Episode 3 Watchdog

Royal & Sun Alliance, Churchill reassuring ads -

shame about the service,

Rugby World Cup, thousands of fantasy tickets on sale,

plus EE, Pontins, eBay

and the indestructible Sony mobile that isn't.

It's Watchdog, the programme you cannot afford to miss.

Yes, hello, and good evening and welcome to Watchdog.

We're live as usual for the next 60 minutes. Tonight...

..insurance companies four months after the floods

and customers still can't return to their homes.

Today is the day before our wedding and there's absolutely no way

I can move back into this.

I just can't believe it's taken so long to get all this sorted.

Also, tonight,

Pontins - we warned 18 months ago

about the dangers in its holiday camps.

The company denied there was a problem,

so why does Pontins Southport look like this?

Plus, the Sony Xperia Z1 advertised as one of the most

robust phones ever made except the screen smashes

without anyone touching it,

and Rugby World Cup tickets -

if you bought one on the second-hand market,

be prepared for disappointment.

Well, I've got into one or two rucks of my own

whilst making this programme, but tonight I come up against

perhaps the roughest group of rogues we've ever wrangled.

Cooper's Fine Art Auctions is their name and passing off inferior

items as valuable collectables is their very deliberate game.

When I tried to warn their customers about what's going on,

they tried to grab me by the megaphone.

No, that's mine. You can't take it.

-I know it's yours.

-You can't take that.

What are you doing? You can't do that.

Yeah, that never happens on Bargain Hunt.

Tonight, it's me who's put under the hammer.

We'll be opening the bidding in a short while.

Before that, the almost biblical flooding that affected

large parts of the country at the beginning of the year

forcing nearly 6,000 families to abandon their homes.

How did the insurance companies respond?

Remember, Churchill describes itself as your "dependable partner",

while Royal & Sun Alliance promises to "keep customers moving" -

reassuring slogans to attract business,

but then there's the reality.

This winter was the wettest the UK has seen for over 100 years.

Storms rolled in from the Atlantic creating wet and wild scenes that

left parts of the country from Devon to Dumfries submerged for weeks.

This is Staines-upon-Thames,

although in February it was more like Staines-below-Thames.

Where I'm standing now was nearly two metres under water.

Wherever you were, though, if your home was flooded,

there'd have been just two things on your mind -

how much damage has been done

and what will your insurance company do to help put things right?

Just ask Royal & Sun Alliance customers

Paula and Andrew Powell from Somerset.

In February, the couple woke to find the entire ground floor

of their house submerged.

Seeing this muddy floodwater

coming into our home was just

heartbreaking, something

completely out of your control

and just seeing your home

just deteriorate before your eyes.

We called Sun Alliance to tell them

that we had water in the house.

They told us that someone

would be in touch with us.

They gave us a claim reference

and after that we just carried on

moving belongings upstairs.

According to their own insurers, RSA,

customers with an obviously urgent claim like this should be

called back within four hours to begin the process.

Yet it took them four days to get back in touch to start

processing the claim.

The company apologised,

but it wasn't to be the last time

they'd leave the Powells in the lurch.

Once the water retreats, insurance companies are supposed to send out

a loss adjuster within 24 hours.

These are the people insurers appoint to assess damage

and arrange repairs, but, once again, that's not what happened.

We called Royal Sun Alliance as soon as the floodwater was

gone from the house, expecting a visit,

and it still took a week and a half for someone to come out

and look at the house and the damage.

Whether it's a time of national crisis or not,

these time delays are simply unacceptable says former chief

executive of the National Flood Forum Mary Dhonau.

RSA really should've been there a lot quicker,

first of all to help them in their misery and secondly

because they can get the dehumidifiers and fans

and the stripping out and the drying process underway

and it will actually cut down the amount of time

that the homeowners have to be out of their property.

When the loss adjuster did eventually visit the property, he said

he'd arrange for dryers to be brought to their home, but guess what?

That proved too difficult for RSA too.

Because nearly a fortnight after the loss adjuster's eventual visit,

the dryers he promised still hadn't arrived.

And keeping a house wet for that long can seriously

increase the time it takes to dry it as well as causing items

within to grow mould, even if they weren't touched by the floodwater.

Our clothes, our belongings, were all suffering

because the house was so wet, so although the water had gone,

the walls were growing mould,

the house was smelling absolutely atrocious.

The Powells decided enough was enough

and took matters into their own hands.

They hired their own loss adjuster and tasked him to take over repairs.

Within a week, two dehumidifiers

and three fans were working round the clock inside their home.

They're still living in temporary accommodation,

but at least now progress is being made.

The Powells in good faith have regularly paid their insurance,

flood insurance, expecting, at the end of the day,

should they need to claim that they will get good service

and the fact that they've been treated so shoddily

and felt forced to get their private loss assessor in, for me,

is just not good practice at all.

Meanwhile, near here in Staines,

another couple were also suffering at the hands of their insurers.

This time the company was Churchill

and this time there was more at stake than just a damaged property.

The flood happened on 10th Feb, which was just over three months

before we were due to have our wedding.

We'd literally just got the house just how we wanted,

so to have something like this happen, it was really devastating.

As soon as the floodwaters hit, Simon and Erin called Churchill,

but their call fell on deaf ears.

It wasn't until the third day of trying

that I actually managed to get through to someone.

Which, according to our expert, is, once again, totally unacceptable.

The Association of British Insurers have made a commitment to say

that most big insurance companies run a 24-hour-a-day flood

insurance claim hotline in times of big floods, like this one,

so really I'm at a loss to understand why Churchill

didn't answer the phone call promptly.

