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.

Well, we are all just numbers, aren't we, at the end of the day?

Profit comes before anything else, and that's all that matters.

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

investigate the extra charges you say are unfair.

Why can't they all just give it to you at the price it should be?

They don't. They just try and charge as much as they can.

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.

When it comes to actual customer service, it's dreadful.

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

We're here to find out why you are out of pocket and what you can do

about it.

Your stories, your money.

This is Rip-Off Britain.

Hello, and welcome to Rip-Off Britain,

the series that really is on your side just when it might feel that

absolutely nobody else is.

Also, we are here to ask the questions which, so far,

you just have not been able to get an answer to.

So, today, we are investigating what appeared to be opportunities for

making some extra cash, but are they all they are cracked up to be?

That's the question, you see, because you probably won't be surprised to hear that,

as far as we can see, some of them really are not.

Now, whether they are offering just a little extra money in your

pocket, you know, that extra cash,

or they represent a much more serious investment,

such opportunities rarely come with cast-iron guarantees.

But as you'll see, the impression given by the companies concerned

can be very, very different from the reality.

And certainly, in the case that I've been looking at,

there is something really uncomfortable going on because a man who's been

persuaded to invest thousands of pounds has ended up with very little

to show for it.

Coming up, the cold-calling art sellers with very creative ideas on how you could

spend your life savings.

I don't actually have a clue how much he's spent.

This one in the box was tens of thousands.

And the apps that promise easy ways to end up quids in.

These two have saved a small fortune.

We are claiming a pound back, making all eight bottles that we've got

between us free.

But some feel far less happy.

I felt let down.

I felt that we'd been misled.

Now, several times over the years,

you've told us about the consequences of being talked into investing your

money in things like gold or diamonds,

fine wines or even the production of a film.

Well, these ventures rarely worked out as expected or promised and,

while we can't go quite as far as saying all such schemes should be

avoided, it's true that we haven't come across a single person who's

told us they are glad they did it.

What's more, once they've drawn you in,

some of the companies that trade in these so-called alternative

investments just won't leave you alone.

And this next story is a real example of that.

$160 million.

When Pablo Picasso's

Les Femmes d'Alger sold for over ?100 million in 2015,

it broke all records and sent jaws dropping.

For the lucky few, the potential gains from buying and selling art can be

huge, but most of us don't have the expertise to spot the difference

between a masterpiece worth a fortune and a copy worth pennies,

at least without help.

And that's where these companies come in.

They will contact people out of the blue,

offering art as a sure-fire investment opportunity.

And it seems that's what they did with 76-year-old Lance Edmonds from

Essex. He is currently recovering from a major stroke that's affected

not just his mobility but his memory as well.

Hi, Lance. Hi. Hello, I'm Julia.

'So he can't quite remember how he was first talked into buying artworks by

'some particularly famous artists or recall the total amount he's been

'persuaded to hand over since then.'

Can I ask you, it's a bit of a personal question,

but how much have you spent on this?

Good question. I don't know. About 8,000, something like that.

Do you think you've got value for money?

I know nothing about it, but I don't think so.

'In fact, Lance's family believes he's paid out an awful lot more than that

'to a variety of companies who have all somehow decided art is his thing

'and are keen to get him to buy more.

But, as he's never had a particular interest in art, when his daughter,

'Cherie, started noticing pieces arriving at the house,

'she became not just worried but suspicious, too.'

This one was delivered in the box.

Apparently, it's Salvador Dali.

These ones were just wrapped in bubble wrap with brown paper on the outside.

Cherie's fears worsened as she tried to get to the bottom of what had gone on

and it became clear that, trying to recover from his stroke,

Lance wasn't entirely sure what he'd bought or from whom.

I think we are looking at tens of thousands rather than just a few.

It was just such a shock when we were told about this one in the box,

it was tens of thousands.

Cherie's brother, Steve,

has also tried piecing together what their father has spent and how he even

came to be involved with buying art in the first place.

I believe that someone phoned him up and asked him if he was interested

in any investment opportunities.

What, out of the blue? As far as I'm aware, yes.

