are aged 55 or over,

there are some companies who are trying to persuade you to put

your money into either high-risk,

high-charge or unregulated investments.

If a company promises returns that are way above anything that

anybody else is offering you, that's often a bad sign.

If they're a financial advisor, always check the regulator

the Financial Conduct Authority's register,

because that will tell you whether they are genuinely registered

and therefore regulated.

The recent pensions reforms have created new opportunities,

of which some companies and scammers have been quick to take advantage,

so the best advice is to steer well clear of any business

that links pension reforms to one-off investments,

loans, or up-front cash.

Some of them will cold-call with recorded messages.

Don't respond.

Meanwhile, Garry is still struggling to come to terms

with what's happened.

Every day, actually, I ask myself, "How could this have happened?"

All of a sudden, you could face the rest of your life

without any financial comfort whatsoever,

so it's a very, very difficult process to manage in your head.

Once again, we've taken Rip Off Britain out on the road.

Here in the Victoria Centre in Nottingham,

our pop-up shop gives us the perfect opportunity to meet you face-to-face

and hear all about the situations

where you feel you haven't got what you wanted

or indeed you feel you've been ripped off.

Outside in the market,

our technology expert David McClelland was sharing tips

on how to tackle the unwanted text messages

that so many of us now get on our mobile phones.

Aidan, do you get a lot of spam on your phone and your iPad

-and everything?

-I do, it's quite difficult.

It's pretty common, isn't it, for people to be bombarded with spam.

It is a growing problem and, unfortunately,

as long as there is easy access to sims and computers

that can send text messages to random numbers,

it's not going to be a problem that goes away that easily.

It is illegal to send a text message

unless you've got the permission of the person

to whom you're sending it, OK?

What you can do to try and stop those spammers

from spamming you again

is there's a number, 7726, which, on your phone keypad,

-it spells "spam".

-There we go.

If you're on one of the networks, it's 37726,

but if you forward the spam message and the number that it came from

-to this, then the networks will do their best to try and stop it.

-OK.

They say that they stop around 50,000 spammers per month,

-so it's definitely worth doing that.

-That's huge.

-That is massive.

But what about spam phone calls?

Spam phone calls, we get them on the home phone.

The trouble is, we always say put the phone down,

but if you do that, David,

it means they've still got the number and may call back again.

How do you stop them doing it?

Exactly, well, there's the official routes,

things like the Telephone Preference Service,

so you can put your telephone number on that register

and in theory, companies that abide by the law at least

-cannot continue to call you.

-Yeah.

-So you found all that helpful?

-That is all helpful, yeah.

-And you've remembered the number?

-7726.

-Well done!

-And it spells "spam" on your keyboard.

-"Spam" on your keyboard. So no more spam.

-No more spam.

And if you want to know how to maximise security

on your now spam-free mobile phone, David can help with that as well.

You say you've got a lock on your phone - what kind of lock

-have you got?

-Just the normal phone lock.

OK, so you think that your phone is safe

-because you've got that lock on the front there, yeah?

-Yeah.

You realise that the way he said that, it means it's not!

-I know, yeah!

-I've got some bad news for you, I'm afraid,

because even though your phone itself is locked,

what fraudsters can do is to take the sim,

that little card that goes into your phone, they take that out

and they put it into one of their phones, which of course is unlocked.

That still works, it's only your phone that's locked

and what they can then do is to make calls using your number,

using your account, but even worse than that,

they can make premium rate calls

and they can make a heck of a lot of money through doing that,

so one thing that not a lot of people know about

and why we're here today, Angela,

is to tell people about the sim pin and what that is,

it locks down the sim card, so even if they take the sim

out of your secured phone and put it into one of their phones,

they still cannot make calls.

If anyone takes that sim out of your phone

and then pops it into another phone,

they will have to know what that pin is,

and if they enter it in wrong three times,

then that's it, that sim will then stop working.

It varies from phone to phone how you do that.

Go and get it sorted, yes?

-That's it, definitely.

-Thank you both very much.

-Thank you!

-Thanks! Bye!

-See you!

-Bye.

Our next story came to light from a viewer who has been in

a state of flux for four years over fears that his house could be

at risk from a mineshaft.

But what does that actually mean?

With his life on hold, he's asked us to come up with some answers.

MALE CHORAL SINGING

Roy and Glynyth Jenkins have lived in this former mining community

of Neath in South Wales all their lives.

The childhood sweethearts married back in 1950

and soon after they found a plot of land

ideal for setting up home together.

We bought the land in 1954

and we employed the architect to design our house

and then we built our own dream home.

We've been extremely happy here.

Neath was once a bustling coal mining town,

but the local collieries had closed down long before the couple

had built their home.

It was only in 2011, after living there for more than 50 years,

that Roy discovered his property was linked to the industry

in a way he'd never imagined.

Out of the blue, we received a letter from the Coal Authority

informing us that we had a mineshaft in the garden

and in due course they would come and inspect it.

-This is dipping down here now.

-Yep.

