Episode 2 Rip Off Britain

GLORIA HUNNIFORD: We asked you to tell us what's left you

feeling ripped off, and you contacted us in your thousands.

ANGELA RIPPON: You've told us about the companies you think get it wrong

and the customer service that simply is 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.

JULIA SOMERVILLE: 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 are always trying to offer you little things extra.

And when you've lost out, but nobody 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 to Rip-Off Britain, where today,

we have one of the most genuinely shocking cases

that we've ever featured on this programme.

And I'm afraid it's left the couple at the heart of it all

with absolutely nothing to show

for the hundreds of thousands of pounds that they ploughed

into their dream home.

And while our other stories today don't have quite

the same dramatic impact as that particular tale,

they are all decidedly in the same nerve-racking territory,

and that is there the problems and pitfalls that go hand-in-hand

with the biggest purchase that any of us is ever likely

to make in our lifetimes.

That's purchasing our homes.

Now, whether you're buying a brand-new property

or completely renovating an old one,

choosing who you can trust to build, convert

or even just fix up your home can be a real minefield.

And as we're going to see, when things don't go to plan,

it may not be as easy as it should be to get the whole thing resolved.

Coming up, the builders booked to convert a basement,

but instead cause the entire house to collapse to the ground.

I just think we were in shock.

Watching it unfold, we all just had to stand on the street and

watch it sort of disintegrate.

And brand-new homes with a catalogue of basic errors.

The roof, in essence, we've had replaced three times now.

I've been without a garden for 12 weeks.

Discovered that the wall was damp outside.

Now, everyone knows that, if you're planning work on your home,

then choosing the right builder is crucial.

Well, never was that truer than for the family in our next film.

Their case is so jaw-dropping that

we've genuinely never come across anything like it before.

The situation is made all the worse because they did everything right

when they first picked the company to do the job.

But that didn't stop them from losing

not just hundreds of thousands of pounds, but their home as well.

Here's a typical North London house before...

and after the builders started work.

Yes, the entire property has collapsed.

We're paying a mortgage on a hole in the ground at the moment.

It's just the injustice here.

The builder can get away with this sort of thing

and keep on trading, has not had to pay a penny.

'Jacquie Hale and her partner Ed have been living here

'in rented accommodation since their home fell into the ground in 2012.

'They'd bought the lease on their North London ground-floor flat

'a year earlier and, with plans to extend their family,

'they soon spotted that they could do the same with their property too

'by converting the basement.'

We found this place and it seemed ideal.

It had potential for development to make it into a family home.

It was actually right next door to a family friend who had...

It was the identical property and he had a basement conversion

and it sort of made up our minds.

'Little did they know that, once they'd moved in,

'it wasn't just their dreams

'that would come crashing down around them.

'With the necessary permissions in place, they set about

'finding a builder they could trust with such an important project.'

This seemed like a very tricky job.

That's why I went through what I thought were all the checks we could

possibly do to find the right one.

'First, the couple went to the trade association

'that represents some of the most qualified builders in the business.'

We found the builder through the Federation of Master Builders website.

We put a job specification onto the site and that allowed numerous

different builders to reply and we had responses

from probably five or six people.

'While builders don't have to join a trade association,

'the Federation of Master Builders vets its members,

'which gave Jacquie the confidence

'that she'd end up with the right company for the job.

'And she thought that's what she'd got when she plumped for local firm

'AIMs Plumbing and Building Services -

'not to be confused with other companies with similar names.

'By now, Jacquie was expecting the first of their two children,

'so she and Ed were keen to get on with the project.'

The fact that you were pregnant, I presume time was of the essence.

Yes. My first baby was due in January.

And he was meant to be finishing the work by December.

That wasn't our only decision to hire him, of course,

but it certainly helped.

'The company's owner Christopher Knott quoted

'just over ?38,000 for the job

'and put Jacquie in touch with satisfied customers for a reference.

'But Jacquie's checks didn't stop there.

'She also asked to see the firm's insurance documents to make sure

'they'd be properly protected if anything would go wrong with

'the delicate task of underpinning the foundations of the house.'

