Episode 14 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's simply not

up to scratch.

I've complained and complained and

nobody takes any notice of me.

In all honesty, I think it's just a

way

for the shops to make more money.

You've asked us to track down the

scammers who stole your money and

investigate the extra charges you

say are unfair.

You don't want to spend any more but

yet they're always trying to offer

you little things extra.

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.

I rang up the company and they went,

"Oh, it isn't our fault."

So, whose fault is it?

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 once again to

Rip-off Britain where, today,

there's a common

theme running through

all of our stories and it's one

about which

you write to us more than...well,

just about anything else.

Each one of the people that we're

going to be meeting has paid for a

specific thing

but they've ended up with something

that they say is quite different

from what they expected.

Well, I guess it's probably happened

to all of us at some point and it's

human nature

to assume that we've been treated

unfairly,

but sometimes, it's not that easy

to establish where the blame

really lies

because, although it may appear that

something has been mis-sold or you

feel you've been misled,

there could be a much simpler

explanation.

Of course, that doesn't make it any

better for the people who've lost

out as a result, but hopefully,

that's where we come in and we can

help,

not just in trying to find out

what's actually going on,

but also by stopping the rest of us

from finding ourselves in a similar

situation. So listen out for some

top advice to make sure that when

you hand

over your cash, you won't face the

same sort of surprises and shocks

later on.

Coming up... Is it just the weather

that explains why these women's

homes flood?

We're all in it together this time

so we can all help each other.

Or could the new developments built

nearby be a factor, too?

And why collecting commemorative

coins isn't necessarily as good an

investment as you might think.

Can you put a price on that?

It's about sort of ten or £15,

really.

That coin cost £100.

Did it really?

Over the past decade,

there has been a big increase in the

number of extreme weather events,

especially the kind of heavy storms

that can cause streets to look more

like rivers when they're full of

rainwater.

Of course, if the water just drains

away, well, it's not usually a

problem,

but when it doesn't,

it can mean even the most surprising

places might suddenly find

themselves

submerged underwater, and if that

flooding is happening more and more

often, well, you can understand why

questions might be asked as to what

has changed to make them suddenly

more vulnerable.

Well, some of the people who've

been affected in that way have their

own explanation as to what's

going on.

So, are they right?

On the 7th of June, 2016,

more than four centimetres of rain

fell in less than two hours in some

parts of Surrey.

And Caterham resident Mary Alston

came home from work

to find her house more than

a foot deep in water.

The water came in up to here,

lots of things have been destroyed,

the carpets.

The water came above the sockets so

that blew all the electrics so

I didn't have any electricity for a

couple of days afterwards.

As you can see, I've now got no

kitchen - literally pipes sticking

out of the wall.

It just breaks my heart to see the

house completely destroyed.

Mary's insurance claim will run to

tens of thousands of pounds.

But there's a high emotional cost,

too.

If a house is flooded, then it's

just months and months. It's not

weeks or days.

It's months and months of trauma,

of devastation.

Sadly, Mary knows that better than

most

because, in the 30 years that she's

lived there,

her house has flooded four times.

And in 2012,

she spent £20,000 on flood defences

that she hoped would

protect her home.

The flood defence is basically a

series of gates

that, when they're placed, are

locked into position.

They form like a watertight seal so

that water coming against won't

then penetrate and go through.

But even those flood barriers can't

always withstand the deluge that can

come their way, and Mary's home has

still been flooded twice more in the

last three years.

I've been in this

situation four times now.

It's not fair.

Sorry.

But while Mary's had to get used

to her home being flooded,

in the most recent storms,

the same thing happened for the

first time to her friend,

Helen, who lives nearby.

Hi, Helen.

Hello.

How are you doing?

I'm fine,

thanks.

So Mary is keen to know

whether the neighbourhood's

increased flood risk can be

explained purely by bad weather or

if there

might be something else going on.

The whole of this is going to be

gutted out.

So how long do you think you're

going to be out of the house for?

They've estimated six months.

It could be seven months and we've

been told it's going to be at least

about 130,000

to get us back to normal.

Yeah.

Just so much work to do,

isn't there?

It is. It is.

So how are you coping

with it?

Not brilliantly.

Quite stressful.

It's been quite a tense time for

us all -

the upheaval of it all,

losing possessions and moving stuff

out that you can take with you,

which is mainly clothing.