Turned out that a mineshaft lay under the side of the footpath

in their back garden, just metres from the house,

which got them wondering

about some of the changes they'd spotted over the years.

-We hadn't noticed that before.

-No.

We've noticed a dip in there.

When the house was built,

all the earth from the building plot was thrown up here,

so we thought it was just natural settling.

Of course, now that the Coal Authority

has informed us of the mineshaft, it makes sense.

Roy wrote to the Coal Authority,

who are responsible for making disused coal mines safe,

to find out what work had been done on this one.

They sent round an inspector, but all he could tell Roy

was that the mineshaft was about 290 metres deep

and was last worked in 1901.

What I wanted to know was that whether or not the mineshaft

had been filled in,

or whether the mineshaft had been capped.

In other words, I wanted to be assured that the mineshaft was safe.

To avoid sinkholes appearing years later, abandoned mineshafts

can be made safe by capping the entrance with a concrete panel,

but no-one seemed to know if that had been done

to the mineshaft under Roy's house

and what's more, the fact that he now knew it was there began

to cause serious problems.

The couple found it was difficult to reinsure the house

and their plans to sell up and move into sheltered housing

were scuppered when a potential buyer pulled out.

I mentioned to them that we had a mineshaft in our garden

and the lady on the other end of the telephone,

after a lot of spluttering back and forth,

said that she would contact her solicitor for advice

and would come back and let me know what the situation was.

Well, that's 18 months ago.

I'm still waiting for the telephone back.

Across the country, there are tens of thousands

of disused mineshafts lurking beneath our feet

and as many as eight million properties have been built

on Britain's coalfields,

but unless homeowners have actual evidence that the mines

their homes sit on have been made safe,

it can prove very difficult when it comes to selling them,

as local estate agent Jonathan Morley has seen many times before.

Around this particular area, there are probably one in five houses

that would come close to a mineshaft.

The value of the property can definitely be affected.

It could be anywhere from 10-20%.

Jonathan's called round to get a sense of how the house's value

may now be affected.

Can you give me any further information about that mine?

None whatsoever.

We've had the letter from the Coal Authority informing us that

they have no information about it whatsoever.

This is why we want to know.

Unfortunately, it is going to affect the value of the property.

There is going to be a question asked over it

and any potential buyer that will come along

will need that information for a mortgage purpose

or for their own peace of mind.

I can recommend, before we actually provide you with a valuation,

get a local mining search done.

-Thanks.

-Take care.

-Bye.

We followed Jonathan's advice and went back to the Coal Authority

to instruct them to carry out a property search on Roy's behalf,

but while the report he got back made clear

there's no evidence of any subsidence

to his property because of the mineshaft,

it also stated that there was

no record of any safety work being carried out.

If there was no record of anything being done,

then surely they should make sure that the thing is safe

in case it needs to be done.

With the document shedding no further light on what for Roy

is the most important question, the couple felt they'd hit a brick wall.

But the Coal Authority did then agree to do some further

investigative work to determine if the mine had been made safe,

which was good news for Roy and his neighbours.

I would like to know what's going on.

I don't want to come out one morning and find you in a hole, Roy.

No, it's going to be pretty deep down, isn't it?

I feel very frustrated in that we are now still no further forward

knowing the condition of that mineshaft.

They acted responsibly informing us that we had the mineshaft,

but since then, totally irresponsibly in that there has been

a four-year gap and they have done absolutely nothing.

Well, we're delighted to say Roy did finally get the answers he needed.

After we filmed with him, the Coal Authority conducted a full survey

of the property and discovered that the mineshaft was indeed uncapped,

so, shortly afterwards,

the shaft was permanently secured with a reinforced concrete cap.

Roy and Glynyth are still discussing with the Coal Authority

their concerns about the state of the garden,

but at least it's a relief for them to know that their home is now safe.

If you have a story you'd like us to investigate,

then we now have even more ways to get in touch.

You can join in the conversation on our Facebook page.

Just look for BBC Rip Off Britain.

As well as the most up-to-date news, you'll also find exclusive

behind-the-scenes clips and pictures from the programme.

Or you can log on to our website,

www.bbc.co.uk/ripoffbritain,

where there's plenty of advice and fact sheets full of tips

on how you can avoid getting ripped off.

Or if you'd like to send us an e-mail,

then our address is...

Of course, you can always send a letter by post to...

Of course, whatever deal or arrangement you're entering,

none of us has that crystal ball which will say for sure

exactly how things are going to turn out.

There's always going to be

an element of risk involved, I'm afraid.

So do ask as many questions as you can and then,

if the worst does happen and something does go wrong,

you won't be reproaching yourself thinking,

"Well, maybe I should have done something different."

Of course, you'll never be able to prevent the unexpected,

but the more you know,

the better prepared you'll be and on that very sensible note,

I'm afraid to say we've run out of time for today.

Thanks for your company and do keep your stories coming.

Join us again when we investigate more of them next time,

but until then, from all the team, goodbye.

-Bye-bye.

-Goodbye.