It didn't seem like he was covered for the work,

so I explained this to him and made him take out a new policy,

which he did, and then I actually phoned the company and asked,

were he to take on this sort of job,

would he be covered? And they said yes.

'With Jacquie feeling that

'she'd done all she could to prepare for any eventuality,

'work began in September 2012 and was expected to last three months,

'but, one morning eight weeks later, Jacquie and Ed woke up

'to see a large crack in their bedroom wall.'

It was wide enough to see through to the outside,

and we called the builder.

He came and had a look.

He seemed a little bit worried,

but still didn't give us any indication that it was very serious.

'The builder tried to support the wall by bracing it

'against the house next door, but that temporary fix didn't stop

'other cracks also starting to appear further up the house.'

The tenants who were living in the upstairs flat came and knocked

on the door and asked us to come and have a look at their flat,

because the cracks were getting quite large there.

I was only up there for maybe 30 seconds or a minute,

and then I came back down to our flat

and the same cracks were appearing.

'That's when Jacquie and her neighbours realised

'they shouldn't be inside any longer.'

They were appearing in front of your eyes, were they?

In front of our eyes. It was like being in a disaster movie,

when the house...

There's an earthquake or something happening

and the house just disintegrates.

'Jacquie called the emergency services, who, realising the danger,

'quickly evacuated the neighbouring properties too.

'As the couple and their neighbours looked on,

'the walls of their house started to come away from the one next door

'and, over the next few hours, their home slowly fell into the ground.'

I just think we were in shock, all of us probably in shock, just...

watching it unfold.

We all just had to stand on the street and watch...

watch it sort of disintegrate.

And when the builder arrived at the scene, he didn't hang around.

Where was the builder? When we called him and he came, had a look,

saw emergency services and just ran off again.

He ran off? Yeah.

He just disappeared. Did he say anything to you?

No.

No. I think, at that point,

he was probably in as much shock as we were.

We didn't know at the very beginning

that it was definitely the builder's fault.

'Not only was their home gone, but most of their possessions were too.'

We lost everything.

It was just taken away in skips as we were watching.

There was no way to retrieve it. We weren't allowed back in.

'The family moved in with Ed's sister while they attempted

'to sort out the devastating mess.'

How did you set about just trying to find out who was at fault?

Immediately, we had to notify the insurance companies that this had

happened. We had to find a solicitor and we had to find an engineer who

could examine the site to determine what had actually happened.

'The structural engineer's report

'indicated that it was the builder's work that was to blame,

'as the house simply hadn't been propped up properly.

'So, while Jacquie and Ed's own insurance covered the contents

'they'd lost inside the house, they expected the builder's insurance

'would foot the bill for the building itself.

'But with the total damage to the property

'running to not far off ?300,000,

'the insurers didn't seem keen to do that.'

The builder's insurer did not engage with us at all,

refused to acknowledge our communications.

'After getting nowhere,

'Jacquie and Ed felt their only option was to go to court.

'And when the case was heard in 2015,

'the judge ruled that the building firm was at fault and, as such,

'it was ordered to pay for the repairs.

That should have been an end to it,

'but in fact, the firm's insurer refused to pay,

'citing various reasons why it claimed the building company

'had broken the terms of its cover.'

Where has the judgment left you now?

We're really no further forward than we were the day it collapsed,

so we know we weren't at fault, we know who was at fault,

but, financially, we are in the same position - actually worse off

than we were when it first happened.

'The couple still hope they may be able to convince

'the builder's insurer to pay out, but months have passed

'with no progress in that direction and it's not as if they can pursue

'the building company itself any more,

'because AIMs Plumbing and Building Services has gone out of business.'

How did that make you feel?

We were disappointed, because we knew that meant he was off the hook.

'The man behind AIMs Plumbing and Building Services,

'Christopher Knott, set up a new company,

'AIMs Building and Maintenance Services,

'within weeks of the house falling down.

'In the years since, that too has ceased trading

'and he is now director of another building firm in the same area.

'But because all these were limited companies,

'he has no personal liability for what happened.

'Meanwhile, the ones losing out are Jacquie and Ed,

'who are stuck with 23 years of repayments on a home

'they can't even live in and that can't be rebuilt

'until there's an agreement on who's going to pay for it.'

