Episode 2 X-Ray

You're watching X-ray,

the programme that fights for your rights on holiday.

Are you jetting off abroad?

Or enjoying Wales' stunning scenery?

To celebrate summer, we've been out and about,

finding brilliant ways to save you money.

Yes!

From cheap days out in Wales to designer looks.

But we haven't forgotten to investigate your holiday horrors

and confront the rogues.

We're from X-ray... Excuse me!

Tonight...

We've all got a holiday beauty routine,

but if yours includes a Botox treatment, you might want to

avoid the cut-price clinic run by this bogus nurse.

When we try to confront her, we get a hostile reception.

We're from X-ray... Excuse me! Don't you...!

Oh, gee whiz.

Delayed flights - we all have a right to compensation,

so why did Andrea find it so hard to claim?

I've done everything by the book.

I've sent everything they've asked for.

And, literally, it hasn't got me anywhere.

And we all love an ice cream on holiday,

but how can you tell if it's safe to eat?

Hello. Tonight, I'm in Barmouth, on the stunning Gwynedd coastline.

Later, deal or no deal?

I'll be asking if those airport bargains

really are cheaper than the high street?

And I'm a few miles up the road in the heart of the

Snowdonia National Park.

Where I'll be finding out if mountain biking is

a cheap way to keep the family occupied this summer.

But first...

If you're planning some beauty treatments before you go on holiday,

here's one place you might want to avoid.

Got to look good on holiday.

You've had your hair done.

That is lovely, thank you!

Your legs waxed.

Ow!

Your nails done.

And, if you want to go further...

How about some Botox?

More and more people are putting the wrinkle-reducing

injection at the top of their beauty list before they go on holiday.

But beware of the Botox deals that seem too good to be true.

You've been telling us about a backstreet practice

called Botox Beauty,

or Vizzy Bizzy,

that's operating illegally in Porthcawl.

The woman who runs the business is called Vivienne Baker.

Award-winning mobile hairdresser, Richard Kerr,

from Bedwas in Caerphilly, stumbled across her adverts when

he wanted a course of Botox.

On Facebook, her name was recommended.

There was pictures and there was certificates,

so you wouldn't think about looking into it.

So I thought, I'll give her a go.

She was a qualified nurse that trained in London.

I just believed everything that I read.

Richard paid Vizzy for two visits at around £300 a time.

For treatment on his forehead and fillers in his lips.

But soon, cracks began to show.

It worked for the first, I'd say, two weeks.

And then my wrinkles came back.

I didn't see no effect on my lips at all.

So Vizzy told Richard she'd redo the procedures.

But he'd have to pay another £70 for the privilege.

This time, he was asked to come to her house to have the injections.

It was a total nightmare.

I sat in her kitchen with children running around the area.

So it wasn't very clean.

There was no anaesthetic on my mouth whatsoever,

so I could feel every bit of pain.

It was excruciating.

And after Richard's nightmare experience, there was worse to come.

The day after, that's when I had a mouthful,

all round my mouth, of blisters.

And it seems Vizzy's been very busy.

We've heard from another unhappy customer

who was treated at her home, here on this Porthcawl Street.

She said her face was droopy, and she couldn't smile for months.

We decided to take a closer look at Vivienne Baker's Botox business.

Our researchers posed as customers, looking for treatment.

Vizzy says she's been very busy.

And it looks like she really does

carry out the treatment in her kitchen.

Let's get an expert opinion.

Ashton Collins runs an organisation

which inspects legitimate Botox clinics.

Ashton, what do you make of the fact she's doing this in her kitchen?

Yeah, it's such an unsuitable and unacceptable environment

to inject any procedure, actually.

She's opening her clients up to such unnecessary risks from an

infection control point of view.

It goes against all best practice, NHS guidelines.

But Vivienne still claims we're in safe medical hands.

Erm, no.

Not according to the Nursing And Midwifery Council register.

And practising without being on it is illegal.

We also found her Harley Street accreditation certificate is false,

as there's no such thing.

This makes her next claims even more improbable.

She'd have to have an additional,

special qualification to be able to prescribe.

The only people who can prescribe are doctors, dentists,

nurses with the special prescribing qualification,

and prescribing pharmacists.

So it's a complete lie.

She might not be qualified,

but she wants to make sure everyone has access to her treatments.

And even if you pay upfront, the prices are alarmingly low.

She offered us three Botox injections for £150.

What you make of that kind of pricing for treatment?

It's worryingly cheap.

I mean, reputable practitioners would find it difficult to

source the product for that price.

It would raise serious alarm bells as to actually what product she's

using, where she's sourcing it from, and how safe and effective it is.

Vivienne Baker also plays fast and loose with the facts about Botox.