And so, they were saying, "Why don't you invest in art?"

Was that the basic pitch?

Yes, this was just before the Brexit vote and they were saying things

like, "If you invest in these,

"it will safeguard you if Brexit happens because the value of the pound

"will drop but the value of the artwork won't."

So they were presenting art as being the kind of rock-solid investment in

times of uncertainty, ie Brexit?

Yes.

Whichever company first phoned Lance,

no less than three have contacted him in the 12 months since,

and each of them has managed to sell him some art.

Steve's in no doubt that they've done so by taking advantage of his ill health.

He had a stroke about 18 months ago.

His memory's not quite what it was and he's not quite as sharp as he was beforehand

so he's quite frail now.

So this makes him vulnerable and an ideal target?

He doesn't really worry about

what happens with his money or what happens with him.

Only some of the art Lance has bought has actually been delivered to the

house. The rest is being stored for him.

He's got five paintings here and we believe he's got two or three in a

warehouse somewhere. And who are these paintings by?

We've got a Dali lithograph,

I believe there's a Picasso in a warehouse and I'm not sure of the names

of the others. They're not well-known artists.

But Dali and Picasso are, you know, top,

top people and cost a lot of money.

'Though it's been difficult for Steve to unravel it all,

''it seems these two pieces alone, bought from different companies,

'cost his father over ?10,000,

'and Steve reckons that's just the tip of the iceberg.

'He believes Lance may have been persuaded to invest his entire life savings in art.

'That's over ?50,000.

'And though Steve and Cherie have asked the companies involved not to get in

'touch with Lance again, they say, if anything,

'the number of calls seems to have increased.'

And what's been the reaction of the family at large,

knowing that this has happened to their father?

It must be devastating.

Yeah, we are all quite angry about it because he's never been into art

and he was never frivolous with his money.

Growing up,

we really had to have something before it would be bought.

It just seems like throwing his money away now.

We don't mind him investing in things, it's his money,

but we don't like him being ripped off.

Steve's tried encouraging his father to just hang up when the various

companies call but, it seems, things aren't quite so straightforward.

What is it they talk about?

What is it they ask you when they call you?

No idea. I don't listen.

It goes in one ear and out the other.

No, I can't recall. Do they know that you don't want any more?

I think they're getting the message!

HE LAUGHS

Yes, I think they've got the message.

Well, we had a taste of how these calls can go during our filming

when one of the companies rang Lance again.

We listened in on most of it and,

while we couldn't tell exactly which company he was speaking to,

it was clear they really want him to feel confident in his investment.

No, no.

The salesman says he will be sending Lance a list of the artworks he's

already bought from that particular company, but

rather than deliver the artwork on,

he stresses the benefit of having the company keep hold of it instead.

I'm happy with you looking after them for me.

All right. Bye.

Now, that could seem a perfectly innocent, even friendly, call,

but Steve suspects there's another reason why the company is so keen to

store the art on Lance's behalf.

They've got artwork of yours,

they are happy to send it to you if you want them to,

or do you want them to keep it?

If they keep it for more than a year, they will start charging you for the storage.

How did you know that?

Because it's in the contract. I've just read the contract.

Whatever the company's motives on that storage point,

the big question is whether all the art Lance has ended up buying is worth

anything like the estimated ?50,000 it seems to have cost him.

'We've arranged for Andrea Ginastera, a local art auctioneer,

'to inspect the paintings and prints that Lance has received

'to put an estimate on their value.'

Tell us a bit about this one.

So this painting is signed by an artist named Wiseman.

He's a British artist of the second half of the 20th century.

His works are being sold in provincial auction houses

and in Bonhams in-between

200 and ?400.

There was one painting sold in Bonhams at ?600, which is a bit higher.

But Lance bought this painting from a Kent-based company

called Imperial Collectables for ?2,300.

That's clearly overpriced and, if you were to sell that,

you will not get that money back at the moment with the price at market.

Next, Andrea looks at a print that Lance purchased from a different company

called Treasury Asset.