What really upsets the couple is that they thought they'd followed

all the recommendations for finding the right builder.

Now, they find themselves paying out for a mortgage on a home

that no longer exists. It's basically just a hole in the ground.

Well, when we contacted the building firm's insurers,

a company called Covea,

it told us it sympathises with Jacquie and Ed's situation,

but for legal reasons can't comment on the case in too much detail.

It did however say that it had gone beyond its obligations in trying to

find a solution and that it is

actively supporting negotiations to help reach a conclusion.

We also, of course, contacted the builder, Christopher Knott,

but he didn't reply.

As Jacquie and Ed only owned the lease on their home,

it was the freeholders' insurance that would normally

cover the building, but it seems that particular policy didn't extend

to covering the property's collapse if the cause was building work.

Jacquie and Ed had been aware of that,

but, of course, believed they would be protected

by the extra cover they'd got the builder to take out.

So if you're planning an extension or major works,

perhaps the best advice is to consider taking out

your own insurance for the job, rather than relying on the builders'

because, however good their policy may seem,

you've no control over whether they stick to the terms.

'But while Jacquie and Ed's case rumbles on,

'it's hard to understand how the whole thing could have come about,

'considering they'd employed a paid-up member

'of the Federation of Master builders.

'Brian Berry is the Federation's Chief Executive and he maintains

'that stories like Jacquie and Ed's are extremely rare.'

This is a very sad case, but it's also unique.

When this came to light, we suspended the company immediately

and then we asked the company to come before

a national standards and conduct committee. They reviewed the case

and they agreed that, actually, the member company should be expelled.

And that company will never come back into the FMB again.

If things go wrong between a builder and a client,

does your association intervene?

Does it have a process for reconciling the two?

Yes, we do have a process of, if a client has a problem

with one of our members, they can contact us.

In most cases, builders want to do a good job

and they're very keen to go back and rectify it.

Now, if the problem continues, we offer a dispute resolution process.

Both sides have to agree and then

there will be an independent adjudicator to look at the problem.

'But none of that's been much help to Jacquie, who'd assumed that,

'by choosing a member of the FMB, she would be in safe hands.'

So, in a funny kind of way,

if you expel somebody, you leave them outside your remit

and therefore, in a way, there's less protection for the client.

Yes, unfortunately, that is the case.

The company can continue to operate, change their name,

and the consumer then is not actually protected.

This is an ongoing self-regulation, because the government has said,

actually, it doesn't want to commit

to any former licensing or regulation of builders.

'All of which means Jacquie is still lumbered with a huge mortgage

'and a huge hole where her family home used to be.'

We've tried everything we can.

The legal channels we've been following

have so far come to dead ends.

We've got about ?125,000 left to pay.

There's just, um... There's not a lot else we can do, really.

'It's a desperately sad situation

'and we'll be watching for further developments.'

Now, we get a steady stream of e-mails and letters from viewers

who bought a brand-new home from a developer,

but say they haven't got what they paid for.

Sometimes, it's because the list of unfinished snags

runs for pages and pages or, in some cases,

there's something seriously wrong with the building itself.

Either way, the buyer wants it fixed

and, when that's not happening fast enough, they end up coming to us.

But where do you draw the line?

Even after you've spent hundreds of thousands of pounds,

there's not always agreement on what the developer should put right

and what the homeowner should just put up with.

Every new home is likely to have the odd snag here and there,

but at this development near Hemel Hempstead,

the problems some owners face with their brand-new properties

are rather more fundamental.

The roof, in essence, we've had replaced three times now.

I've been without a garden for 12 weeks.

I discovered the wall was damp outside.

'And the problems at Gavin Jones' new family home are so bad,

'the builders have been forced to go back to the drawing board.'

We had water building around our property.

We needed basically to lower the entire ground level

and put new drainage in.

'Built by Crest Nicholson in 2014, the development should have provided

'families like Gavin's with hassle-free new homes.

'After all, that's one of the main reasons for buying a new-build home,

'rather than an older one that might need updating.'