Botox exactly works by relaxing the muscles,

so it's not an anaesthetic at all.

It doesn't target the skin it targets the muscles.

So completely inaccurate.

None of these procedures are without risk, even in the most

skilled and experienced of hands, they can carry complications.

If somebody had an allergic reaction,

they could go into anaphylactic shock.

And if the practitioner was unable and unequipped to deal with that,

the person could lose their life.

Although she hasn't checked our researcher's medical history,

she's getting ready to inject.

Time for our team to make a sharp exit.

You are compromising so many things by choosing

a cut-price practitioner.

Your safety, your health, your appearance -

it's just not worth it.

Well, we wanted to speak to Vivienne Baker,

but she ignored all our efforts to contact her.

Of course, on X-ray, we don't give up easily,

so we sent Rachel along to ask her a few questions.

-Vivienne Baker?

-Yes?

-Are you qualified to prescribe Botox? Is she here?

-No.

Yes, she is, I've just seen her. She put head around the fence.

She's here.

We're from X-ray... Excuse me! Don't you...!

Oh, gee whiz.

So she doesn't want to answer questions about the fact that

she's not qualified to prescribe Botox?

Try the front door.

It didn't matter how many times Rachel tried,

Vivienne Baker just wasn't going to talk.

Still, at least you know where not to go for Botox.

Still to come...

You have a right to compensation for a delayed flight, so why did

Gareth have to take a holiday giant to court to get his money?

You're not after something for nothing, you're after

something for the inconvenience of being left in Canada for 20 hours.

In these long summer holidays, it can be a bit of a struggle to

find something for the family to do that doesn't cost a fortune.

So, how about digging those bikes out from the back of the shed

and having a go at this?

This is great fun, but it looks like a sport where you spend

a fortune on fancy gear before you even get started.

Can anyone really get involved?

Let's ask cycling coach, Steve Beech.

It's very easy to get into mountain biking.

All you need is a basic bike with fat tyres,

straight bars and the brakes and pedals work.

I've seen a lot of flashy bikes around here?

Yes, there are lots of lovely bikes around here,

but you don't need to spend thousands to start off.

You can hire a bike if you want to give it a go.

Do you have to be superfit?

You don't have to be fit.

Mountain biking's hard work and you will get fit doing it. But, no,

it's one of those things where you get fitter the more you do it.

And in terms of cost then,

-how much do you have to pay to go out on the track?

-Everything's free.

You pay to park, all the trails are free to use.

And there's miles and miles of fabulous trail.

Now, we're going to put all of this to the test, because we've got

Chris, Riley and Noah from up the road in Machynlleth.

Chris, how long have you had your bikes?

We've had our bikes about five years now.

-Have you ever come here as a family with your bikes?

-No, we haven't.

But as they're getting older now, I think we'll be up here quite often.

-You fancy a go? You looking forward to this?

-Yeah!

-Yeah, it's going to be fun, isn't it?

-Yeah.

I want to get muddy!

These guys are off to get a lesson from Steve,

we'll see how they get on a bit.

Lucy.

A day at the seaside wouldn't be complete without one of these.

But how clean is your ice cream?

Ice cream - we love it.

But should we be wary before we take a bite?

The hygiene of these soft ice creams has been under scrutiny.

They've been popular ever since they were invented by a group of

industrial chemists, including one Margaret Hilda Thatcher.

We're aware, from work that's been done,

that this sort of ice cream, soft stream ice cream, is the one

that more often fails tests, bacteriological tests,

that we would do.

In here is a tank with ice cream in it,

and there are pipes and a pump to pump it out through here.

And the concern is that the proprietor isn't cleaning

them often enough, so they just keep topping them up

with the liquid that makes the ice cream

without ever flushing the machine through and cleaning it.

If there are bacteria in the machine,

the bacteria can slowly grow, until they build up a presence,

and then they will be dispensed through the machine into the

ice cream that the customers eat.

That could make someone ill.

Ugh!

Bacteria in your ice cream?

That doesn't sound appetising.

So how clean is Welsh ice cream?

We joined Environmental Health as they tested premises along

the South Wales coast.

What we will be doing is we will be buying some soft serve ice cream,

and then we'll be taking them to the lab,

where they will check to see what bacteria, if any, are in there.

And what that tells us that the hygiene of the premises

that sold it to us.

Over the next few hours, Julie and her team gather

seven samples from local ice cream sellers.

And then, it's off to the lab.

-Hi, Julie from CIH with the ice cream samples.

-Excellent.

Our samples of soft serve are then put on plates to be tested.

Three days later, and our scientists are ready to serve up the results.

These are the plates from the ice creams that we tested.

As you can see,

we've got bacteria growing on pretty much all of the plates.

-That's not necessarily a bad thing though.