'It's by an artist whose originals have sold for millions,

'so is this print of any value?'

The famous name on the table is that one, Dali,

so could you tell us about that?

Looking at the certificate you've got with it,

some of the essential information that you need to have when you're buying

prints and, more specially, when you are buying Dali prints,

it is that you should be told who's the publisher,

when was this issue printed?

And in your certificate,

all what you have is that that's a good block print and that that's signed.

Can you give us an estimate of how much it would be worth if the

certification was all there?

They are only worth a few hundred.

What did he pay for that?

We believe it was 8,700. Wow.

'There are plenty of other paintings Steve believes his father has

'paid handsomely for from other companies who have also called him out of

'the blue but, in Andrea's opinion,

because they are either by unknown artists or lack correct certificates of

'authenticity, they'd only fetch around ?20-40 at auction.'

If you've got an oil on canvas, it's unsigned and you don't know who the artist is,

so it's got no value, basically.

'For Steve and Cherie,

'everything Andrea have said only confirms the view that their father

'is being relentlessly targeted by companies whose only interest is to squeeze

'money out of him but, unsurprisingly,

'when we contacted the companies involved,

'one of them painted a very different picture of the contact with Lance.

'Imperial Collectables, from which he's purchased four artworks,

'disputed the total amount he paid for them,

'insisting it was ?10,000 and not the ?20,000 on the invoice we've seen.'

It also questioned the credentials and opinions of our art auctioneer,

Andrea, going on to say that it is a responsible supplier to art

collectors who do their due diligence and stressing that it's had no

recent contact with Lance or, indeed,

any communication to suggest he was unhappy.

It also said it only contacts people for whom it's purchased legitimate

leads and doesn't cold call and suggested any concerns here must be to do

with the other companies that have been contacting him.

We also contacted Treasury Asset from whom he bought the Dali picture for

?8,772, the one without any certificate of authenticity.

It has yet to reply.

Meanwhile, the Financial Conduct Authority has set up an initiative called

ScamSmart to warn against exactly these kind of investments,

which aren't regulated and certainly, for those who aren't an expert,

rarely turn out to have the benefits that were promised.

Well, all that's welcome, but it's too late to help people like Lance and,

as his children continue to try to understand the full extent of what

their father has become caught up in,

they want to raise general awareness about these so-called investment

opportunities so that other people understand they are not the best way to make money.

'And, of course, closer to home,

'they want to find a way to stop whichever company is ringing their father

'from making further calls so he isn't talked into spending even more money.'

So it's a relentless pursuit, isn't it?

Yes. And how does that make you feel?

Quite angry. It's just trying to work out how do we get them to stop.

Because that's all we care about, really, at the moment.

Anyone with a smartphone has become used to the fact that,

as the ads used to say, there really is an app for everything,

but among those that seem especially worth having are the ones that

promise to earn you cash, vouchers or some other reward in return,

very often, for not very much at all.

But many of you found that the promises of some of these apps simply did

not lead to the results for which you'd hoped and,

instead of making money, you found yourself losing it,

which got us wondering just how many of the apps that promised to leave

you quids-in genuinely will end up putting any extra cash in your pocket at all.

Who says you can't get something for nothing?

Mother and daughter Karen and Charlotte Stevenson from Teesside

are masters at that.

They are planning their weekly shop but, unlike most of us,

they have a system that means they'll pay next to nothing for everything they buy.

They do it by using cashback apps,

programmes on their phone that keep track of what they are spending and give

them rewards in the form of money off their next shop.

With cashback apps, I was seeing that people were making these huge

savings. They were buying something and it was only costing them maybe 20p

or 50p, and you're thinking,

"How are they doing this?"

So, the more you probed,

you discovered you had to download this app.

I can tell you, on one app alone, how much I've had back off them.

?471.50 and, at the minute, my balance is ?23.17.

But shopping this way, though very lucrative, can be time-consuming.

Normally, we spend Wednesday night.

Charlotte will take so many of the apps, and I'll take so many,

and I take a notepad and I write the name of the app and I write down each offer,

I check the supermarkets and I'll work through.