I didn't want to do any building work or anything like that

to an older home, so we approached the developer.

Obviously, put the reservation down and agreed the purchase price.

And then about, literally only about a month or two later,

we moved into the new home.

'Gavin did anticipate there'd be a few things

'that would need to be put right.'

I did a snag list of all the really minor things you would expect.

They were relatively quick fixes and, to be honest,

they were reasonably quick to pick up on the first few of those,

so I was quite pleased.

'But he'd never have imagined

'there'd be other problems that were more serious.

'The gardens behind Gavin's house are much higher than his,

'so retaining walls were built to support the earth.

'Gavin soon noticed they were bowing under the pressure, so,

'worried about his family's safety, he contacted Crest Nicholson,

'who came to fix the problem.

'But the garden wall wasn't the only problem.

'There was a big issue inside, too.

'Gavin's kitchen ceiling was damp.'

I took a good look at the flat roof

and, instead of having a small slope, obviously,

to get rid of the water, ours was completely flat.

That water was coming through the ceilings.

'The only solution was to install a completely new roof,

'but, though the developer did that, it too developed the same problem.'

Quite astonishingly, that roof did exactly the same thing.

They hadn't changed the design, so it pooled again, we had more leaks.

'In fact, over the next 14 months,

'the problem with the roof had to be repaired again and again.'

How many roofs was that?

Four roofs in the end. We've now had four altogether.

Goodness. And you can imagine the scaffolding goes up with each one.

We lose the garden and access for literally months on end

as they're doing the works.

'And as if that wasn't bad enough,

'the correct drainage hadn't been installed in Gavin's garden,

'leading to rainwater pooling round the outside walls of the house.

'To fix that, tonnes of earth had to be removed from the back garden

'and new drainage installed.'

We asked surveyor and property expert Roger Southam

to take a good look at the property

and he soon finds plenty of things he doesn't like.

The most obvious thing is the air bricks,

where there just weren't enough around the house.

There should've been eight, there was only three.

And even now, there's an X marked on a brick

where they physically can't put an air brick in,

because of a drain that's behind that should've been in there.

And he's not at all impressed by all those problems with the roof.

It's had to be replaced to get the water running away

and not pooling on the structure. All of these things are fairly basic

and should've been avoided to start with.

And while it does at last seem the leaking roof has been

fixed for good, Roger's less certain about that garden wall.

There were no weep holes put into the retaining wall,

so there was no way for the water that was going to build up behind

to actually be released.

Additional work has been carried out and weep holes have been installed,

but, looking at the wall, it does look as if it's bowing partly to me

and I still think that needs investigating.

Roger believes the entire wall needs to be rebuilt

and the ground behind it properly braced.

But these issues aren't confined to just Gavin's house.

Very similar glitches have plagued other residents, too.

Indeed, Gavin's next-door neighbour Justin came across his first problem

with the roof the very moment he and his wife moved in.

We found our entire roof coping stones

lying on the grass in front of us and that was the start of issues

we've had dealt with, um, since we moved in.

Again, Justin's garden's had no drainage.

Nor was the retaining wall at the back of the garden properly installed.

And the kitchen roof repeatedly collected water and leaked.

The roof, in essence, we've had replaced three times now,

since that first one went up.

Justin and Gavin's homes back on to their neighbour Luke's.

It's his garden being held back by that retaining wall,

so that's where most of the remedial work has taken place.

You don't expect to deal with this from day one.

The disparity is between what you're sold of that dream -

walking into a new-build house, making it nice and easy -

to the actual reality.

'Pensioner Alan moved here with his wife in order

'to enjoy a peaceful retirement, but so far, it's been anything but.'

Alan, I know you live in an apartment rather than a house,

but did you encounter similar problems when you moved in?

After about nine months of moving in,

I discovered a wall was damp outside

and I phoned up the company in question, they had a look at it

and said, "I think you're right, there is damp."

They took some bricks out the wall

and water poured out from the cavity of the wall.

'A string of contractors investigated the damp

'and told Alan they had diagnosed the problem and would sort it out.'

That was a month ago now.

I'm still waiting. You've got to remember -

this is a year and a half this has been going on!

