Episode 15 X-Ray

You're watching X-Ray. On tonight's programme. He's working hard to

build up his business, but one huge bill from Orange could be the end

of Chris's company. The ten grand conservatory built by

Unique Windows. It's certainly got some unique water features.

And those charities asking for our money.

Are there just too many requests in Hello. Tonight, we're in

Llantrisant and later we'll be finding out what Christmas shoppers

around here make of charity mailings.

First though. Mobile phones aren't just about making calls any more.

They're useful for all sorts of things, from catching up with your

friends on Facebook to watching films. But Rachel's been to meet a

man whose smartphone bill is a Thank you. It's always been the

best way to see a film. Thanks. I love coming to the cinema with

friends or the kids. But in this day and age, there are other

options. With today's smartphones, you can watch a movie anywhere!

It's not as comfy, it's not as warm, and the screen's not as big. But at

least you don't have to buy a ticket. Here in the warm, there is

one huge advantage. You pay for your ticket and there are no hidden

charges. With a phone, it can be Painter and decorator Chris Wilson

from Milford Haven found out just how different when he got his

November bill from Orange. He's got an upmarket smartphone on an

Hello. He normally pays a pricey �85 a month, but it's essential for

his business. It's as important as my paint

brushes basically. I use it for emails and I take calls for new

jobs. It basically keeps the business running.

And in terms of downloading data, do you do much of that?

I do listen to audio books, but I always download them at home

because I am aware that if you try to do that over a network it will

cost you a lot of money. So what happened this particular

month? I rung up to pay my bill and the

lady said I just feel I should warn you that next month's bill is going

to be slightly higher than normal. Then she told me how much it was

going to be and�6,875 and I nearly had a heart attack.

You had no clue really. Not until she told me. It made me go weak at

the knees. I felt sick after she told me. The only thing I did

different to any other month was I downloaded a programme from Sky Go

which was 43 minutes long. Now, if that is going to cost �6,000, it

would be cheaper for me to fly out and watch the programme being

filmed. They're saying that you must have been watching loads of

films. Like I say, I've done exactly as I have done every month.

The only thing I did was watch that programme on Sky Go. A mistake's

been made somewhere, but Orange just won't admit it. Orange say the

charges are in line with Chris's contract and that he had used up

nine gigabytes of data doing things like watching films over the

internet. That's a lot of data. This is how they explain it. On 17

October. He's clocking up data use at half past seven in the morning.

He's using 52 million bytes every few minutes. Most of these entries

are costing him �40. He's clocking up charges of �20 a minute. No

movie is that good! In fact, it's hard to find anything that

Front row seats to see the Rolling Stones - just �7.20 per minute.

A night in Claridges' most expensive penthouse - �6.30 per

minute. Even Wales' football hero Gareth

Bale gets just �7.50 a minute from It's going to be pretty near

impossible to prove how this data was used. But even if Chris quit

decorating and became the world's biggest film buff, it's hard to see

how these charges could be In Haverfordwest, it's not only

Chris who's feeling the pain. Music teacher Clare Harrison also has a

small business contract. I use it mainly for calls and I do have one

or two friends who have my email address on that mobile so

occasionally there is an email. Then occasionally again, maybe the

weather forecast or maybe a news item or maybe look up a phone

number on the internet. That's the only time I use the internet on my

mobile. She usually pays up to �35 a month

for her phone but in June, the bill was much much higher. I came home

from a few days on a friend's narrow boat and I had this bill

from Orange for about �5,000. I got straight on the phone to Orange

just as soon as I could to say they had made a mistake of some

description and they told me no. They were adamant and sure I had

used this data. Orange say Clare had made a mistake

with her phone settings, but they still made her pay nearly �500 of

the bill. It does seem a staggering amount of money when you look at it

at the moment. In the run up to Christmas they advertise these

phones - brilliant for gamers and tweeters and you hear it all the

time and you just think my goodness. It just worries me that, you know,

so many people could be out there doing this and end up this with

monstrous bill and just from using the phone the way the manufacturers

are suggesting. Jumbo mobile bills like these are a

growing problem as more of us get internet friendly smartphones.

Whilst Clare's bill has been cut to under �500, Chris hasn't been so

lucky. They cut his bill by �2,500, but that will still leave him owing

more than �4,000. Enough to watch 673 films in this cinema!

Potentially, if they make me pay the full bill, first of all, I

can't afford to pay it in one go, so there is a chance they are going

to cut me off. My phone is essential to my business, so that

is going to have a knock-on effect and, paying a bill that much, it

could potentially put my business under.