It does take a few hours on a Wednesday night.

Thursday night, we go out and do our big shop.

I do a big round of about four or five supermarkets,

and I collect everything then.

To qualify for cashback,

they have to buy the exact offers specified by each app.

This often means buying things they don't need,

and every nook and cranny of Karen and Charlotte's house is filled with

the results of their efforts.

Most of the herbs and spices would have ended up costing us ?1 for six.

Now, these,

we had about double of this, and we've slowly gone through them.

Free with cashback app.

Now, of course, not every app that gives rewards do so in such a dramatic

way or even offers you cash,

but you will find plenty of them offering all sorts of benefits in return

for what sometimes feels very little.

Apps have sprung up offering anything from free bagels to birthday gifts,

but not everyone who signed up for one always feels that they've had quite

the benefits they were expecting.

In January last year,

Jo Butler from Derbyshire signed up to a fitness app called Bounts,

which promised rewards for just doing exercise.

Already a keen runner, it seemed a perfect way to profit from keeping fit.

The more exercise she did, the more points she'd earn,

which could then be converted into vouchers to use at a wide range of high-street stores.

When I first downloaded the app, I thought it was great.

It encouraged me to do more walking, do more running

and, you know, everybody was raving about it.

You could go on, you could see that you could get vouchers for various

shops. Marks Spencers, Next, Morrisons, they were all there,

already available for you,

once you'd got the amount of points you needed,

to just download and they were yours.

To get the benefits of the app,

users either had to sign up for an entirely free basic membership,

or pay a fee to get premium membership,

which would earn you four times as many points and though Jo originally

plumped for the free option, keen to get as many points as possible,

she soon upgraded and paid for the premium option.

With a free membership you got five points for every activity.

For a premium membership you got 20 points.

So in a day I could accumulate 180 points.

If I got over 21,000 steps a day, that would accumulate me 60 points,

and then for three different walks or runs,

I got another 60 points and for gym check-ins you got 20 points.

So it made me more active, made me walk more, made me run more.

And at first, just like Jo, it seemed to be working out,

but she wasn't the only one who'd spotted the potential wins of the Bounts

app, so had thousands of others.

As subscriptions to the service increased, so did demand for the vouchers.

It became very frustrating.

You used to be going on the app four or five times a day and looking and,

you know, you would hear about other people that had been lucky to get

them and if you e-mailed Bounts about it,

they just said we only release so many a day and if you're lucky enough to

get them, you're lucky enough to get them.

I didn't think about stopping using the app because I had all these points

and, you know, I wanted my rewards that I was promised.

And then Jo received an e-mail from the company explaining that the terms

of the scheme had changed.

Rather than giving vouchers in exchange for points,

it was now offering something that, as far as Jo was concerned,

was very different.

They were changing the terms and conditions and it wouldn't be a reward

scheme any more.

Now we would get personal challenges to earn days out at theme parks and

spas and hotel breaks and things like that,

which wasn't what I'd originally signed up for.

Since she got that e-mail several months ago,

Jo claims that there are less and less offers available and when we

filmed with her, there didn't appear to be much left on the website at all.

If you go into the offers screen,

this is where you used to be able to see all the rewards that they were

offering. If you now click on All Rewards,

I don't think there is anything there.

Oh, yes, there is. There's a fleece that you can buy with "Bounts"

on the sleeve, which you have to pay 2,500 points for and ?35.

I don't think I want a fleece with "Bounts" on the sleeve.

Jo says that with the current deal so different from those offered when

she joined the scheme,

she wants a refund of the ?14.99 that she'd spent on her membership.

If I'd have seen the app when the new terms and conditions came into

place, I wouldn't have signed up to it.

What they are offering are things I don't want.

I don't want a membership to a cookery club,

I don't want to go to an activity centre and I don't particularly want a spa break.

When we contacted Bounts, the company stressed that despite inaccurate

perceptions that some may have had...

It told us that the use of the app as an incentive for

exercise has been its only goal,

but it grew too fast for the business model in place and had to change in

order to survive. While accepting there have been clumsy communications

around this, it made clear that at no time did it breach its terms and

conditions, or deliberately mislead anyone,

and it's still committed to ...