It's stressful, the fact that,

at the moment, I'm off sick.

Oh, I'm sorry.

From work. I can only be strong for

so long.

So, yeah. But, um...

Come here.

We're all in it together this time

so we can all help each other.

Both Helen and Mary live more than a

mile from the nearest river and,

what's more, the full name of where

they live is Caterham on the Hill,

which perhaps makes Helen's sudden

flooding all the more surprising.

Even when I phone people now and

I said, "I've been flooded,"

"Oh, what, your roof leak?" And I

went, "No, no. I've been flooded."

"But you just said you live on

a hill." I went, "Yeah."

So to help shed some light on why

homes in Caterham now flood so

frequently,

Mary's meeting flooding expert

Professor David Balmforth...

Hello.

Mary, good to meet you.

Nice to meet you, too.

..who immediately spots what makes

her home so susceptible.

As soon as I got to the top of the

road, I knew I wouldn't have to

look for your house number because I

could see...

You'd recognise...

I can see the low spot in the road

and it's almost like a bowl, really,

in which water's bound to

accumulate when it floods.

And while that doesn't explain why

houses like Helen's are now

flooding, too,

it doesn't really matter that

Caterham is on top of a hill

because Mary's house and many others

in the area are actually on flat

roads which collect rainwater.

So what's really important in an

area like this, to protect it

against

flooding, the most important thing

is to find a way to get that flood

water away from the area so it

doesn't continue to build up and

cause you

the problem.

Normally, rainfall

simply drains away,

but the heavier the downpour,

the more the old Victorian drains

underground struggle to cope,

causing what's known as

surface water flooding.

That already presents a risk to

nearly four million properties in

England

alone and the problem's predicted

to get worse as global warming makes

extreme weather events more common.

But Mary believes there may already

be a factor making it worse.

I got the impression that a lot of

the flooding you've suffered from

has

occurred in recent years,

it's getting more frequent.

Is that a fair...

Yeah, definitely. I mean, the first

event was 23 years ago and then the

last event prior to

this was two and a half years ago.

This would match

the national picture,

because we seem to be in a period of

increasing wet weather and our

perceptions of what are really

extreme events are changing as we go

forward in time, because we're

seeing ever more serious rainfall

events.

All that extra rain needs to go

somewhere,

but Mary's worried that lots of the

old rural land around Caterham that

used to soak up rainwater has now

been built on.

She's convinced that, as a result,

all the new developments that have

gradually sprung up in the area

could be contributing to the floods

affecting more established homes and

she wants to see if the professor

will agree.

I'll just drive you

to one of the areas.

Since I've been here, there's

been huge redevelopment of the area,

there was an old army barracks

that's been built on.

There was also an old psychiatric

hospital

and these are areas that were once

sort of green, open areas

with few buildings,

have now got hundreds of houses.

Have you noticed the flooding

getting worse since then?

Yes. You think, OK,

why is it happening now?

Well, it seems that Mary

could be on to something,

because when she and David arrive at

one of the developments in her area,

he's quick to explain how buildings

do affect where rainwater goes.

So, her theory may not be

far off the mark.

What you'll see here first of all,

that characterises an urban area,

is a lot of hard surfaces, the roof

surfaces, the footpaths, the roads.

These will have been originally

grassed areas and fields

and a natural area, the rainwater

gets stored on the surface,

some of that infiltrates

into the ground.

When we pave over an area,

what we do is, first of all,

we remove any possibility of it

infiltrating into the ground.

The water runs off the surface,

it goes straight down through

the grating, straight into

the pipes, a very rapid process.

That's what produces your flood

waves and causes your flooding.

One new development

may not create a problem,

but a lot of new homes built over

several years

could cumulatively have an impact.

To deal with that,

some modern developments are built

with what's called

sustainable drainage solutions,

but that's not always compulsory

and, to work effectively,

they need to be well maintained,

as, of course, more fundamentally,

do the drains underneath,

because, while modern drains can

usually cope with all but the most

torrential of downpours, the sewers

under Caterham are far from modern.

So, for this particular area, it's

known to have Victorian drains.

Would that be a reason

why they can't cope?

It's certainly part of the problem.

If we keep adding more and more

developed areas into the existing

drain system, then obviously

it will become...

and flooding will occur.