'There are plenty of other residents

'on the development who've reported problems

'and, while the developer Crest Nicholson is working to fix them,

'the homeowners we've met all say it's not happening quickly enough.

'But like 80% of all new-build properties, the homes here

'are all covered by a policy called Buildmark

'from the National House Builders Council, or NHBC.

'It's taken out by developers to cover any remedial work needed

'after the buyer moves in for up to ten years

'and NHBC itself also acts as an intermediary

'in disputes between the home owner and developer.'

What about the security that was meant to flow from the NHBC?

Did that make you feel any better and did it help you in any way?

For me, personally, that whole side of the experience has been

a negative one. Um, my understanding from day one

is that they were there to aid and act as a sort of middleman.

They would come in, they would make a ruling

as to whether you had a genuine defect in what you're trying to say.

NHBC has indeed ruled on a number of complaints residents like Justin

have made against Crest Nicholson,

including the retaining wall in the garden.

But the residents complain that,

even then, it can take a long time to put the problems right.

The remedial works to the walls

was due to run out in November of last year.

We're here now in June and it still is not completed.

In their charter, it says, if the developer fails to do the work

"in a satisfactory and timely manner",

or some words to that effect, "we will then invoke our policy

"and take over the job and do the work ourselves."

Residents say that, while the developer IS doing remedial work,

it's consistently missing the deadlines set by NHBC,

'which in turn, they say,

'isn't putting enough pressure on the developer to sort things out.'

We had the NHBC involved with this damp wall

and they gave an ultimatum to the developer

that, by January the 12th, it has to be completed.

January 12th came and went. Two weeks after that, nothing happened.

The NHBC's involvement has ultimately led

to many of the issues of residents like Gavin being addressed,

if not as quickly as they'd like or expect.

'But Roger believes one reason for the delay is simply that

'the organisation is overburdened.'

What about the role of the NHBC? Should they be the active people

who are making the builder do what they should do?

They are incredibly stretched with the amount of house-building

that is going on in the country and needs to go on in the country

with the shortage that there is.

And is this why it's taken two years

for all these problems to be put right?

Typically, it can take that long

and this is the sad thing for the consumer,

because, what is an interminable amount of time - cos they're living

with the problem - from the developer and the contractor's perspective,

they just see it as normal course of business.

Well, when we contacted the developer, Crest Nicholson,

about all this, it told us it prides itself

on delivering the highest quality product and experience

from construction, to sales and importantly to post-sales support,

so it's very disappointed that

what it describes as a small number of residents feel let down.

It says, on this occasion, it's clear that its service

and particularly that of its subcontractors

fell below its usual high standards.

It's apologised for that,

but says the majority of issues on site are now fully resolved.

Acknowledging the delays,

the developer says it kept residents up to date throughout and worked

closely with the NHBC and structural engineers

to investigate concerns with the garden wall.

Independent experts were also involved in correcting both the wall

and also the roof issues faced by Gavin and others

to ensure that the final work was to industry standard.

Those roof problems, by the way, the company says were due to contractors

repeatedly failing to deliver an adequate roofing solution.

As for the NHBC,

it says it feels a great deal of sympathy for those affected

and, while it's already providing assistance on the estate,

it urged anyone else with issues to contact its claims team.

It pointed out that, over the first two years of its ten-year warranty,

any defect must be put right by the builder.

Unusual as this situation was, we hear a lot from people

unhappy with the new homes they've bought from a variety of developers.

And while it's rare for any new build to be completely perfect,

it can be hard to know which issues are the responsibility

of the developer to put right,

especially if they're not always apparent right away.

Is there a time limit for people

when they move into houses to make complaints?

Yeah, it's the first two years is the important period of notification

and identifying the issues and problems, but, then again,

you're asking a homeowner to be an expert

and recognise the deficiencies and the defects

and realise problems that are ongoing whereas, in reality,

the checks and balances should be there from the start

to make sure that isn't necessary and, actually,

they're getting the product they think they're getting.

'But while Gavin, Justin and their neighbours

'should now be able to look forward to enjoying their new homes,

'they remain unhappy about not just the extent of the problems,

'but how their complaints were handled.'