Once Simon did get through, a loss adjuster visited the property

and started planning the work needed,

so Simon and Erin, now living with her parents, felt

reassured that the repairs would be completed well before their big day.

But Simon was wrong to feel so confident,

because Churchill were about to make another blunder.

For five weeks, Simon heard nothing from Churchill

and when they did eventually get in touch, it wasn't

to start repairs, it was to ask for a copy of the building survey

he'd had done when he bought the house.

Because of a query over a pre-existing subsidence claim,

Churchill had decided to put the flood repairs on hold

without telling him.

Something simple like that they could have done within

the first few days, they could have rang Simon, asked for the survey

and got the claim moving again.

Churchill admitted they'd made a mistake

and finally began repairs last month.

But with less than two months to go until the wedding,

would there be enough time left to get the house ready to live in

for when they returned from honeymoon?

In short, no.

So today is the day before our wedding

and there's absolutely no way I can move back into this.

If Churchill had asked for this information at the start

of the process instead of waiting five weeks,

then I could have moved back into my home by now

and I could have walked my bride over the threshold

after our wedding day, but that's just not going to happen any more.

Aw-w! And remember at the time of the floods,

the Prime Minister gave the clear instruction

the insurance industry was to get off its backside

and do everything it could to get people back into their homes.

Well, Royal & Sun Alliance say it's very sorry

Andrew and Paula Powell were unhappy with how their claim was handled.

It says its national claims director

has now personally visited the couple

and it's confident a plan has been agreed to restore their home.

OK, it's taken three months,

and has that personal claims director been to everybody's

home who's disappointed or is it just Watchdog who's made a fuss?

I see where you're going with that.

As for Churchill, it says that part of the delay

was unavoidable due to the subsidence claim.

It wasn't unavoidable. It could have been dealt with...

If they'd dealt with the flooding first,

and left the subsidence till later, it wouldn't have been such a delay.

Well, Churchill say it's now resolved Simon's complaint.

It's apologised, given him 200 quid as a goodwill gesture

and agreed a higher daily allowance for the time they remain

-in temporary accommodation.

-OK.

So, who else is out of their homes?

Tell us about your experience with the floods, please.

Yes, here's how to do it, e-mail us at...

..or you can use Twitter.

Our address and hashtag are on your screens now and you can text

on 88822, making sure you start your message with the letters WD.

Coming up...

..the all-new Pontins,

a £25 million facelift to provide Disney razzmatazz.

Really? How come one of its camps is a danger zone?

Things. Don't you just love things? Look at these.

I've got a vase in the shape of a duck...

this is not-at-all-scary ceramic child,

and probably my favourite, a weasel on a branch.

Now, all of these are undoubtedly lovely things,

but there's something more important that I should tell you about things.

They're only worth what people are prepared to pay for them

and how do you know how much that is?

Well, unfortunately, you have to take someone's word for it.

DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYS

Hello, and welcome to another edition

of Tat In The Loft

with your host Lenza Senna.

-Car-boot sale, you say?

-Yes.

-Wonderful item.

All the features are absolutely wonderful, the little dove there,

the charming little fingers, the angelic wings, absolutely wonderful.

Anything to do with angels or cherubs

always going to be very, very popular.

Craftsmanship with a capital C.

-Have you had this particular item insured?

-No, I haven't.

Good, they're ten a penny, cheap as chips.

It never happens like that, does it?

Which I personally think is a shame, but, for a second there,

you might have been thinking that this was very valuable

because we've created the expectation in your mind

that it was.

'Yes, you might have done.

'It was just this sort of expectation

'that convinced Iman Torfig

'to fork out £600 for this painting of nudey women bathing.

'The auctioneer, you see, led her to believe it was very, very valuable.'

OK, it's not really to my taste, I have to say.

The only reason I bought it was

because he quoted it as having a value of 10,000.

I thought, "I can take this and sell it in another auction

"and make some money."

And this is because you're given a valuation on it by someone

-you believe to be impartial, acting as an auctioneer...

-Exactly.

They must have some kind of experience.

And I thought, "What do I know about art?"

'In reality, the painting isn't worth anything like 10,000,

'it's more like 200.'

He said that these are bankruptcies and they have to sell

and that's how come you can get something at a fraction of the price.

'The man she'd trusted was the chief auctioneer

'of Cooper's Fine Art Auctions UK Limited,

'please, not to be confused with any other company with a similar name.

'They hold so-called bankruptcy auctions every week at a different

'top London hotel offering all manner of goods at knockdown prices.

'Oh, look at all those things.

'I like things, but I don't know much about them,

'so I've brought in Aubrey Dawson, an antiques expert and auctioneer,

'to take a closer look at some of the things

'bought at Cooper's auctions.'

So we are surrounded by Cooper's booty.

These are all bargains, by the way.

Well, on the bottom of this one it says,

"Valentina Crystal E895.00,"

so clearly they're saying it is worth nearly 900 euros.

That's ridiculous.

There's no other word for it.

They're not crystal, they're glass, undoubtedly, probably

made in China, not very good quality and they are worth a tenth of that.

Have a look at this.

Again, from Cooper's, it's a Fleurie, 2012, very good year.

-This is an investment wine...

-Right.

..crucially, and that presumably means that in time it will be worth

more than you paid for it.

What do you think of that?

It's a nice bottle, a nice red, you can

buy these from wholesale cash-and-carry type

places for about £10 a bottle, so £120 for a case, it's good value.