-Right, OK.

Food isn't sterile,

so you would expect to find some bacteria in the food.

The important thing is the levels of those bacteria.

So these two samples, even though there are bacteria growing there,

they are actually of acceptable levels.

But the other five contain higher levels of bacteria.

And two of these even reveal traces of

a bug called Enterobacteriaceae, commonly found in the human gut.

So how could those bacteria

have found their way into our ice cream sample?

It could be poor hygiene on the part of the food handlers,

poor handwashing, etc.

Or inadequately cleaned work surfaces,

or inadequately cleaned equipment or utensils.

At higher levels, these bacteria could cause sickness or diarrhoea.

What does Julie make of finding this bug?

What I will be doing is saying to the environmental health

departments concerned, look, these are what we've found,

perhaps you would like to go along to the premises,

take other sample maybe, have a look at what's going on,

give some advice.

Elsewhere in Wales, there have been more worrying results.

A bigger survey in Anglesey found barely

a third of soft serve samples were satisfactory.

Half were borderline acceptable.

And a fifth were deemed unsatisfactory.

The premises concerned were told to clean up their act.

So how can we avoid buying dodgy ice cream?

Look at the state of the drip tray.

Because that has to be cleaned fairly regularly.

Have a look at the nozzle,

because this is where the ice cream's coming out of.

If it's running down, dripping,

then air is able to get into the machine,

and you don't want that either.

Have a look at the food hygiene rating.

If you're not happy, go somewhere else.

I'm going to watch where I buy my ice creams from in future!

For many of us,

the holiday spending spree starts as soon as we get to the airport.

All those bargains on booze, perfumes, electronics...

Well, I've been doing a bit of research at Manchester Airport,

where they boast prices to beat the high street.

But are they really offering you a good deal?

Time for a quiz.

First up, this Gucci perfume.

50ml eau de parfum spray.

Is it a good deal at...?

Let's find out.

Probably no different to the perfume shops.

-Extortionate.

-Do you think?

-Yes.

-I don't think that's bad, actually.

-Pretty good deal, you think?

Yeah, yeah.

Do you think you'd get that more cheaply in the supermarket?

I reckon I could find that cheaper.

Probably cheaper online, I should think, if you shop about.

I think that's reasonable.

So, this perfume was £54 at the airport when we checked...

But we found it at for £46 in the supermarket.

And online, you can get it for £39.

Next up, this bottle of vodka -

a whole litre at the airport for...

Is that a deal?

Good deal, very good deal. I'd by that.

-Would you?

-Yeah! Definitely.

£11 in the airport, what do you make of that?

Yeah, I think that's pretty good.

That's a good price, I think.

Probably a smidge cheaper in a supermarket, but not a lot.

£11's good, I know, I can't get it anywhere else for that price!

Well, that airport price of £11 was a good deal.

The best we found in a supermarket was £19.

Mind you, if you can wait,

we found it for just 11 euros in Spain.

And finally, another airport favourite - chocolate.

The airport price is...

Deal or no deal?

That's about what I would say is about right for that.

Definitely more.

That ain't a bad price.

£6?

INHALES

Yeah, that's pretty steep.

These chocolates are actually...

A terrible deal!

You can pick them up for £3 in the supermarket.

So you can get two boxes for the same price.

Well, we spoke to Manchester Airport,

who say the retailers there sell thousands of products

which consistently beat high street prices.

One thing that will have you spending lots

at the airport shops is a flight delay.

Consumers have been fighting for years

for compensation from airlines.

Last year, a European Court ruling seemed to signal

a clear victory for passengers.

But it seems, some tour operators are dragging their feet when

it comes to paying out.

Omar Hamdi's been investigating.

When it comes to rules and regulations,

we're a nation of sticklers.

But there's always someone

who thinks the rules don't apply to them.

Oi!

And when it comes to European Regulation 261,

travel giant Thomson's aren't tripping over themselves to comply.

Maybe that's because it forces them to pay you

when your flight's delayed.

Andrea Evans from Tongwynlais thought she was due a pay-out after

her flight was delayed by 27 hours on her way to a holiday in Mexico.

Really, you could say we lost nearly a day and a half.

And by the time we got there as well, it was night-time,

so it was literally just go in, unpack and straight to bed.

So really, it was like two days.

That was back in 2010, and it wasn't until five years later

that Andrea first heard about the EU regulations.

As she'd been flying long haul

and had been delayed for more than four hours,

she was in line for a payment of 600 euros per person.

I thought, I'm going to do it myself. It looks straightforward.

But when Andrea got touch in March last year,

Thompson demanded lots and lots of information.

-OVERLAPPING:

-We need your booking reference number...departure date...

outbound flight number...oversees airport...as well as copies...

booking confirmation... Thank you.