And, of course, it's not just the

rainwater that goes down

into those drains and sewers,

but all the water that's used

in the homes as well.

Do you think all this building and

all the new developments

is a contributory factor to

the flooding of my house

and other people's houses?

I think we have the scientific

evidence which shows

that when we pave over a natural

area, we get increased volumes

and rates of water

flowing on the surface

following rainfall.

That is a well-known fact,

and the more water

that we create in an area,

the greater

the chances are of flooding.

So, yes, those two things

are connected.

So, while David thinks Mary's

theory might be right

it would take a full

investigation to be sure.

The new development may well be

a contributing factor,

we don't know until we've done

the investigation.

That needs to comes first.

Once we've identified the problem,

then we can come up

with the solution.

David thinks that the collection of

new developments around Caterham

combined with

the lack of modern sewers

and increased heavy rainfall

has created a perfect storm here.

So, he's going to work with Mary

and her neighbours

to recommend ways that the council

can help reduce

the threat of flooding

in the future.

And when we spoke to both

the district and county council,

both were keen to stress

not just their joint efforts

to investigate

the "highly unusual flash flood"

caused by the storms in June 2016,

but also the help and support

they've provided

to the locals that were affected.

Surrey County Council added that

it was investigating whether

"new infrastructure would reduce

the risk" of this happening again.

As for Mary's concerns about

the possible impact of new homes,

Tandridge District Council

told us that, since 2015,

large developments have been

compelled

to install water management

strategies,

while small ones "must comply

with building regulations" which

include measures for dealing

with surface water.

The local water company,

Thames Water,

told us that it, too, works closely

with planners and developers

to assess any potential impact that

their plans could have

on its drainage networks.

And, where necessary,

it asks for conditions to be

included on planning applications

"to ensure that existing customers

"are not put at risk

of sewer flooding."

But whatever actions are being taken

around Caterham, Paul Cobbing,

Chief Executive of the National

Flood Forum,

is not convinced that local

authorities elsewhere

always fully take flood risk

into account, either for

proposed new homes or the existing

ones they might affect.

What we don't have is the evidence

in total about whether the planning

system is actually delivering the

sorts of homes and businesses

and developments that will be safe

now and in the future,

when the weather may well be much

worse and we can expect

much more flooding. Until that

investigation is done,

we won't really know whether

we are delivering

those safe communities,

and we really need to get it done.

Until then, Paul recommends that

anyone at risk from floods

makes sure that

they have plans in place

before the water starts rising.

Sign up for flood warnings,

make sure your documents

are out of the way.

Are there things that you can do,

for example,

to move electricity meters

out of the way so that if you do get

flooded,

they don't cut out?

Go on to our website,

because it's all there,

the guidance is there,

the directions are there,

the tools are there to help you,

to take you through those decisions.

And you can find a link to that

advice on our own website

and it really is worth taking every

possible precaution

to prevent what Mary would say is

one of the worst things

that could ever possibly happen

to your home.

It is heart-wrenching.

You build your home

and it's your home,

you furnish it,

and take care of things

because it's your little sanctuary

and it's just completely destroyed.

Now, turn to the back pages of your

typical Sunday supplement

and it's very hard to miss

the full-page ads

for the latest commemorative coins,

specially minted souvenirs

being sold as a memento

for a big event

like a royal birth or a wedding.

Now, of course, people have been

collecting coins for years

because some historical or rare ones

can actually be worth

quite a lot of money.

But, as one collector I met,

has now come to realise,

not all those shiny keepsakes

necessarily have quite the

value you might think.

So if you've ever been tempted

to buy one of these coins as a small

investment, you could be in,

I'm afraid, for some surprises.

Collectable coins

can be worth a fortune.

Just one of these 1983 coins

made with the words "new pence"

instead of "two pence"

can sell for anything between

£500 and £700,

depending on its condition.

But not every coin you buy

will make you a mint,

even if that is what Paul Scallon

hoped for

when he started collecting.

I bought so many sets of various

coins, thinking, in the value,

they'd go up, they wouldn't go down.

Paul is a retired building services

manager from Southport and he bought

the coins as an investment

opportunity

that would benefit his

grandchildren.

I first started collecting coins

approximately 1998.

I started with Prince William's

coins and stamps,

and I've still got them

as part of my collection.