And though it did refund most of those who signed up to the premium

service, Jo hadn't been a member long enough to qualify,

and nor did she apply within the necessary time.

She has, however, received other offers instead.

Our tech expert David McLelland,

who himself encouraged people to sign up to Bounts,

is sympathetic to the company.

Perhaps Bounts was a victim of its own success.

It became too popular, too quickly.

Too many people were using it and demanding rewards from it that it wasn't

able to fulfil. And as a result of that, Bounts had to do something,

and unfortunately for the users of the Bounts app and service,

that has resulted in fewer people getting fewer rewards.

And while David completely understands why you might be tempted to milk

any reward scheme or app for all it's worth,

he says it's important to remember they can have limitations and some will

prove more lucrative than others.

Some of them will ask you to scan in receipts from your shopping every

week. Others might ask you to go and do a little task,

like photographing a display in a store.

Work out what is best for you,

what works best around your lifestyle because some of them require an

awful lot of effort to get any sort of reward out.

Well, certainly mother and daughter Karen and Charlotte do put that effort in.

Using apps like CheckoutSmart, ClickSnap and Shopmium,

they're about to demonstrate exactly how much they can knock off the

cost of their weekly shop.

It's the anticipation, the excitement.

"Will I do it? Can I get it? Will they have the thing in stock?"

And sure enough, it seems that the time and effort has been rewarded.

We picked up

four each of these drinks.

They're on two for a pound and we're claiming a pound back,

making all eight bottles that we've got between us free.

The small baby milk and the large baby milk, these,

we don't have a baby ourselves,

but they will be donated to a food bank and they are absolutely free.

Have you got my bag? Yeah, I've got your bag.

Though all the time they spent planning their shop wouldn't appeal to everyone,

for Karen and Charlotte the savings do make it all worthwhile.

We could've got four of these, but we've got two, and they're free.

I used a coupon with these,

meaning I'm going to make, after cashback, 50p profit.

So, not a bad little shop.

No.

Once back home, Karen and Charlotte upload the receipts from the shopping

onto the apps of the various cashback companies they use.

and the results are in.

For what should've been ?50-worth of products,

the final price that Charlotte and Karen reckon they'll have paid...

?5.09.

There you are, there's breakfast for a week.

Still to come on Rip-Off Britain: A budding author who paid to get his

book published tells his own sorry tale.

Time is running out.

I'm not a youngster any more, so I was upset that nothing was happening.

Our annual Rip-Off Britain pop-up shop is open again for business.

This time around we had several new faces joining the more familiar

members of our team of experts,

and we even got the chance to offer some expert guidance ourselves.

I really don't know how to do a selfie.

Go to camera. Ah!

There you are. Very good.

My pleasure. Nice to have met you.

Bye-bye.

ANGELA LAUGHS

But when things got serious, we were ready for action,

with consumers queueing up to get free professional advice.

You're in the middle of it, it's bad,

but the only way is to go through and out.

'Kate Alloway travelled from Shrewsbury to tell us about the missing set of

'photographs that she'd taken with her 11-year-old daughter last summer

after spotting a special offer on a deals website.

Now, Kate, you've made a very, very big effort to come here today,

a two-hour drive. So why were you so keen to come?

Well, something that's quite close to my heart.

I paid for a mother-and-daughter photography makeover session last year

and had some wonderful photographs taken,

which I had to go back to view a couple of days later and still haven't

had the photographs and still haven't had my money back.

It's such a lovely idea.

It was just to capture her going from a child,

turning into a young lady, really.

Did you buy the photography session directly from the studio, or...?

No, I bought a discount voucher and I actually had a look on the website

and they appeared to be affiliated with various films and film stars,

so I presumed that, you know,

that would be quite a good place to go really.

And how much money did you handover?

90, ?90.

'Well, Kate's tried many, many times to chase up the photographs.'

What effort have you made to get them?

Numerous e-mails, telephone calls.