OK. Yeah, well, it's a shame that you say that, then, because these

were purchased at a Cooper's auction for over £300 for the case.

Are they likely to appreciate in value?

You'd need to hang onto those for a long time before they accumulated

any additional value, particularly at £30 a bottle, as opposed to £10.

Now, if you take a look behind you, you will see a painting.

It's a very modern picture, if you touch it,

the paint is almost still a little bit tacky.

This is painted very recently, in the few last years.

The valuation placed on this by Cooper's was around £10,000.

-For how many?

-Just for this one.

-Just the one?

-Just that one there, yes.

I think you could buy that picture quite easily at most local

-salerooms for between £200-£300.

-I need your help, Aubrey.

-Love to help, definitely.

-I have one more item for you.

-Using your expertise, can you tell what's in this box?

-I've no idea(!)

It's a top-secret hidden camera.

Could you take this to a Cooper's auction for us

and have a look at what's going on?

-I would love to.

-There you go.

-Great.

And with hidden cameras in place,

Aubrey and our team visit two of Cooper's Sunday auctions.

Both are at central London hotels, unconnected to Cooper's.

It's clear straightaway these auctions are massive operations

and look very professional.

The walls are lined with the so-called bankrupt stock.

There are lamps, watches, bronzes, paintings, rugs, bags and wine.

Aubrey and a couple of hundred other potential buyers

are given one hour to browse the goodies on sale

and to chat to Cooper's experts,

who are keen to stress the amazing bargains they have on offer.

Then, as business is about to get underway,

the chief auctioneer himself begins to address the crowd.

We move to the front for a closer look,

while he's giving some useful advice for anyone looking for a watch.

Hang on.

That auctioneer looks familiar,

and when our cameras get up even closer, the penny drops.

I know this guy.

I've met him before.

It's a meeting I shall never forget.

'Back in 2010, I investigated a company called Nationwide Auctions.

'Just like Cooper's, we had complaints they were lying

'about the true value of the goods they had on sale.

'The same man was running these auctions

'and when I turned up to confront him in Gillingham,

'this is what happened.'

BBC Rogue Traders.

These have been brought at Nationwide Auctions before.

'The company wasn't best pleased to see me.'

These were sold to us as handmade Swiss watches,

advertised as hundreds or thousands of dollars in value.

How much do you think you can buy them in Hong Kong for? How much?

£10-£40 in Hong Kong.

'I was soon unceremoniously bundled out.'

Rogue Traders. You've been busted.

Back then, we only knew this man as Alan but now we know him

to be Alan Cooper, the brains behind Cooper's Fine Art Auctions,

a much bigger outfit, now operating in the heart of London.

Then at nine, I'm selling the diamond ring.

So, how will he react this time

when he finds out we're back on his trail?

Yeah, not too favourably, I can assure you.

The auction and the friction is just about to get started

-and there's lots more to come, so stick around.

-Thanks, Matt.

Next, the Sony Xperia Z1 smartphone.

It looks just like any other mobile, perhaps a bit bigger.

-Let's have a look.

-Not so good for my small handbags.

OK, you're not necessarily in the market for one of these.

It's advertised as one of the most robust phones on the market

it costs about £479 and according to Sony,

it's ready for life's surprises.

For example, the rigours of wild swimming pool games

and hard desert winds.

So I can drop it on the floor, I can make a call in the shower.

Do you make calls in the shower?

-None of your business.

-In the bath?

-I prefer a shower.

-Ever dropped a phone down the toilet?

-Why would I do that?

These are the sort of things that people do.

I'm going to show you that they actually do these things.

OK, I've got a little experiment. Look, a tank in the studio.

If I drop it into the water it should still work

as soon as I take it out. Let's try it.

Right, it's in there. Let's bring it out again. Shake it off. Dry it out.

Don't move, I'll do it(!) You know.

OK, let's see if it works.

OK, I'm just scrolling down here, clear this,

and as you can see it is still working.

Try and get any music out there.

Pressed the wrong buttons, but there we are. It still works.

It works. If only I knew how to work it, it works.

-OK.

-That's not too bad, is it?

The ads have clearly worked,

because this handset and its predecessor, the Xperia Z, have

sold by the bucket-load, shifting approximately ten million worldwide.

Wow!

But being able to phone a friend while deep-sea diving is all

very well and good except

we've heard from more than 100 owners of this smartphone who say

that despite Sony's boasts about durability,

the fact is, the screens are

unbelievably fragile and they crack without anyone touching them or even

pulling a face at them.

Yes, look, that does work. It is moving around. That one does work.

I've just dried it out and worked it.

Now, if you check forums and chatrooms,

you will see hundreds more saying the same thing. Some of these crack.

We've got one here. Can you see that on that screen?

Yes, just there, can you see it's cracked there?

This one here belongs to a viewer from London.

And he says the screen smashed while it was in his pocket.

So despite the claims of the marketing, the screen cracked

without any force being applied to it whatsoever.

It appears to be happening a lot.

My Sony Xperia Z1 in December 2013, after a couple of weeks,

a small crack had appeared in the top right corner of the screen.

After a few days it had spread and made the phone pretty much

unusable.

I bought a Sony Xperia Z in January.

Only three months later I took the phone out of my pocket to

realise that the screen was completely smashed.

After two or three weeks I noticed a small little crack on my screen.

I don't know how this happened. The phone was on the desk.

OK, you would presume

with these being relatively new handsets you'd be able to

take them back to where you bought them,

be it a phone shop or a provider like Vodafone, O2, EE, but no.