Never once have they said, "We understand there is a problem.

"Right, we'll get it done as quick as possible." You are always

made to feel as if you're being given something begrudgingly.

Still to come on Rip-Off Britain, why choosing a trader from a site

apparently listing only the very best doesn't guarantee

that you'll get the right result.

They've made a real mess of it and I'm out of pocket by a lot of money,

which I cannot afford to lose.

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

this time to one of the biggest shopping centres in the UK.

We've been watching you for many, many years

and you look amazing! Aw, that's kind of you to say so. Thank you.

Booked in to see technology expert David McClelland

were 82-year-old Charles and his son David.

They needed advice after having difficulty resolving a problem

with a brand-new mobile phone.

Charles and David, father and son,

tell me about the purchase of this phone.

I went to Carphone Warehouse to buy a phone and the salesman there said,

"This is the best one for you."

And were you by yourself and making the decision by yourself?

I was on my own. I asked would it cover my area,

so he said, "Oh, yes, we've got marvellous coverage there."

When I got home and tried it, I couldn't get anything,

so I thought I was doing it wrong. And did you never get any coverage?

I've never had coverage in the house.

ANGELA: 'But according to Charles and David,

'it wasn't just the signal that was a problem.

'There was also the hefty contract that Charles had been sold.'

We found out quite a substantial amount of money

was disappearing, well, going from his account.

'Charles was paying ?60 a month on the new contract,

'including ?15 a month for insurance

'that he says he was told at the point-of-sale he would need.'

Do you know what you were getting for that contract?

Yes, he was getting basically 10 gigabytes of data.

That's a lot. That's more than I get. That's what he told me.

My sister and I went down to the store once we found out

and asked them, "Is there anything we can do?" They just said, "No, no,

"the contract is a contract, there is nobody here to talk to you."

ANGELA: 'David wanted to cancel the contract on the basis

'that his father was paying far too much for his modest phone use,

'but he hasn't been able to make much progress.'

I rang them. She said, "Oh, we can't deal with it, it has to be the people in the store."

I've written to them, I've got a receipt from the Royal Mail

saying that they received it. OK. And you've heard nothing since?

Nothing. It's hard to believe the case, isn't it?

It's incredibly frustrating and clearly there's something

that has gone very, very wrong in this transaction,

yet you can't find anyone who will take your complaint seriously.

ANGELA: 'In fact, David was so concerned

'that Charles had ended up with a phone entirely unsuitable

'for his needs that he got straight onto the case himself,

'immediately contacting Carphone Warehouse to push for some answers.

'And, after a few calls, we're delighted to say

'that he was able to get the whole matter sorted out

'with an instant result for David and Charles.

We're in a shopping centre here right now.

If we walk over to a Carphone Warehouse store,

I've got a name of somebody here who will resolve this today.

'And it was good news. Charles was able

'to get his contract cancelled and a full refund.'

How do you feel, Charles? Are you happy now? A lot happier. Good.

Just a weight off my shoulders. I'm pleased to hear that.

And it stops him shouting at me. DAVID LAUGHS

Now, for many of us, one thing that never, ever seems to get any easier

is finding the right person to do work on our homes,

whether, for example, we're after somebody to fix a leaking tap

or perhaps to build that dream extension.

So, to help make that nerve-racking decision a little bit easier,

there's a whole host of websites and organisations promising to

put you in touch with tradespeople who've apparently been reviewed,

they've been vetted or even inspected,

and they'd only be there if they have already made the grade.

But, you know, we hear from a lot of viewers

who've discovered to their cost

that the tradespeople they found from those very same places

were not in fact up to the job, so we wanted to find out

how that could possibly happen and whether all those checks

that we were told were made are all they're cracked up to be.

Judging from all your e-mails and letters

and, of course, the case we saw earlier in the programme,

it's still the most crucial part of having work done on your home,

so how can you be sure that you've picked the right person to do the job?

I would ask somebody who I know

or I would ask a friend if they know a builder.

Well, we do have a network of friends that, er...know people

in the building trade or whatever, so we get in touch with them.

I would ask one or two people that have had work done in their house

and say, "Is there anyone you could recommend?"