I did make a trip over to Birmingham to the studios, but no reply.

Nobody was there? Nobody was there.

'But personal finance expert Sarah Pennells is on the case.'

So, what do you make of it, Sarah?

Well, it's interesting because these sort of website discount deals are

really popular and part of the reason is because you can get something

that would normally be quite expensive for a bargain.

I have actually made some contact with the website company and told them

what happened and they told me as a gesture of goodwill,

they'd refund the money that you paid for the photographs,

so at least you had the money back.

OK.

But I did also contact the person who set up the studio,

or the photographer behind it.

They said that they would track down the order and make sure you have the

photographs within 14 days.

That's really great. I'm really pleased about that.

Does that make you feel a lot better?

That's lovely. I didn't expect that today at all.

It's not about the money, it was about the photographs.

Thank you so much for joining us, and making the journey.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

'Well, since filming,

'although Kate has yet to receive the money for the photos back, she has,

'I'm very pleased to say, received the actual photos,

'which Kate says meant all the effort she made in coming to see us worth it.'

When we're out and about, we like to give as much help as possible,

so as well as our pop-up shop,

we've got our teams of experts going all over the centre,

offering top tips and advice.

One of the new experts joining us this year was Gareth Shaw,

head of Which? Money Online.

He took time out from the pop-up shop to see how clued up people were

on what sort of pension they might expect in the future.

Do you know what a state pension is?

No, not really. I'm not quite sure about the details with that.

The state pension is a weekly amount of money that you get given by the

Government when you reach a certain age.

At the moment, that's age 65 for men and around 63 for women.

I thought it was older than that, to be honest. I thought it was going up.

It's going up to 66 for men in a few years' time

and then it will keep rising for people in their 30s.

So you might be looking at 68, maybe 69.

It makes me think,

the timeframe that you've got to obviously keep working till,

makes it quite interesting.

Now, you need to have 35 years' worth of

National Insurance contributions,

in order to qualify for the full state pension,

and a minimum of ten to get anything at all.

What that will qualify you for is an amount that today is around ?155 a

week. So that turns out to about ?8,000 a year.

I don't think you'd be able to survive on that,

unless you put some kind of savings away or somewhere.

No, that's not quite realistic, is it? For ?8,000 a year...

No, I don't think that is realistic.

That's something that's made it hit home, now you've said it,

because obviously as we're growing older, the family's getting bigger,

you think about those things and obviously how you're going to save for the future.

Well, pensions may be something young people don't often think about,

but there were plenty of other consumer issues they did want to share with

us when they took centre stage in our gripe corner.

I was shopping online and there was a hoodie for ?25,

and then I walked into the shop and it was ?45,

so I got ripped off by ?20.

Something that really gets on my nerves is jeans from high-street

retailers that rip really easily.

What we find is annoying is our mobile phones,

the batteries run out really fast.

We have to charge them all the time.

Oh, it's so annoying!

Now, I'm sure you've all heard the phrase "everyone has got a book inside them", but actually

getting anybody to publish that book you've written is another thing

altogether. So for aspiring authors determined to get themselves in print,

self-publishing can be a way of getting your work out there.

And whilst a bestseller is far from guaranteed,

just holding a copy of something that you've put so much effort into

really can be hugely satisfying.

Unfortunately, however, despite the people we're about to hear from handing over thousands of pounds

in order to get their life's work finally printed,

copies of their books haven't yet materialised.

And with the companies involved proving very difficult to track down,

their stories, I'm afraid, haven't had the happy ending they'd hoped for.

A sure sign that spring is on its way,

the simple beauty of the daffodil has inspired artists and writers from Van Gogh to Wordsworth,

and Michael Salmon from Somerset has long been equally captivated,

dedicating much of his working life to growing the flowers, and,

in the process, becoming something of an expert.

It's all I ever wanted to do.

It was really anything that had a bulb on the bottom of the stem that

interested me. And there's a certain,

I suppose skill, required in growing a lot of them.

Over the years, Michael has travelled 280,000 miles around the world,

searching out new varieties.