Sony has insisted there isn't a design fault

and the customers we have spoken to have been told by Sony

its warranty won't cover repairs,

meaning it's up to you, the customer,

or your insurance to pay for a new screen, which can cost up to £250.

Which is more than half the cost of a brand-new phone.

But tonight Sony admits that, and I quote,

"In a small proportion of cases..." -

they don't say how many -

"..screens have indeed cracked with no identifiable cause," and in

these instances, Sony claims it has repaired the screens for free.

So if your screen has cracked and it's not your fault,

or you've had the brush-off, please go back to Sony

and push customer services to get a new screen for nothing.

Sony has given us a phone line to call

if you are one of the people affected.

It is...

-It will be manned...

-Or "womanned".

-..or "womanned" from eight

o'clock in the morning till eight o'clock at night,

Monday to Friday, and between nine and five on Saturday.

Make sure you let us know how you get on.

Thanks, Chris.

Tomorrow at 1pm the first batch of seats for next year's

Rugby World Cup go on sale through official ticket suppliers,

but there is every chance that by five past one

they'll all be gone.

The next batch aren't available until September.

If you miss out you will have to turn to the second-hand market

and its main players like StubHub and viagogo.

But here's the thing.

These companies have had thousands of tickets on sale

for the last month at prices up to £9,000.

How can that be?

It cannot. The trouble is, the secondary market sites

don't ask for proof that tickets exist.

So why is this practice allowed to continue?

Why isn't it banned? After all, it's been banned before.

They were golden tickets for golden moments.

In fact tickets from London 2012 were

so precious they couldn't be resold.

If you tried you'd have been prosecuted

and you could have ended up in prison.

The one-off law effectively stamped out

touting for the Games completely.

It was such a success that the organisers of next year's

Rugby World Cup in England asked the Government to do it again.

But they refused.

They told them

whilst they were happy to take such action for the Olympics and

this year's Commonwealth Games, they wouldn't make it a general rule.

In their view, the reselling of tickets is part of a

free market and those that are doing it are simply entrepreneurs.

Well, this is the result of that policy.

We found over 4,000 tickets for sale for the Rugby World Cup

on StubHub and viagogo, priced between £1,000 and £9,000.

That's more than 20 times face value.

But that's not the worst of it.

We found that at least 900 of them

are what are known as speculative tickets.

In other words, they simply don't exist.

The first batch of tickets don't go on sale until tomorrow.

Now, this seller is claiming to have tickets for the final

at Twickenham in the north upper tier,

yet organisers haven't even allocated any seats for the matches.

So what this seller is trying to do is get £9,000 off you

in the hope that when the tickets do go up for grabs

he'll be able to buy one and then pass it on to you.

That ticket may never arrive.

And even if it does it might be in a completely different

part of the stadium.

Selling a ticket

you know you can't deliver is fraud

and fraud in the ticketing industry has become such a serious

problem that this month one of the police officers leading the fight

against it was compelled to speak out to warn people of the dangers.

Ticketing fraud in this country is a growing problem.

It's costing at least £3.7 million every year.

That number is growing.

There's no doubt that some fraudsters are using these secondary

sites in order to make a lot of money,

that people are being defrauded

because these tickets have never existed in the first place.

We have heard of instances of people buying the ticket and not

realising for six months that they've been a victim of a fraud.

By the time they know it, the event or the concert is upon them.

It's too late for them to now get new tickets, real tickets.

They've missed that opportunity.

According to the Association of Chief Police Officers,

because organised criminal gangs are now at work in the secondary

ticketing market, the industry needs to change.

And surely there's a simple solution.

The Government won't make the reselling of tickets illegal,

so what does that leave us?

How about a price cap?

Allowing people to resell tickets,

but for only 10% above the original value.

Wouldn't that stamp out fraud immediately?

Well, MP and Take That fan Sharon Hodgson thinks that would be magic.

Six years ago she spotted Take That tickets popping up on the secondary

market just minutes after going on general sale, a tell-tale sign

they hadn't been bought by someone who actually wanted to attend.

Ever since, she has been campaigning for a cap.

She put forward a Private Member's Bill,

but the Government rejected the idea.

Now she is determined to make them reconsider.

There should be a resale mechanism, but if you take the profit

out of it, if you've got a cap, then nobody is going to...

Why would anybody buy up huge quantities of tickets

if they can't resell them on at a huge profit?

To me that's the immediate fix,

but whether I can get it through that place is a bit of a tougher question.

If she can't, it seems there will be little to stop online ticket

touts continuing to exploit the secondary market.

More than 4,000 Rugby World Cup tickets are on sale at

viagogo and StubHub.

Why? Chris went to StubHub's London office to find out.

Thank you very much for talking to us.

I'm learning about this secondary market for tickets.

I suppose the only way I've ever seen or known it, is the guys,

the shady characters, with the long coats saying,

"Tickets, tickets, got any tickets?"

What's the difference between them and you?

Completely different.

I think we are an open platform where people can sell or buy tickets

safely in the open. It is completely transparent.

So it is a very different model from the experience of touts.

You call them touts, we call them scalpers in the US,

outside of stadiums and in shady corners.

Obviously you've mentioned the ticket touts,

or the scalpers, did you describe them?

Scalpers in the US, we call them scalpers.

-Because that obviously leads sometimes to fraud...

-Mm-hm.

it leads to inflated prices,

and sometimes they haven't even got the tickets to sell you.

They will say, "Leave it with me, I will get it back."