But when 77-year-old Brian Lambert from Tunbridge Wells

discovered a leak in his conservatory roof, he wasn't sure

of the best place to look for someone to fix it

until he heard the clatter of his letterbox.

I had a leaflet through the door from a roofing company

that was recommended by Checkatrade, so I thought

that it would be a good, reliable company for me to deal with.

The company's marketing made a big deal of the fact

that it was listed on Checkatrade,

which is perhaps the best-known of the various websites set up

to help us all find a trader we can trust, thanks to its ads on TV.

AD: 'We check their references, qualifications and insurances.'

But Brian didn't take the claims

that had come through his door on face value. He wanted to find out

what Checkatrade really thought of the builder.

After all, as well as recommending traders,

the service says it vets and monitors them as well.

I phoned Checkatrade to find out if the company was reliable and good

and Checkatrade said yes.

So, with that, Brian's next call was to the roofing company itself.

They popped round, gave him a quote for the job

and seemed thoroughly professional.

But I'm afraid those first impressions soon turned sour,

because, when the workmen left, Brian and his son Shane took a look

at the roof and were decidedly unimpressed with what they saw.

When I looked at the job, I could quite easily see that

it was a substandard job. I felt quite angry.

Brian had paid almost half of the ?2,500 cost upfront,

but on seeing the roof, he refused to pay the rest.

In the end, a total of ?1,500 was agreed with the roofing company,

although Brian and Shane still think that was just too high.

They've made a real mess of it and I'm out of pocket by a lot of money,

which I cannot afford to lose.

And of course what particularly frustrates Brian is that,

by choosing a company through Checkatrade,

he thought he'd would've been able to avoid problems like this.

I only went to Checkatrade in the first place

because they seem a very reliable and trusted trade company.

After this experience, I feel that Checkatrade have let me down badly,

because the roofers were just not up to the job.

So Brian and Shane got in touch with Checkatrade,

which sent an inspector to see the job for himself.

When he'd had a look, he was quite disgusted with the work that

they had completed. He estimated the job at being only ?500,

not the ?2,500 that they wanted to charge my father.

Big difference. And it was only then Brian and Shane discovered that,

whilst Checkatrade might indeed check the companies on their site,

there's very little they can do for customers left unhappy

if something goes wrong.

I tried to get some money back for my father,

but once we'd failed to do that, we were left on our own.

When we spoke to Checkatrade,

it apologised to Brian for the substandard work he had received,

but pointed out that, at the time, the company in question

had 42 positive reviews from happy customers.

It agreed, however, that the work was of a poor nature

and reiterated that, following attempts to contact the company,

it had been expelled from the site.

So Brian has been left wondering

if his trust in Checkatrade was misplaced.

It's so hard. There's so many of these firms, like Checkatrade, about

that recommend people, but who do we turn to

to get trusted workmen to do a good, honest job?

Well, now, that's a question we get asked a lot by viewers

just like Brian, who say they chose a trader through a website

that looks like it's recommending the best for the job,

only for things to still go wrong.

So have such sites always made the extensive checks you may think?

Well, to find out, we once again called on our property surveyor,

Roger Southam, asking him to visit Brian and his son.

Hi, nice to meet you. Nice to meet you.

We wanted to explain how some of the best-known sites work

and what a trader needs to do to be able to use their logos.

Before he started,

Roger couldn't resist taking a look at the work that kicked it all off.

I've been up on the roof and had a look at the quality of the work

that's been carried out and I've got to say, quite frankly,

it is not of a great quality at all.

So why did Brian come across the builder responsible

on a site like Checkatrade?

'For local, quality tradesmen, visit checkatrade.com today.'

Well, Roger reckons the key thing to remember is that

Checkatrade doesn't make constant checks on the people it lists.

Instead, it uses feedback from customers

to determine whether a business should continue to be recommended.

Although it does say it interviews traders face-to-face and

examines their credentials before including them in the first place.

So, to get onto the site, there's been checks. Yeah.

Once they're on, you're relying on the feedback from the public

on the jobs that have been carried out.

And Checkatrade does get lots and lots of that feedback.