Well, just hours after we filmed that interview with Chris, things

got worse. Orange texted him to say that if he didn't pay up

immediately, he'd be cut off, leaving him and his business

without a phone. We asked Orange to come and explain their actions. But

they refused. They say the charges on Chris's bill are in line with

his contract but won't explain why they charge so much for this data.

They point out they already refunded a month's worth of charges

back in April when Chris also ran up a bill of several hundred pounds.

And as for Clare's case? They say her bill was so high because her

settings were wrong, which is a bit worrying. Worth checking out the

settings, and the costs if you're planning on a phone upgrade anytime

soon. Remember, if there's anything you'd

like us to investigate, please do get in touch. The lines are open

now - the number as always is 03703 334 334. Or send us an e-mail -

xray @bbc.co.uk. And remember to leave us a daytime phone number so

we can contact you straight away. Still to come on tonight's

programme. He never built it, he says he's never owned it. So why

should Alan pay for this wall to be repaired?

And the missing Christmas present. Can we track down 18-month-old

Now Christmas is traditionally a time for giving, but are charities

putting too much pressure on us at the moment? We've been to visit one

viewer who says it's gone too far. We're a generous bunch in Wales,

giving millions to charity every year. But this figure is falling as

the effects of the recession bite. In 2009, we gave an average of �12

a month each to charity. In 2010, this dropped to �11 and last year

it fell to �10. Charities are working hard to get us back, but in

their eagerness are they in danger of driving us away? David Edwards'

mother-in-law, Ruth, who lives in Cardiff, has given to charity all

her life. She has always given money to charity whether that be by

direct debit or a one off payment. As far as I'm aware, Ruth has done

that for years and years and years, long before I met her, very

generous lady. But in the run-up to Christmas,

Ruth has had a staggering 25 begging letters from charities

pushed through her front door, and all addressed to her personally.

I have never seen anything like this before. As far as I'm aware,

it hasn't happened with Ruth before. We're quite concerned how these

charities got her name and address and we were obviously quite upset

because of the pressure Ruth explained that she felt she was

under. To encourage her to donate, many

had included free gifts such as Christmas cards and calendars.

have more or less pressured her into, "Well, you've received the

gift, now you need to give us the money," and it upset us. Do elderly

people get a lot of this sort of mail and feel pressured to pay out,

sometimes large sums of money to various charities who they may

never have heard about? The Fundraising Standards Board

says charities need to ask otherwise donations can drop. But

last year it received just under 15,000 complaints about direct mail.

And the number of people complaining about the free gifts is

on the rise. For people like Ruth, who do donate continually, are

keeping charities going. I think we have to be careful not to frighten

these people away by putting so much pressure on them, especially

just before Christmas. Well, have you got an opinion on

this? Let us know. And we'll be asking shoppers around here what

they think later on. First though, we're off to Llandrindod Wells to

find out about a very expensive For centuries, chroniclers have

recorded the history of walls - the Great Wall of China, the Wailing

all of Jerusalem, The Berlin Wall and now one modern-day scribe has

notched up his own volume on an Calligrapher Alan Quincey and his

wife Rhona, are both in their 80s. They moved to their bungalow in

Howie just outside Llandrindod Wells 11 years ago. The first

chapter of their story makes happy reading. The whole area is pleasing,

the landscape is pleasing, the people are nice. Yeah, everything

about it is good. But what the couple didn't realise is that a

black cloud was looming on the horizon. Two years ago, the Welsh

winter was harsh. When the snow melted, a problem with the wall

outside the bungalow became apparent when Alan decided to get

some evergreens cut down. We were cutting them down. You can

see there are stumps here. The chap who was contracting noticed a

difference in the wall and when we looked closely at the wall, it was

cracked through frost damage. I promptly rang Powys County Council

who sent out an engineer. He said, "No, that's not going to fall

With a pile of rubble in place of a wall, it was obvious the whole

thing would need rebuilding. But what wasn't quite so obvious is who

owns the wall, and more importantly who would need to foot the bill.

There seem to be three potential owners - Alan, who says the wall is

not on his land. Wales and West Housing Association who own the

housing estate next to Alan's house - who say it's not theirs. And

Powys Council who own the road next to the wall. But they say they

don't own it either. Despite the uncertainty over the

wall's ownership, the council are pretty sure about how much it will

cost to rebuild - �30,000! At first they offered to split the

cost three ways - between themselves, the housing authority

and Alan. Horrified, I think, was probably the reaction I had. It's

not my wall and I don't see why I should make the contribution to

something I don't own. The dispute isn't just over who

owns the wall, but what type of wall it is. Alan thinks it's a

decorative measure. But the council says it's a retaining wall that's

holding back the bank of earth below Alan's house.