But that happens in your market too, doesn't it?

Inflated prices? Fraud?

So, it's important to remember we don't own tickets, we don't price

tickets, so we have tickets available at all sorts of different prices.

A ticket being put on our platform at a really high price,

and there are some very high prices for high-profile events,

doesn't mean it's going to sell.

In fact there are lots of tickets which sell for below face value

and there are a lot of good deals available,

so I think it is important to understand that.

What's your view on speculative ticketing?

We don't allow speculative ticketing, on our site.

-That's pretty clear in our terms and conditions.

-I have to wait,

I'm still waiting for the tickets to become available, for me

to go and buy for the Rugby World Cup.

Yet you have got someone on StubHub. How have they come around?

So, to be perfectly honest, I am not sure in that specific instance.

Maybe through hospitality packages, tour tickets.

We have the club on sale going on in May, so there

are different ways where those tickets could be made available.

So these tickets have been released early to official tours,

to official hospitality, VIP, and they've now appeared with you, yes?

-That's my assumption.

-The only reason is, I looked on your website.

-These are some of the tickets that are available...

-Yes.

..I'll just show you there,

which specifically say upper north, upper east, lower north,

upper north, and it goes on.

Yet when we spoke to England Rugby 2015, they say

they haven't specifically allocated any tickets to any

areas for the VIP, for the hospitality.

We spoke to the VIP and the hospitality people

and they say this must be speculative ticketing.

It must be.

I understand that and certainly I am happy to look into more

details around that.

For us, to be also candid about that, it's impossible to verify each

and every ticket, but I can tell you that it's safe again to sell

and buy on StubHub,

and that we have a very limited number of cases

where things go wrong.

And if it happens and if, the case you are kind of highlighting,

is in fact speculative ticketing

and the tickets are not made available, we would make sure

the tickets are either replaced or a full refund is provided.

And again, that happens in a microscopic number of cases.

Well, she's very French, very charming, quite pretty,

and you flirted all the way through,

but she didn't actually tell you anything.

Well, she did promise to investigate

and since that interview StubHub has indeed removed all

the speculative Rugby World Cup tickets listed on their site.

Viagogo has now done the same,

but it insists it has a process to counter speculative ticketing.

But, Annie, it clearly isn't working.

Yes, and in spite of all the security flaws the Government are

adamant that the secondary ticketing market doesn't need regulating.

-Do you agree? We want to hear what you think.

-Yes, here's how to do it.

Go to our website.

Click where it says "vote now"

and answer the simple question "yes" or "no."

"Do you think the secondary ticketing industry

"needs regulating?"

Full terms and conditions are on there.

We'll keep it open till midnight on Tuesday 3 June

and bring you the results in next week's show.

Still to come...

Tired of your mobile company putting up

bills in the middle of a fixed contract?

A new law should put a stop to that, but not for all customers.

Back to Cooper's Fine Art Auctions Ltd.

We've just discovered that the man running the operation,

Alan Cooper, is an old friend of mine,

by which I mean he's not really an old friend of mine.

Back in 2010 his company, Nationwide Auctions, were lying about items

so that the public would pay over the odds for them,

and four years later it would appear he's up to the same old nonsense.

So, now we know who he is, let's hear what he has to say.

'Antiques expert Aubrey Dawson is undercover for us

'at one of Alan Cooper's weekly bankruptcy auctions,

'but before it gets underway he moves in on the man himself

'to ask how he values the goods on offer.'

But as the auction gets into full swing,

and he unveils the day's star lot, we get a clear indication

that Alan Cooper's price estimates are...

astronomical.

'The best diamond on planet Earth is on sale

'in a hotel conference room(!)

'How much does he want, exactly?

'Unbelievable.'

Newsroom. Yes, have I got a story for you?

A rare diamond thought to be the only one on the planet has gone

up for sale at Cooper's Auctions in London today.

The diamond, claimed to be worth £850,000,

sold for just £80,000.

Stop. Stop. That's a load of old battleships.

When you see it like that, you realise just how ridiculous it is.

'Yes, Alan Cooper is full of it,

'but to prove the point it's time to make some purchases of our own.

'Something a little cheaper, perhaps. How about an Afghan rug?

'Cos one is just going up for sale.'

'What price is he willing to accept for it?

'At that price it's got to be a bargain(!)

'So we start bidding.

'And wouldn't you know it, it's us that's won.

'Yeah, our number ends 007. That's cool.'

He's got the rug I can't pronounce.

'With the prowess of a super spy, Aubrey snapped up the rug for £900

'plus commission and after picking up another little pressie for me

'he's out of the door quicker than Odd Job from a hat shop.'

-Right, there we go.

-Rug.

-A nice rug for you.

-Yes. And what's this?

And that, I'm not sure if it will match your outfit,

but it's the closest I could find.

-A handbag? You really shouldn't have.

-I know.

-I really shouldn't have.

-I'll check that out later,

but let's have a look at this rug. OK.

What have we got here?

Here we have a modern carpet, woollen carpet, handmade,

made in Afghanistan from the Khel Mamoon tribe.

Quite a nice rug.

-However, paid a lot of money for it.

-OK.

What was the valuation that they placed on this during the auction?

We were told that this rug would be £5,000

and that these were sold in Harrods.

How much did we pay for it?

Just over 1,000.

This carpet is worth £300 to £400.

Right. Before you ask, we checked with Harrods.

No, they've never sold it, let alone at that price.

So the carpet is not magic. But what about our handbag?

Apparently it's a Krrug.

You've heard of them, yeah?