Its site includes more than 2? million customer reviews

and it tells us that it goes through up to 40% of those published

every month in order to pick up on any problems.

If there are any, it may investigate or even suspend members,

as indeed happened in Brian's case. And while, as we have seen,

there's no recourse that the site can help with,

Checkatrade tells us it's now part partnered with Trading Standards

to further support monitoring and vetting.

Among the various other sites offering a similar service

are ones such as MyBuilder and Rated People, where they do require

traders to supply references and have certain credentials.

'If you're looking for a local builder you can trust,

'you could stage a talent contest

'or you could do it the easy way by going to MyBuilder.com.

But again, once those checks are done,

such sites mostly rely on reviews placed by customers.

'RatedPeople.com, for quality, local tradesmen.'

With Rated People, very similar to MyBuilder,

where you put in the job you want carried out and then people will

come up to you and say who's interested in doing the work.

You're going to be looking at the reviews to assess whether

the people are good, bad or indifferent - as far as you can -

and then picking from that.

The site MyBuilder told us that reviews can only be left

by customers who've hired a tradesperson through the site

and has stressed that it doesn't encourage people to

believe that a successful project is guaranteed.

And Rated People told us it invests a lot in vetting and screening

and will suspend traders from its site if an investigation

shows their work to be shoddy. It also said, although rarely used,

it does offer a low-cost resolution service.

Now, while each of these sites clearly has its merits,

all of them are essentially

based around customer reviews with a few extra checks.

But there is another site that claims to have an extra edge.

'Whether you need a builder, a decorator, a gardener

'or even a new solar panel, TrustMark is here to introduce

'customers to local quality firms and expert tradespeople.'

Launched in 2005, TrustMark is

the only site of this type endorsed by the government.

In order to display its coveted logo, traders undergo

not just a thorough vetting, but independent on-site inspections

to regularly check their work and business practices.

Now, TrustMark was a scheme similar to a Kitemark

or similar to, um, some sort of approval body.

So it's government-backed.

There's checks being carried out on the firms and they're having to

make sure they're up to scratch from that point of view.

But some of the trade bodies it uses to check standards will only do so

every three years, so if the standard of work drops

between inspections, or the business gets into trouble,

that information may not make it back to TrustMark straightaway.

Unlike most of the other sites, however,

if a TrustMark-registered trader gets the job wrong,

customers will be helped through a dispute resolution process

to try and sort it all out and all firms it recommends must offer

deposit protection and warranties for work costing over ?500.

Of course, none of these sites can ever ensure

a building project that goes entirely to plan

or that any trader will do a perfect job every time.

So, rather than looking at any one of them in isolation,

Roger advises putting aside even just a bit of time

to do proper research to get the fullest possible picture

on any business that you're considering taking on.

It's worth spending that extra 15 minutes, half an hour,

doing the research in advance to save yourself at least ?1,000

and the grief and the stress and the worry that you've had.

As for Brian, next time he's looking for someone to do a job, he's likely

to stick to a more simple way of finding the right person.

It's still better to go on the old-fashioned way

of the old recommendation from your neighbours and friends

and trusted local workmen.

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

then you can get in touch with us via our Facebook page -

BBC Rip Off Britain.

Our website is bbc.co.uk/ripoffbritain.

Or you can e-mail us at...

And, of course, you can always send us a letter to our postal address...

Well, I don't know about you, but I have to say

that I'm still reeling from that story that we saw earlier

about the poor couple whose house literally fell down.

Now, on this programme, we're used to hearing about

disastrous building work, but never before have I heard

of a house completely collapsing like that one. Just disastrous.

It's so sad. And what makes it worse, of course,

is that it really did seem they had done everything right

in terms of getting references, checking insurance was in place.

Every box ticked, you'd have thought,

yet, after all that, things still went horribly wrong.

Well, thankfully, cases like that are indeed very rare and, of course,

there are lots of things that you can do to give yourself

the very best protection in case something does go wrong

and, as ever, you will find lots more advice

on subjects like that and others on our website...

But, for now, thanks very much for joining us today

and, from everyone on the team, bye-bye. Bye-bye! Goodbye.