I managed to get the flight numbers,

I even told them when our original flight was, when we were going.

But I think it's just tactics on their part.

Andrea had to apply to Thompson from some of that information.

It took eight months to get it.

She submitted her full claim a month before the deadline.

But she heard nothing until after it had passed.

I sent an e-mail asking them what was going on with my claim.

And I had an automated e-mail saying,

"Thank you for your information, unfortunately you're now outside

"the six-year limit, so you cannot claim."

And at the bottom it said,

"Do not respond to this e-mail."

Under European regulations,

passengers can claim for up to six years after a delay.

And Andrea just can't understand why Thomson have behaved like this.

To me, they're not playing the game.

I've done everything by the book.

I've sent everything they've asked for.

And, literally, it hasn't got me anywhere. Nowhere at all.

And I don't think I would ever travel with Thomson's again.

Andrea was claiming years after the delay.

Surely if you claim straightaway, things are different?

Aren't they?

I've come to Chirk to meet Gareth Baines,

who's had his own battle with Thomson.

He was flying home from a two-week break in Jamaica with his

partner last October when they ended up making an unscheduled stop.

We flew back from Montego Bay to Gatwick, and we were about

three hours into the flight, and the map on the back of the screen

showed that actually the destination was now Canada, not London.

What exactly was wrong with the plane?

There were two engines, one had completely failed.

Their plane was diverted to Canada, and after an overnight stay,

Gareth and his fellow passengers finally made it back to

Gatwick Airport, around 20 hours late.

-After all that, I assume they paid out?

-No.

-They didn't pay out?

-No.

We wrote the letter of complaint, as we were told to,

to Thompson, and the response came a month later saying that it

was an extraordinary circumstance.

And what you think they meant by extraordinary circumstance?

What were they getting at with that?

I think they meant something that's completely out of their control.

So, are Thomson right?

It seems the firm hadn't been paying attention to the rule book.

Because in September last year,

the European Supreme Court ruled that technical errors

could not be regarded as extraordinary circumstances.

Even if they happen unexpectedly.

That means airlines now must pay the legal compensation

of up to 600 euros per person.

So Gareth decided to take a big step and get what

he was owed from Thompson by taking them to court.

You can go online to the County Court and fill out a form.

So we thought, rather than go back to Thompson and wait another

month for a reply, we'll do this and see where we get with it.

Were they quite cooperative? Or were they trying to get out of it?

They did absolutely the opposite of cooperate.

They tried twice to have the case moved from our local County Court,

which is Wrexham, to Luton.

It's almost to push you as far away

from wanting to go through the process.

You're not after something for nothing, you're after

something for the inconvenience of being left in Canada for 20 hours.

In May, seven months after the flight delay,

a court in Wrexham finally ordered Thompson

to pay Gareth £1,135.

The company didn't even bother to show up to court.

You can see how it would be really daunting,

to someone out there, to all the other Gareths across Europe

who are thinking, "Shall I give this a go? Shall I take the risk?

"Shall I hold out for it?" What would your advice be to them?

Just go for it.

It's a straightforward process that anybody should be able to handle.

We took up both these cases with Thompson.

They refused to say anything about why Gareth

had to drag them through the courts to get his money.

In Andrea's case, though, they did apologise.

And, good news, they've now paid her more than £900 in compensation,

which is a fantastic result.

Now, Britain has, of course, voted to leave the European Union,

but for the time being, you can still make these claims.

Earlier, we sent the Roberts family out to see if mountain biking

is a cheap way to get the children out and about this summer holidays.

Of course, using the trails here at Coed y Brenin, or at other

centres across Wales, is completely free, as long as you've got a bike.

So let's see how their lesson went.

First, Steve takes them to a gravel area to practise the basics.

OK, the first thing we're going to practise is braking.

It's all about how not to skid.

Oops!

Keep going, keep going.

And how to balance over the bumps.

With the basics out of the way, it's out on the trails.

Yeah, let's go!

Wow, that looked like great fun. So how was it?

It was really good.

Really good, wasn't it, boys? Really enjoyed that.

Steve's very good at his job.

We've learned, we've listened, and we'll be up here again, I think.

-How was it, Riley?

-It was really good fun.

Was it? And did you go fast?

And if you fancy having a go yourself,

we've put information about centres near you on our website.

And that's all we've got time for this week.

Next week...

This travel agent sold customers coach holidays at the seaside.

Now the shop's been abandoned and the money has vanished.

I can't find words to say about him.

I really can't.

How dare he take our money, how dare he?

Until then, if there's anything you want to get in touch with us about,

you can give us a call...

You can e-mail...

And of course, you can follow us on Twitter. For now, bye-bye.