Krrug. Right?

Guys?

Cooper's staff have handed out catalogues

which seem to show that these bags are worth about a grand each.

So when bidding starts at just £20,

there's a lot of interest from the crowd.

£20 right now.

Yes, Cooper actually stops the bidding at just £50

and sells ten of these supposedly designer bags in one go

to different buyers.

...gone.

Has he just generously gifted us all a brilliant deal

or is he up to something else?

You know what I need?

A handbag expert. That's a first.

-Laura, how do you do?

-Hello, pleased to meet you.

How does it feel to be the official Rogue Traders bag lady?

I'm really looking forward to it.

Well, what a treat we have.

Because this is only a Krrug handbag.

-Wow(!)

-What do you think of that?

What a specimen.

I mean, how much did you pay for this bag?

Well, look, here's the funny thing.

-There's a tag here and on it is the price of 1,210 euros.

-Right.

I'd be eager to get your thoughts.

The first thing that I would notice is the packaging, the presentation.

Unbranded, flimsy, you could tear this.

Packaging of the handles, flimsy plastic again.

Flimsy, lame piece of cardboard and Sellotape.

Someone's old wrapping paper.

These threads are loose.

I would say that this bag is quite a poor attempt.

Have you ever heard of Krrug with two Rs?

I haven't, no.

It's not one that's flagged up on your radar?

It's not one that I recognise.

What valuation would you, Laura, place on this bag?

I would say that this bag is worth less than £100.

Could you put a firmer price on it than that?

£17.

17!

I'm going to leave this with you.

-Please don't.

-Thank you very much.

-Thank you.

-Nice to meet you.

-Bye.

Regardless of whether you spend tens, hundreds

or even thousands of pounds,

it's clear you can't trust a word that Alan Cooper says.

So what have we learned?

Well, we know that Cooper's Fine Art Auctions

lie about their goods to make them seem like bargains.

But we've seen through their little ruse.

And you know what?

I have a couple of tricks of my own up my sleeve.

Find out all about it in ten.

Before that, Pontins, a company we've investigated several times.

When we first looked at its holiday camps three years ago,

we knew conditions were bad.

But now, we need to warn you, they are worryingly dangerous.

Let's take you back to 2011,

the year the five Pontins holiday camp resorts were taken over

by the Britannia Hotel group.

It promised a Disney-style make-over as part of a £25 million overhaul.

Now, six minutes...months into its ownership,

we started to receive serious complaints

about the standards of hygiene and cleanliness inside the parks.

And this is what one family

who went to stay at the Brean Sands resort in Somerset

had to say.

The pillowcase was mouldy.

I'm not going to put my head on that

so I'm certainly not going to put my children's head on that.

We went into the pool area.

As soon as you walked in, a puddle of water on the floor.

It was all brown. I didn't want to put my children down.

The Britannia Hotels group were adamant complaints were rare

and that they had over 1.5 million very satisfied customers.

Well, let me tell you, Anne,

we've owned these parks 26 weeks.

This programme is rather premature.

-1.5 million...

-OK.

-No, you listen.

1.5 million people, and you say you've had complaints.

-Why didn't you close the chalets...

-Nobody wanted to buy it.

..when they were unsuitable?

-Do you think that's very sensible in this economic climate?

-Yes, I do.

-You're looking at health hazards.

-To make people unemployed?

Are you happy they stayed in those apartments?

99.9% had good-value British holidays.

What about the ones who didn't have good value, Mrs Downey?

-What are you going to do for them?

-When our refurbishment is complete,

-everybody will have good value.

-But what about the ones that didn't?

I'm not prepared to comment about individual cases on here.

OK, thank you, Mrs Downey.

-What a night that was, eh?!

-Not much contrition.

-Not many words of sorrow about the customers.

-No.

Anyway, that was the new owners assuring us

that, given time, the Brean Sands camp

and all of its other properties

would be completely revamped.

So we gave them the benefit of the doubt.

But less than a year later,

we felt we had to investigate Pontins again.

This time it was an employee

at the East Sussex resort of Camber Sands who wrote to us

alerting us to serious safety lapses

in and around the public areas on site.

So we checked into the place to take a look around ourselves.

In areas open to everyone we found unattended building materials

and these large holes in the ground.

Health and safety officer Duncan Macleay

was in no doubt about the potential dangers.

If somebody fell down one of those or got their foot in it,

they could possibly break their leg, easily.

We even witnessed a young boy playing on a forklift truck,

complete with a canister of highly flammable compressed gas on board.

There could have been an escapage of gas

if there was a leakage from the bottle.

And as it's in a public area, people passing by smoking,

there is the potential there for an explosion.

Elsewhere on site, in an unlocked workshop,

we discovered an electrical circular saw

which was still plugged in at the wall.

That's shocking. That's not good.

Injuries associated with circular saws -

amputated fingers, amputated hands. Very serious.

And again, totally unacceptable.

The conditions at Pontins Camber Sands were so bad

that our expert believed Pontins might be breaking the law.

There are a number of potential regulations

which are being not complied with.

I would strongly advise that urgent action is required.

Hardly believable yet Britannia Hotels insisted

that Pontins had an excellent health and safety record

with minimal incidents reported.

And it assured us that it had rectified

all the areas concerned at Camber Sands.

Frankly, we knew it was only a matter of time

before someone got hurt.

And lo and behold, fast-forward 17 months

and that's precisely what has happened.

In February, Sam Foster booked a family holiday

to the Pontins resort in Southport.

It was a little bit of a present for my son's 11th birthday.