It's an argument that has rumbled on for more than 20 months. Has is

taken over your life? It's quite distressing, in fact. Sleepless

nights, I wake up writing letters in my head and to a certain extent

there's always a little bit of apprehension when the postman comes

too, I wonder what on earth's going to be in the post this time.

With such a colossal amount hanging in the balance, we've asked

chartered surveyor Tim Davies to examine the wall to find out how

much it would cost to rebuild. Well, Tim, you've had a chance to

take a look now. Is this outer wall a retaining wall? The outer wall,

Lucy, is the decorative part of the wall. It's not a retaining

structure itself. The council have said the cost of rebuilding this

wall would be �30,000. What do you make of that? For that sort of

money you can do an awful lot of work. There are definitely ways of

doing this wall a lot cheaper. you give us a ball park figure? How

much do you think it would cost? I'd have thought maybe around

�5,000 or �6,000 if they used a much simpler form of construction,

like gabian baskets or a crib lock system.

We've put Tim's findings to Powys Council but they're refusing to

budge. They still think it is a retaining wall. And remember their

offer to share the cost of rebuilding? Well, there's been a U-

turn on that, the council now wants Alan to pay the whole cost of the

rebuild - �30,000! It's an enormous amount of money and it's more than

we have and, of course at our age, there's no way we can raise a loan

and anticipate paying it back over a period of time. So it really is a

non-starter from our point of view. And Alan's worried the council are

determined to recover the cost of any new wall from him, no matter

how long they have to wait. We feel bullied, threatened.

Instead of coming to us and talking in a sensible and relaxed,

civilised way, I feel that it has been very aggressive and heavy-

handed. No one at Powys council would talk

to us, so Alan has written one final plea to the chief executive

of Powys council, asking him to reconsider. And I've decided to

deliver it in person. Well, I've handed in the letter to Powys

Council. Let's hope they take on board what Alan has to say.

So, has Powys County Council had any second thoughts? Well,

unfortunately not. They say they've always tried to deal with the

couple fairly and don't want to cause them undue stress and anxiety.

But they still maintain that Alan and his wife are liable for the

cost of the wall. Now let's get back to those charity

mail shots - earlier in the programme we heard from David

Llewelyn-Edwards whose elderly mother-in-law has been overwhelmed

by requests for her cash. So are we getting too many appeals? We've

come to Talbot Green to find out what people here think.

Charity mail shots. Do you have lots of these through your

letterbox? Yes, we do. How do you feel about it? Load of rubbish.

Why? Well it's a pain, isn't it, when you think about it. Because it

only goes in recycling. If there's Ty Hafan or something for Cancer,

then I am interested in receiving that.

It's quite difficult to decide what to do because there's so many good

causes and you can't make up your mind what to do - the best thing to

support really. I don't take much notice of them because I know it's

junk mail and I just rip them up and chuck them in the bin. Do you

think it's a good thing or a bad thing these are coming through your

mailbox? It's nice to have the opportunity to choose, but

sometimes there's quite a lot of it. And the charitible things where you

have to return clothes, I don't tend to trust them. It's a bit yes

and no, it varies how far they go. At the end of the day if you want

to give to a charity I think you would not be sending letters and

all that. Some interesting views. And if you

are fed up with a glut of charity mailings coming through your door,

there are ways to complain. You can sign up to the Mail Preference

Service, or you can complain to the Fundraising Standards Board. We've

put the details on our website. Or you can give us a call to get the

addresses. Next - time for Lucy to get On The

Case. Like many young boys, 18-month-old

Jacob loves cars. So his mum Stacy thought she'd found the ideal

Christmas present for her budding Jenson Button. Hi, Lucy. I ordered

a racing car bed for my little boy ages ago and it still hasn't come,

please can you help me? $$NEWLINe I'm on the case. Stacey Davies

thought she'd been really organised, ordering her sons Christmas present

back in August. His new racing car bed should have been delivered well

in time for the big day. But her plans have come screeching to a

halt. Hi, Lucy. Hello, Stacy. Come on in. Well, I can see that Jacob

likes his cars, doesn't he? Oh, he loves them, anything to do with

cars. So he'd play with them all the time? Yeah, yeah. So you

must've been so excited when you found this racing car bed online,

what was it like? The new bed Stacy found for Jacob

was a white road racer bed and mattress from online company

mykidsbed who are based in Northern Ireland. She paid �430 back in

August and the full amount was taken from her bank account. She

was told the bed would arrive within 4-8 weeks.

After about 9 weeks I started to get a bit worried so I tried

starting to contact them and that's when the problems started. I

couldn't get hold of them emails, faxes, calls. No response at all?

I've had no response at all. then you saw something pop up

online? One day I thought, "I'll go on the website and have a little

check," and I noticed there was a customer notice on there just

saying they weren't taking any further orders until January next

year and there was a helpline number for existing customers.