These are the maps I carried with me when I was driving around,

and every time I found a daffodil growing anywhere,

I marked it with these yellow circles, and as you can see,

they're all numbered and it tells you what they all are.

The aim was to collect plants that were potentially commercially viable.

The whole idea was to grow them, propagate them from seed, or whatever, for sale.

Fortunately, a lot of the stuff we collected was fairly rare,

so it commanded good prices.

Now, at the age of 82, Michael's days of growing have come to an end.

The vast greenhouses in his garden that were once full of flowers are

now empty and overgrown.

And while he may be too poorly to garden,

he still wants to share his vast, and some would say unparalleled,

knowledge of daffodils.

I thought, well, "I'll do a complete book on them as the last word,"

as far as I was concerned it was the last word, yeah.

But pulling together his vast collection of notes,

drawings and maps into a single book was a mammoth task.

I don't have much in the way of computer skills, I'm afraid.

So, to a point, it was very slow, initially.

So when his son Mark said he would help type up his dad's notes,

the huge job of working through half a century of in-depth knowledge began

in earnest.

I'd visit regularly, usually once a month,

and stay for the entire weekend and then transpose everything that he'd

written down

into the computer, but also do all the drawings that he's

created, as well as the maps have all been hand-drawn.

And these visits, where they sat together and wrote Michael's book,

lasted for six years.

A real labour of love for them both.

It's been great, yeah, it really has been, yeah.

I've learned a lot, I think he's probably learned a lot as well.

When they finally finished, Michael needed a publisher,

and like a lot of aspiring authors he decided to self publish and pay

for his book to be printed himself.

So Mark took charge of finding the right company to print it for them.

The key thing with the book is quality, so we did research.

We pulled the numbers together,

and we did what I thought at the time was reasonable due diligence.

We approached several publishers, got the figures.

Mark agreed a deal with a London-based company called

UK Print Ltd, not to be confused with businesses with a similar name,

and initially all seemed very positive.

Father and son agreed a deal to print 500 copies of the book for just under ?4,700.

This would be paid in instalments,

and Mark said he was told that the books would be delivered in no more

than three weeks.

They seemed to be very keen to help us, were bending over backwards,

nothing was too much trouble.

Happy with the deal, they went ahead and made the first payment of just

over ?2,300.

But then things started to go wrong.

After sending UK Print Ltd the final text and images for the book,

that was in early October 2016,

it should have been ready in a matter of weeks,

but as the delivery date came and went with no sign of the book,

Michael and Mark began to get concerned.

And Mark says that whenever he chased the company,

both by e-mail and telephone, he was simply told the book wasn't ready.

But then, about a month after the expected delivery date,

Michael's book finally arrived,

but the sample material that had been sent left them far from impressed.

We had some loose-leafed proofs back, which were wrong paper type,

wrong colour, just about wrong in every way, shape and form,

unfortunately.

By this point, and unhappy with both the delays and the quality of what UK Print was

offering, Mark says he tried to get in touch with the company to ask for

an update on the progress of the printing,

but says he didn't receive a response.

However, it seems his e-mails did get through to someone,

as the next letter he received from UK Print was from their solicitors.

I think I realised that something was up after the third time the delivery

had slipped, and I actually received a letter from their solicitors,

which was completely out of the blue and made no sense,

and I thought there was a communication breakdown or something.

Although their solicitors' letter did apologise for the delays,

it also made it very clear that under the terms of the contract all

promised timescales were approximate.

It stated that the company wasn't liable for any delay,

however it was caused, and what's more...

Though there were promises of at least part-delivery in December,

Mark and Michael were left particularly frustrated because with Michael's

failing health, time WAS of the essence to them.

I was upset, partly because

time is running out.

I'm not a youngster any more, and as you can see,

I've got breathing problems,

which are getting worse fairly rapidly

and I really wanted to see it done

while I was still here, as you might say.

That was it. So I was upset that nothing was happening.

Knowing how much the situation was upsetting his dad,

Mark became very concerned about his health,

and Michael's neighbour Paul was also worried.

So, tell me how Dad's been now.