Those coins, like lots of others

in Paul's collection,

were specially minted to celebrate

a big, national event.

And although not legal tender,

many of the people who buy them,

Paul included, by the way,

hope that they'll increase in value

as the years go by.

Paul went on to purchase more coins

month after month,

some of them commemoratives

ones but also rarer,

historical coins as well.

He estimates he's spent a total of

between £8,000 and £10,000,

much of it with the official

Royal Mint,

which makes the cash

that we use every day,

but more than half of it

with private companies,

including one called

the London Mint Office,

which sells all kinds

of collectable coins,

including commemoratives ones

it makes itself.

Once on the mailing lists,

Paul was kept updated on

all the latest releases.

Sometimes, they'd ring me to say,

"We've got this collection

coming out."

And you would then take

on board what they were saying

and purchase them.

Now, one of those that caught

his eye was this

George And The Dragon

gold miniature coin,

which he bought for £475

from the London Mint Office.

I was very happy with the coin.

I just thought it's authentic,

it's everything you can

possibly think of,

the script from London Mint

said it was a good value,

so I thought it would be a very good

investment for my two grandchildren.

With this and his other

coin investments,

Paul believed he was sitting on

a mini gold mine,

and part of his collection

did eventually earn him some money.

He'd invested £3,000 in sovereign

bullion coins

from the London Mint Office,

which are coins sold mainly

for the value of the metal

they're made from.

And when, in 2014,

he sold these to a dealer,

he made a tidy profit.

I made £1,000 and I thought,

"Well, that's good."

But, I'm afraid, along with the good

news came bad

because the same dealer revealed

to Paul that not all the coins

in his collection were actually

worth investing in,

and some weren't even worth

what he'd paid for them,

including that George And The Dragon

miniature that he'd bought for £475

from the London Mint Office.

He said, "But that one's

just worth scrap value."

And, at the time, he weighed it for

me and it was £75 scrap value.

He said,

"It's not a collector's item."

It was a disaster to me.

Very confused as to how his coins

could be worth so little,

Paul sent a letter to the

London Mint Office

to ask why his investment had

fallen in value

in such a short period of time.

The company didn't reply.

But the explanation is simple,

according to coin expert

Geoff Thomason.

He says that many commemoratives

coins won't increase in value

and are only worth what somebody

else is willing to pay

although there are,

of course, exceptions to that.

If a coin is rare enough,

that everybody's chasing it,

and you've got it...

..you can command a price for it.

But not all commemoratives coins

are rare.

Indeed, the ones made for big events

are typically produced

in quite substantial numbers.

They may be very pleasing to look at

but, very often,

they're produced in such large

quantities

that they're never going to

appreciate in value,

and I know from experience that most

coin dealers

would not be interested in them.

All of which means that,

although very nice to collect,

most commemoratives coins are worth

no more than the value

of the metal

that they're made from.

In the case of a lot of these

commemoratives,

that's the only value.

There's no antiquity,

there's no rarity,

there's no interesting

varieties in it.

It's simply an example of a

commemorative coin

and there will be

lots of them out there.

But, after 20 years of building up

his collection,

Paul is now worried that it's not

the investment he'd hoped for.

So we asked auctioneer Charles Dower

to come and take a look at

some of Paul's coins,

starting with that

George And The Dragon piece

that he'd been horrified to learn

was worth only 75 quid.

This particular coin,

Paul paid £475 for.

It's solid 22 carat gold, the same

sort of purity as a sovereign.

It's smaller than a half sovereign

and we get £70 or £90

for a half sovereign at auction,

so it's...

You know, it's slightly smaller than

that so it would be

even less than that. Yeah...

So you're purely looking at it

as size and how much gold is in it?

If someone would be prepared to pay

a bit more for it

because they want this certain coin

or they need... You know,

with a sovereign, if they want a

particular year,

then they'd pay a bit more,

but that's certainly...

Putting you on the spot, what would

you give Paul for it today?

We would suggest an auction

estimate of £70-90.

I've had it valued at Southport,

£75 scrap value.

And the news was no better with

the next coin Charles looked at.

This is commemorating the

Diamond Wedding, 2007.

And this one is a silver proof crown

so it's exactly modelled

on an old crown.

And it would be worth as much

as an old crown is nowadays

for the silver content, really.