It's catered for families.

We thought it would be ideal, with lots of things to do.

And also it was advertised as the all-new Pontins.

So we were expecting it to be refurbished.

But within hours of arriving at the camp,

it became clear that the facilities were anything but shiny and new.

Walking through the car park, my youngest son, Kieran,

he started screaming.

I turned to look at him, he had his hands on his head.

Blood was coming down his face.

We pulled his hair back to have a look

and about an inch gash, open wound.

Clearly needed medical attention.

The cause of the injury?

A broken floodlight in the car park.

This capacitor had dropped out of the light fixture,

falling around 30 feet and struck Kieran directly on the head,

cracking it wide open.

Sam attempted to call for help from within the camp,

phoning the number

all Pontins guests are encouraged to use in an emergency.

But no-one picked up.

She then rushed Kieran to the nearest hospital,

where his head had to be glued back together.

The next morning,

Sam went to the manager to report the broken floodlight.

There was still some metal hanging from the floodlight.

He said that he would get that seen to straightaway.

However,

when we looked back the next day,

so it had been two days from my son's accident,

it was still there.

They hadn't cordoned off the area.

They hadn't fixed the floodlight.

They had done nothing.

I'm just really angry that one injury has happened

and there was a potential hazard

to cause another injury to somebody else

and it was ignored.

Well, this is the actual capacitor that fell on poor old Kieran's head.

Have a feel of it.

-Oh, gosh, it's heavy.

-Yeah, it is heavy.

And you can imagine, falling from a big height,

I think it was about 30 feet, the floodlight itself.

I'm going to go up about 12 feet on this ladder,

so we're talking a big, big difference.

Oh, trying not to fall off!

And up we go.

And away we go.

Wow! Wow!

So, just how bad are the conditions at the Southport Pontins camp?

To find out, our team went back, again under cover.

Our team checked in to the holiday park,

armed themselves with cameras and secret filming kit

and headed out for a look around.

First things first.

What about the broken floodlight that injured Sam's son Kieran?

Had that been fixed as promised?

No. Over three months later, and it's still damaged.

But it looks like there are no further heavy components left,

just the few dangling wires blowing in the wind.

But there was a lot more to concern us

elsewhere in the park.

Despite there being signs everywhere

imploring guests to keep the site clean,

it appears Pontins have paid little attention to their own advice.

Just a short walk from our room, we found a broken gate

allowing easy access to a storage area for old TV units,

broken ladders and wooden pallets,

hundreds of pots of paint

and most worryingly of all, this -

a cabinet containing highly flammable petroleum.

But you didn't need to venture behind broken gates

to find danger lurking.

This arcade was undergoing construction work

but the door was left wide open,

offering easy access to the unattended building machinery.

Whilst we didn't see anyone from the complex guarding the site,

we did see numerous inquisitive children

keen to explore inside.

But the worst scenes we found

weren't behind broken gates

or building site doors someone perhaps forgot to close.

They were here, in the resort's public car park.

Take a look at what we found dumped

all just a few metres from the resort's accommodation blocks.

None of these broken and abandoned items were cordoned off

and there were no signs warning of potential hazards.

They were all left lying on the ground,

accessible to absolutely anyone.

Anyone!

There is no doubt, following what happened to Kieran,

there's the potential here for a lot more accidents to happen.

It's two and a half years on from our first warnings to Pontins.

What do Britannia have to say?

Well, incredibly, they seem unconcerned.

Pontins owners, the Britannia Hotel group,

say it takes all health and safety issues seriously

and its refurbishment projects are supervised

by independent health and safety experts.

And despite what we've uncovered,

it maintains its health and safety record is excellent.

Yeah, which is almost word for word what they told us last time.

It's absolutely unbelievable.

Rest assured, we'll make sure all the relevant authorities

are aware of our findings

and we'll let you know what happens.

Please keep sending us your stories.

In the meantime, here's a few more.

It's been a bad week for online marketplace eBay

as it delivered a masterclass

in how not to deal with a serious security breach.

Last week, the US company admitted

that its databases had been compromised

and that the e-mails, home addresses, passwords,

phone numbers and dates of birth

of all 145 million eBay account holders worldwide

could now be in the hands of hackers.

To make matters worse,

it later revealed the cyber attack happened over three months ago.

The company insists it's seen no evidence

of unauthorised activity on members' accounts since then.

But it's now sent out e-mails

advising everyone to change their passwords

for not just eBay

but for every other site where they use the same login.

So, eBay users, it's time to take your password

and bye-bye it now.

Next, if you're hitting the road this week,

it'll come as no surprise to anyone

that lunch at the service stations is really expensive.

But how expensive?

Well, in a new survey, the AA has worked out

that if you choose to buy your food on the motorway

rather than at a supermarket,

it could cost you double.

Now, it found that a family of four buying a picnic

of sandwiches, drinks, chocolate and snacks would pay an average

of £15 on the high street

but a whopping £32 at the services.

The study also found a litre of a bottle of water,

normally 90p,

can cost you £2.40,

whilst this bag of sweets, normally £1,

can be up to three times that price.

Personally, I always take

Annie's home-made cheese and tomato sarnies for the road.

And of course, she always cuts the crusts off!

Of course I do.

Today, thousands of EE customers

were hit by a price rise

on their supposedly fixed term contracts.

The 2.7% increase, in line with inflation,

follows an identical move by rivals O2 a couple of months ago.

However, good-ish news.

It's one of the last times the mobile providers

will be able to get away with this sort of sneaky behaviour

thanks to a decision by the regulator, Ofcom.