I noticed if we talk about it, he gets very tense and when he gets tense,

his breathing gets worse.

I think the difficulty is,

it's something that you can't control with medication.

It's a stress-induced problem.

When he's relaxed, his breathing is,

is difficult for a man in his condition,

but when things cause him anxiety and he gets stressed,

it's fairly obvious, you know, breathing gets a lot worse.

With the delays causing Michael so much anxiety,

they hoped that UK Print would follow through on its promise to deliver

part of the order by the start of December, but it didn't.

The company blamed problems with its suppliers and gave yet another

delivery date, this time in mid-January.

But really tired of the unanswered phone calls and what they saw as

excuses from the company,

and believing that the company had not fulfilled its end of the contract,

Mark had just had enough and once again demanded a refund of the ?2,327

that he'd already paid.

But he was left feeling guilty for failing to get his dad's book

published.

There's the elements of actually wanting to get the book completed,

you know, because none of us live forever.

I wanted that to be his objective and his goal and I wanted to help

him accomplish that, and it's a long, drawn-out process.

But to have it more drawn out,

it's immeasurable, the stress.

Mark and Michael's story is by no means the only one we've received about

self-publishing companies that may not always offer quite the service

that budding authors might have hoped for.

We've also heard from another aspiring author called Aaron McMillan,

who paid another completely separate company ?200 to get his poems into

print. But four months after the expected delivery date,

he's heard nothing from his publisher, let alone received his books,

and despite countless e-mails requesting a refund,

he's still ?200 out of pocket, with absolutely nothing to show for it.

As for Michael's case,

well, it seems that UK Print Limited is no longer trading.

But when we contacted its owners,

they told us that Michael has now been given a full refund,

as well as a further ?250 compensation to donate to a charity of his choice.

After hearing plenty of similar experiences, Alison Owen,

who edits The Writers' and Artists' Yearbook,

has this advice for anyone considering taking this route to get into print.

I think it's always important,

even when you're contacting organisations by e-mail,

is to phone up.

Is there somebody you can actually talk to and have a conversation?

I think that's very important.

Look at the professional nature of a website.

Sometimes the first few pages can seem very professional -

look beyond that. How much detail do they actually provide about the

services they offer? Can they give you good examples of work they've

worked on?

Well, after all the effort put into preparing Michael's book,

he and Mark were determined to see it published,

so they found another publisher and I'm so pleased to say that today

Michael will be seeing the book for the very first time.

Here we are, Dad.

I thought it was never going to happen.

That's lovely to see.

We are really, really pleased to see it,

and got something for Oscar to learn now and be proud about with his

grandad. It's fantastic.

I'm getting emotional about it.

It's a special thing, it's something that I'm really glad that we've achieved.

I said, there's been a lot of effort gone into it.

Well, there you are, that's terrific, isn't it?

It was something I set out to do, and I've done it, that's it.

I'm glad it's finished!

If you've got a story and you'd like us to investigate it,

then get in touch with us via our Facebook page, BBC Rip Off Britain,

our website, which is bbc.co.uk/ ripoffbritain,

or you can e-mail us...

If you want to send us a letter, then our address is...

The Rip-Off team is ready and waiting to

investigate your stories.

Well, of course not all of the opportunities that we've been looking into

today are purely about making money.

Sometimes the money has gone into things that have a very different

and perhaps even personal value, but either way,

you really do need whatever time and money you've invested to end up

feeling that it was worth it.

I think clearly the people that we spoke to haven't always felt that that was the case.

However, wasn't it just fantastic to see all the hard work that father and son

Michael and Mark had put into writing their book,

and finally to watch it pay off?

I must say, I was genuinely delighted for them both when they managed to

get their hands on that blissful, finished copy at long last.

I know, but what a shame the whole situation caused so much stress.

Well, we hope you've picked up some pointers to make sure that whatever

you put your money into will give you the return you expected,

and of course, if it doesn't, you know what to do.

Get in touch with us.

We'll be back to investigate more of your stories very soon,

so until then, from all of us here, bye-bye.

Goodbye. Goodbye.

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