So, that's pure silver?

Yes, that's pure silver.

Yes. So, again, if you were selling,

can you put a price on that?

It's

about sort of £10 or £15, really.

Is that all?

That is all,

yes. We see Victorian crowns

and that sort of thing, and it's the

same sort of price as that, really.

And poor Paul has just had a heart

attack, virtually, at that!

Does that shock you...

Of course it does, yes.

..to realise that that's only

worth ten or £15?

Yes.

That coin cost £100.

Did it really?

Well, it seems that Paul has spent

thousands of pounds on coins

that may only be worth

a few hundred.

I should imagine a lot of people

watching who do have

coin collections are sitting

aghast at the idea

that what they put their money into,

thinking is investment,

having the authenticity,

having the certificate to go

with it, and, suddenly,

an expert like yourself will say,

well, actually,

it's just worth the gold

or silver amount.

So, how do you feel about it now,

having heard it

from Charles as well?

Well, it's

taken me back by surprise,

to be frank about the situation.

It hasn't sunk in yet,

how much money I'm going to lose

for the boys.

It seems both the coins

Charles valued are worth

a lot less than Paul paid

for them, so we asked

the companies that sold them

why that might be,

starting with the London Mint Office

which sold him

that George and the Dragon coin.

It told us that its position on the

value of commemorative coins

is clear and it creates products

"for people who share

the same passion,"

either for the coins themselves or

the person or event commemorated.

It insists that its products are

"priced fairly according to design,

"quality, availability and demand"

but it appreciates that Paul was

very frustrated at not receiving

a response to his query about

the George and the Dragon coin,

which it puts down to the letter

being sent to the company's

old address.

So, while reiterating that this

particular piece

was never sold with any reference

to its value,

it has offered to buy it back from

Paul for the same £475

that he paid for it.

The company went on to say

its experience with dealers is that,

although knowledgeable...

It stressed it never recommends

people buy coins as investments

and doesn't market them as such.

That's a point reiterated by the

company Paul bought

the other coin from,

the Westminster Collection,

which told us that its prices

take into account

much more than

the bullion value of the coin,

and the commemoratives coins

are pieces of art

intricately designed

by expert sculptors.

Paul has this advice for anyone

thinking of investing in this area.

Research before purchasing,

not find out after the event,

which is my fault.

I found out after the event.

But do your homework first.

Expert Jeff would agree

with all of that. He'd say only buy

a commemorative product because you

like it or you want

to remember an historic event.

But don't assume that, in time,

you'll be coining it in.

I think if you talk to any coin

collector, they will say,

"I collect coins because

I'm interested in them as coins.

"Their value as investment

is secondary."

I think, unless you've got

that attitude,

then you're probably better off

investing somewhere else.

Still to come on Rip Off Britain,

the customers who say a company

that fixes broken phone screens

isn't all it's cracked up to be.

I am still fighting now, to this day

again, to get my money back.

Well, we've been out on the road

again and, this time,

it was Manchester playing host

to our Rip Off Britain pop-up shop.

As ever, we set out to share

advice and tips

with as many of you as possible.

Fasten your belts.

We're in for a bumpy ride!

Booked in for a slot with solicitor

Gary Rycroft was Jose,

a Spanish teacher from Leeds.

He'd registered for ad hoc work

with a translation company

but it hadn't turned out

as he'd hoped.

Jose, I feel I should begin

by saying

buenos dias, senor!

Buenos dias.

Because it's your skill with your

native language that's brought you

to see our legal expert,

Gary Rycroft, here.

Right.

Tell us what happened.

I was contracted to do some

translation, interpreting work,

for a company, and I was never

paid for my job.

Jose was asked by the company to

travel to a hospital

to assist with a Spanish-speaking

cancer patient,

a last-minute booking.

Of course, he was happy to help.

It was an emergency job.

They phoned me around nine o'clock

in the morning.

And I went to do my job around 2:30.

Everything seemed to go smoothly

and, once Jose was back home,

he sent off the paperwork to receive

his payment but, as yet,

he hasn't received his cash.

I sent them an e-mail

and I told them,

you don't expect me

to work for free?

But they have never,

ever contacted me since then.

I don't know what to do.

Those are the facts.

So, we need to get control

of this situation.