A new rule states that if part way through your contract

a mobile company hits you with an unannounced price rise,

you can walk away with no penalties whatsoever

provided you signed up after January 23rd this year.

And even if you didn't, be patient.

Because the moment you sign your next contract,

you'll be exempt, too.

It's time for me to make a personal visit

to Cooper's Fine Art Auctions Ltd.

The last time I tried to have a face-to-face

with boss man Alan Cooper,

I was quickly bundled out the front door.

So if I'm going to get my point across this time,

I'm going to need the help of someone on the inside.

Another Cooper's auction

and more unsuspecting buyers are arriving at a luxury hotel

in the hope of picking up a bargain.

They don't realise that Alan Cooper is lying to them

about the value of the goods.

But I'm planning to tell them.

It was eventful last time.

What will happen this time when we let the audiences...

customers know that perhaps, you know,

everything is not quite as it would seem?

While I'm waiting in the van,

several members of the Rogue Traders team

are positioned inside with hidden cameras.

There's one sat in the crowd.

One just roving around.

One in the front row.

And one more, just for luck!

I've got to be honest,

I am a little worried about going in.

You see, Mr Cooper has lots of very big fellas working for him

and they're very good at lifting heavy things, like people,

out of their auctions.

Sold!

There's no way I'll get past the security on the front door

but luckily one of our team has spotted a fire door

that's been left open.

So we seize our chance.

# Bad boys

# What you gon...gonna

# What you gonna do? #

Hello there, people, it's Matt Allwright here,

from BBC Rogue Traders.

You may be familiar with the programmes I do.

We tend to investigate people who don't behave themselves.

And I'm going to take as my example, here, Mr Alan Cooper...

'No reaction from Cooper.

'His large friends, on the other hand,

'just get stuck in.'

He routinely lies about the items...

The items that... No, that's mine.

-I know it's yours.

-You can't take that.

What are you doing? You can't do that.

'So I was going once...'

Bye-bye.

'Your camera was going twice...'

-OK, go on.

-Don't keep pushing, don't keep pushing.

You're out now.

'And it was curtains for my producer.'

But other members of our team were still undercover inside,

where Cooper's desperately trying to shrug it all off.

I think they can still hear me in there.

If you want to come and join me outside,

I'll give you the full story.

And Alan Cooper, if you want to come and have a chat, too,

we'd love to talk to you.

Now, Mr Cooper doesn't take up my offer.

But many of his potential customers do.

The items that presumably you guys were about to be sold,

perhaps you would have bid on, the value is exaggerated hugely.

Most of these customers soon leave.

But there are plenty still left inside,

allowing Mr Cooper to resume proceedings.

There is...there's one more thing that we ought to say.

We did kind of anticipate that this might be the end result

so today, at Alan Cooper's auction,

here in the middle of London,

there is a guest speaker.

Unbeknownst to Mr Cooper,

the team has managed to smuggle

a large battery-powered speaker into the auction

and they are about to start playing a message from me

to once again warn the audience about Alan Cooper.

# Bad boys, bad boys

# What you going to do?

# What you going to do when they come for you? #

'Hello, ladies and gentlemen,

'Matt Allwright from BBC Rogue Traders here.

'If you're hearing this,

'it means that I've been ejected, chucked out or denied...'

-VOICEOVER:

-At last, a reaction from Mr Cooper himself.

And now he shows the man he really is.

Thankfully they don't follow their boss's orders

to cause our guys pain.

Instead, just as I was, they are manhandled out of the room

and thrown out of the front door.

Once again,

we go in to a Cooper's auction.

Once again, we are bundled out

for merely trying to tell Alan Cooper's customers

the truth about the situation that they're in

and the truth about the lies that he tells.

Alan Cooper, Cooper's Auctions,

nice people to do business with(!)

Alan Cooper says whenever people are dissatisfied with his auctions

it's generally down to personal overspending and buyer regret.

Clearly nothing to do, then,

with the fact that he's lied to them about the value of the items.

He said his company makes no effort to force anyone to buy anything

and staff always offer advice in advance of the auction itself.

Yes, they get a full hour to do their research

using bogus information provided by Cooper's.

However, there's another side to this story.

Cooper's Auctions tend to take place in luxury hotel chains.

If you run one of these chains,

ask yourself if you're happy with this kind of behaviour

taking place under your roof.

Next time he calls to book,

I'm sure you'll make the right decision.

But for now, Alan Cooper takes pride of place

over the mantelpiece of the rogues' gallery.

What a piece of work.

Great stuff, Matt. Lots of e-mails to catch up on.

Complaints about Pontins camps other than Southport.

This one coming from a guest who's actually staying in one right now,

in Camber Sands.

The kind of words we're hearing "appalling" and "disgusting".

Lots of Xperia Z1 owners getting in touch

all saying their screens have cracked for no good reason

and all told by Sony they'd have to pay for repairs themselves.

Remember, after tonight, go back to customer services.

Keep sending us your stories and tip-offs.

Go to our website...

..and click where it says "your story."

That's also where you can tell us if

you think secondary ticket marketing needs regulating.

Don't forget to cast your votes. Annie.

Next week...

Train Wi-Fi on Virgin, CrossCountry and East Coast Railways

up to £10 extra. For what?

Tickets for Kate Bush's comeback tour.

How the touts bypass security.

And one of the most sophisticated telephone scams

the police have ever encountered.

That's all on Watchdog next Wednesday at 8pm.

Until then, from all of us, good night.