Stacy called the helpline, but it was a number for a completely

different company who happened to be based in the same building. They

told Stacy they were inundated with calls from unhappy customers

waiting for deliveries from mykidsbed. So how are you feeling

because this was Jacobs big Xmas present, wasn't it? This is going

to be his main first proper Xmas as he's a bit older and he understands

a lot more. I just wanted it to be special for him and I didn't want

to disappoint him. So, Stacy, what would you like me to do? If you

could just get me his bed for Xmas. Stacy - I'm on the case. Well, we

managed to track down mykidsbed and ask them about Stacy's order. They

told us that the Director responsible for the management and

day-to-day running of the company is no longer working there. But

they are continuing to deal with the backlog and are striving to

ensure that all customers receive their order. And they say Stacy's

bed has now been dispatched and should be delivered shortly.

Hi, Lucy, we've had our bed. Thank you very much, you really have made

our Xmas really special this year now. Jacob really is going to have

the perfect Christmas now, so thank you. And that's another case closed.

Good result. Now, we do hear about quite a few leaking conservatories

on this programme, but not everyone captures their leaking conservatory

on film. An estate agent might describe this

as a unique water feature - it's certainly that, as well as being

the biggest leak in a conservatory built only two years ago by a

company called Unique Windows. grand down the drain, literally,

with all the water we're having. Meurin Williams and his partner

Mary Hancock live in Capel Hendre near Ammanford - they wanted this

conservatory to be the focus of their home - warm, dry, somewhere

they could sit in comfort. These two former weightlifters were

both British champions in their day, Mary represented Wales at the

Commonwealth Games just a decade ago. Now they want to put their

feet up and take things easy. Particularly after a busy summer

where Mary was a referee during the weighlifting at the London Olympics.

What were you hoping for from this conservatory? Comfort. Room and

plenty of lighting. It was to get out of an enclosed area, small area,

small rooms. You can see everything that's going on, a bit of wildlife

behind us. Two years ago they chose local firm,

Unique Windows, to build their conservatory. It cost them �10,000.

He's just across the road from where we live, and I assumed that

if and when a problem arose he would be down here immediately to

sort it out. But within weeks of work being finished their new

conservatory sprung its first leak - and since then they've began

keeping a video diary of their problems. And it's quite a disaster

movie... We had the conservatory put up in

November. The diary begins in January last

year.... After last night's rain, continue. Emptying out the water

that collects at the top of the conservatory has become a regular

chore. Is that a cloth I can see up in

there? Yeah, put the cloth there to absorb the water. Can you hold that

for a second? Yeah, I can. This isn't going to be some trick now,

is it? I feel like I'm going to get soaked. Gosh, careful you're

getting soaked. Good lord! Their video evidence has kept

growing and the couple say they keep complaining to Unique Windows.

And the company has been out several times over the past two

years to try to fix the problems. At one stage they tried a very

unusual method to trace the leak. The crown of the conservatory -

they bubblewrapped it, and taped it up with brown tape. It looked a

hell of a sight. But they said then that that would cure, or they could

isolate the leak. It doesn't sound very scientific? No! It didn't cure

the leak, either. So who exactly are Unique Windows?

Well, here's the man behind the company - Steve Fleetham. He's also

a director of another West Wales firm, Hendre Homes, and he and his

wife Jackie are quite a big noise in the world of horse racing.

Together they own around a dozen race horses. But, according to Mary

and Meurin, the company haven't been racing to put right the

problems in the conservatory. And when Mary's visited their offices,

Mr Fleetham didn't exactly offer a warm welcome.

He just started shouting above me, and he told me that he didn't have

to speak to me because I didn't own the house, and if I didn't get out

of his office now he was going to throw me out.

It was daunting, but the couple were determined not to give up.

September, it was Meurin's turn to pay the company a visit.

Again he asked Mr Fleetham to sort out the leaks, and says he was

assured they would be out to do the job on the next dry day.

The couple have kept count since then - despite the wet autumn, they

say they've had 18 dry days when the repairs could have been done.

He knows what he's doing all the time. He just palms us off with

different dates, different excuses. Well, we've got good news for Mary

and Meirin. Unique Windows have told us they accept the couple

haven't had the service they deserved in the past. They say

they've tried to fix a date to do the work several times, but they've

now arranged to visit them within the next couple of days to put

those leaks right. We'll be checking.

Well, that's it for this week. Next week we're investigating the latest

trend for a night out. Smoking a Shisha pipe - used to be something

you might try out on a holiday abroad. But now shisha bars are

springing up in Welsh cities. We go undercover to find out who's

smoking what, and whether they're breaking the law.