You have a clear breach of contract

and, in that case,

you need to sue them. And the most

efficient and risk-free way

of doing that is to file

a claim online.

The government court service

moneyclaim.gov.uk.

And you attach to

the claim form your evidence.

Papers, documents.

And you quantify

what the losses are to you.

But before he takes the plunge and

pursues the firm through the courts,

Gary also recommends

one final push in writing.

But what you might want to do is

what we call a letter before action.

So you fill in the form online, do

a screenshot of it or print it out,

and then write to the company

and say,

"I am going to issue this form

unless you pay up in 14 days."

Right.

"And if I do issue this form,

"the court fee will be added

to what you owe me already."

And that may make them realise

that you mean business

and you're going to fight

for this money

that is rightfully owed to you.

Did you find that useful, then?

Is that an action you'll take now?

Yes, I think I will definitely

consider that situation.

You will not consider it.

You will do it, Jose!

I will definitely do it.

Gracias.

Con gusto.

Over in our busy gripe corner,

we were hearing from plenty

of young shoppers,

and they're all keen to point out

that their favourite purchases

are often well out of their

pocket money price range.

Gadgets of 2016 cost a lot of money.

The price of clothes for young

people is a rip-off.

I want to buy all the cake in

the shop but it's too much money.

I love video games

but they're too expensive.

I reckon most of us have had

experience of agreeing a price

for something that needs mending

only to find that the price

suddenly goes up once we've

handed over the item for repair.

Of course, that might be because

the initial quote

simply underestimated

how much work needed to be done.

But if you're not happy about

the new cost of the repair,

there doesn't always seem to be much

you can do about it.

That's certainly what quite a few of

you say happened with one particular

company which specialises

in repairing mobile phones.

The response to queries about

increased prices

wasn't quite "like it or lump it"

but some of you say

it might just as well have been.

Two thirds of us now own

a smartphone or tablet.

That's hundreds of pounds

worth of tech in our pockets.

And, given how much we rely on them,

it really is shattering when this

happens, as it so often does.

Usually, those cracked screens

are just an unfortunate accident,

which is probably how eight-year-old

Oliver would describe

what happened to his family's

iPad in November 2015.

I was having a fight

with my little brother, Ruben,

and I think Ruben pushed me

on to it or something.

And then it broke.

The broken screen

made the iPad impossible to use.

Oliver was distraught and his

mother, Maria,

knew she had to act fast.

I didn't want it to get any worse

than it was and that's why,

straightaway, I just thought,

I'm going to get it fixed

before the crack gets any bigger.

But when the manufacturer, Apple,

told Maria it would cost

£156 for a new screen,

she looked around for a more

affordable solution

and came across

a company called Fone Angels,

not to be confused with other

companies with similar names.

Fone Angels describes itself

as the UK's leading

smartphone and tablet repair

specialists.

But the clincher for Maria was that

its website said the company charge

just £39.95 for a new screen,

more than £100 less than Apple.

The price that they was asking

seemed to be around the kind of

price that you'd expect to pay,

maybe a little bit cheaper,

which was quite impressive.

Fone Angels said the tablet could be

fixed and back with the family

in about a week,

so Maria paid the cost upfront

and sent the tablet off.

But the next day, the company

e-mailed to say

it had found another problem

in addition to the cracked screen.

They'd inspected the item and found

there was a problem

with the docking station, and they

said that I could get that fixed

while they were fixing the screen.

Fone Angels was asking a further

£50 to repair the charging point

but Maria didn't believe it needed

fixing as she'd successfully

charged up the tablet

the night before posting it.

I sent an e-mail back to them to say

there wasn't any problem at all,

so could they just repair the

initial problem

and send it back to me.

But Fone Angels didn't seem to want

to take no for an answer.

Within another day or so,

I received another e-mail,

saying it was a lot more

cost-effective

to get that extra repair done

while they were fixing the screen.

That kind of put a bit of fear in me

and I thought,

"Well, I don't really want to go

through that again."

Fone Angels also offered to reduce

the price of the new repair

to £36.95, so Maria

reluctantly decided

to take the experts at their word.

But, five days later, instead of

getting the tablet back as expected,

Maria was told the repairs

hadn't even started

and it would now take another month

before the tablet could be returned.

That's when alarm bells

started ringing,

then I started to go online

and look at bad reviews

and that's when I found all the same

problems that I was having.

I started panicking then.

With her faith in Fone Angels

starting to crack, like the screen,

Maria simply wanted her iPad back.

So I sent an e-mail and asked them

if they could just cancel the order,

post my device back to me, and I'll

get it repaired somewhere else.

Fone Angels agreed and said it would

send it back within three days

but that didn't happen,

and when Maria chased them up,

she says she was simply given

excuses, explaining the delay.

After more contact,

Fone Angels did send the tablet back

but around a month after first

sending it off, Maria was still

stuck with a broken screen to fix.

When the courier finally actually

turned up at the house

with the device and I signed for it,

it was just such a relief.

Maria's Fone Angels experience is

strikingly similar to lots of other

stories our team

has heard about the company.

Several of the people we've spoken

to say that,

after paying the upfront repair

costs for their tablet or phone,

Fone Angels told them there was

something else

that needed fixing, too.

Andrew Thomson from Northampton

contacted Fone Angels

about the broken screen

on his daughter's tablet.

They told me that it needed

further repairs

and it would cost me an extra

49.99, for them to, you know,

not only repair the cracked screen

but something to do

with the volume flex connector.

It came as quite a big shock

because obviously I know that

the volume was working fine

when I sent it out.

Andrew told Fone Angels not to do

anything and asked

for the tablet

to be returned instead.

How could they say that this

extra problem

behind the screen had occurred

when they hadn't even took

the device to bits?

Samantha Lindley from Bolton

sent two gadgets

with broken screens to Fone Angels.

The first e-mail I received

was saying there was...

..an issue with the phone about

the proximity sensor,

but when I got my products back,

they were in a worse condition.

Samantha complained

and asked for a refund.

I am still fighting now, to this

day, again, to get my money back.

Of course, these cases could add up

to just a handful

of bad experiences with a company

that largely gets things right.

After all, there are plenty of

good reviews online,

along with the bad ones.

So, to get a taste of the typical

Fone Angels experience,

we asked the company

to fix some devices for us.

So, we sent three of our own phones

off to Fone Angels

and, to make sure we knew exactly

what was and wasn't wrong with them,

we got them checked over first by

an independent company

that inspects phones for the police.

We took two used phones

and one brand-new one

to the team at

Forensic Mobile Services

and got them to run some tests

to tell us everything

we needed to know about them.

This white iPhone,

let's call it phone number one,

was given a clean bill of health,

apart from a slightly loose

home button,

which doesn't stop it

working at all.

Phone number two,

this brand-new Galaxy S4 Mini,

was in perfect working

order, as you'd expect

from something

straight out of the box.

And phone number three, this black

iPhone, has a number of faults.

The screen is cracked,

the home button doesn't work

and the camera freezes.

Now, of course, those first two

phones needed some obvious damage

before we could send them

for a repair,

so we asked the team at the lab to

remove the screens and smash them.

Currently, the issues

with the phones,

they wouldn't be

a difficult fix at all.

The majority of the damage that has

been caused is to the screen.

If another repair company was

to take a look at these handsets,

the only problems they should

identify are the ones

that we have discovered today.

Next, it was onto

the Fone Angels website,

to fill in the order form

and pay upfront for our repairs.

The site told us that fixing

the screen on phone one

would cost £50 and on phone two

would cost £30,

so we booked them in.

As, however, phone three

had several faults,

we wanted to see if Fone Angels

would spot them all,

or indeed try to offer us

additional repairs, too.

So we sent this off for its

so-called "not sure" service.

Here, for what looks like no charge,

Fone Angels will inspect your device

and tell you what's wrong with it

before you make the choice to go

ahead and pay for the repair.

So, while we waited to hear

what Fone Angels would make of our

phones, back in Cumbria,

Maria wants to know if there really

is a problem

with the charging point on her

tablet, as the company maintained,

so she's taking it

to her local phone repair shop.

I rang up earlier.

Oh, yes.

We gave the tablet a full

health check, as we normally do,

but checking the charger point

is fairly straightforward

because you can simply connect

a charger to it

and it charges the battery

if it works.

So we soon found out

there was no problem.

I was confused as to how they had

figured out

that the charger point

needed to be repaired.

None of our staff could find a

reason why it needed any additional

repairs, other than the screen.

The good news is that the screen

is now repaired,

though it did cost Maria

more than Fone Angels had quoted.

Still, as there was no apparent

reason why the charging point needed

fixing, she has at least avoided

forking out for what seems a totally

unnecessary repair.

Back in the Rip Off Britain office,

all the phones we'd sent to

Fone Angels have been returned

and it was a mixed bag of results.

With phone one,

Fone Angels failed to spot the loose

home button but did try to suggest

that as well as the broken screen

we knew about,

something called a proximity sensor

would need potentially

replacing, too.

And that would cost an extra £29.

Such a fault can happen when screens

are smashed

but until the screen has been

removed, it's not possible

to know for sure if a repair

is definitely required.

We said no to that.

In fact, we asked them not to fix

the phone at all.

Even so, despite no less than

six e-mails to that effect,

they went ahead and repaired

the screen anyway.

As for phone two, the brand-new one,

Fone Angels said that the LCD

underneath the screen

may also be damaged,

which would cost an extra 59.99.

And considering the blow

from the hammer,

that too may well be the case.

However, again,

we told the company not to repair it

and this time the phone was sent

back without question

and without a charge.

Phone three, you may recall,

was in such a state

that we asked Fone Angels to tell us

what was wrong with it.

They did spot the obvious,

that the screen was broken,

but they didn't diagnose the faulty

camera or home button.

And when we said that we'd changed

our minds and wanted the phone back,

they charged us almost £25,

that's despite the website stating

that returning the phone

unrepaired would be free.

Of course, nobody is perfect

and we did only send

three phones for inspection.

But Fone Angels says it's been in

the business for years

and no doubt it's dealt with

thousands of broken phones.

So maybe the people we've spoken to

were just unlucky

with the service they received.

And when we contacted Fone Angels,

it said it deeply regrets that some

customers have been unhappy with its

service, which it puts down to

the growing pains the company has

experienced as a result

of an influx of orders.

It told us a temporary problem

meant that, for some months,

it had struggled to keep up

with demand but it stressed

it's since made extensive

improvements

to avoid this happening again.

Fone Angels went on to say

that smartphones and tablets

are very fragile, and some damage

is not always evident

at first inspection, so it wouldn't

be doing its job properly

if it didn't make customers aware

of other potential issues.

It maintains that's what it was

doing in Maria's case,

after spotting what it deemed

an area of concern

that would have required a complete

new screen to be installed

if repaired later.

As for Samantha Lindley's devices,

which she says were returned

in a worse state than

when she sent them off,

Fone Angels told us fragments of

cracked screens

can easily break away in transit,

even when carefully packaged,

as it says all its phones are.

When it came to the phones

we sent for repair,

Fone Angels told us the first one

was already fixed

by the time we asked it

not to go ahead.

And it said since we were

charged £25

after asking for the third phone

to be returned unrepaired,

the company has changed its policy

on inspection fees

and return postage.

As for Maria, next time one of her

sons accidentally breaks a screen,

she won't be rushing to find

the cheapest quote online.

I wish I'd known from the beginning

that there were actual local repair

shops near me.

I wish I'd never, ever sent it to

Fone Angels in the first place.

If you've got a story you'd like us

to investigate

then you can get in touch with us

via our Facebook page...

There's our website...

Or e-mail...

And of course you can send a letter

to our postal address...

Well, I think it's easy to

understand just how people

in today's films might feel

frustrated by the situations

in which they've ended up.

Not least because, as we all do,

they went into them with no idea of

how things might ultimately work out

and, certainly, they had no inkling

at all that they'd end up feeling

either let down or, worse still,

out of pocket.

But, as we've just seen,

while it might at first appear

that cases like these are due to

bad service or even sharp practice,

the explanation is just as likely

to come down to a misunderstanding

or an honest mistake.

And, while that's not much

consolation to those affected,

at least for some of them, there is

light at the end of the tunnel.

Of course, it's only by sharing

experiences like these

that we all know what to look out

for and, indeed,

what questions to ask

if we find ourselves in anything

like the same position.

So, at this stage,

may I just say thank you

to everybody whose stories

we've heard today

and, of course, to you for joining

us for the programme,

and we'll see you again very soon

for more of your stories,

so, until then,

from all of us on the team, bye-bye.

Goodbye.

Goodbye.