Episode 18 X-Ray

You're watching X-Ray. On tonight's programme: Hello! Rachel's tracking

down the company bosses behind a call centre scandal. High Street

rental shops are on their way out but do online DVD companies come up

with the goods? And the Batacan family wishing for a family reunion.

Hello there. Welcome to the programme. Now if you're planning

to entertain the kids with some DVD's this half term, there aren't

many places left on the High Street where you can hire the latest

blockbuster for a few quid. So we've been checking out those

companies who seem to be offering a great deal. But first, here in

Swansea, quite a few call centres have attracted our attention over

the years. One of them, Lifestyle Claims, stopped trading last autumn.

In this special investigation, Rachel's been finding out what

exactly was going on before the company closed its doors, owing

Hello, my name is Stephanie. I'm calling from Lifestyle Claims. How

are you today? Ever wondered what it's like to work in a call centre,

cold-calling people in their homes and telling them they could be due

a pay-out worth thousands? Well, that's exactly what Stephanie

Graham did for just under two months. It was the 20-year-old's

first full-time job. You would say something like, "You could be due

thousands of pounds back in compensation from your high street

lenders. Have you been to see about it? Have you had your money?"

You've got to keep them on the phone. You're not allowed to hang

up on them. The customer has to hang up on us. All that came to an

end last October when the firm stopped trading. Lifestyle Claims

had been ringing people in their homes and promising to help recover

compensation for mis-sold payment protection insurance for a few

years. In that time, they've clocked up over 200 complaints to

Swansea's Trading Standards. number of complaints that come to

our organisation is the tip of the iceberg. Christine Reith from

Cwmbran is one of those unhappy customers. Lifestyle Claims rang

her in 2010 and convinced her to try to claim back PPI. At first,

they told her there was nothing to pay up-front. But then they

persuaded her to pay on her credit card to speed up her claims.

would take longer unless I paid a charge on a credit card to have a

priority to fast-track me through the system, and then it would only

take about 90 days. She had six claims each costing more than �350.

The total bill to her credit card was �2,400. They promised it was

all risk-free. They said you can't lose because it's on your credit

card and as soon as we get a response back we will automatically

pay it you back, so I said okay and foolishly I gave them my credit

card number.. Did they give you any more impression about how much you

might be looking at? Well, anything up to �2,000 for each claim. At the

call centre, promising thousands was part of the hard-sell.

always said thousands. You had to because if you spoke in thousands,

when it came to the end and you were only asking for �360, it

doesn't sound that much. The other big promise was they'd tell you how

much you'd get within 90 days. were told not to tell them it would

take two years. Don't tell them that, tell them the first bit. The

90 days that it would take to find out how much they would get.

this is where Stephanie was based. One of the two addresses in Swansea

listed for Lifestyle Claims. Although, you'll see on that sign

behind me that it says Cellcom. Cellcom Communications Ltd were the

company that employed Stephanie. They were contracted by Lifestyle

Claims to make many of their calls. She started work there last summer.

You used to have to tell them, a shock tactic is what they called it,

where each bank was fined a certain amount for doing it. You'd tell

them how much. "Oh, Lloyds, they were fined �3.2 billion. That could

be yours." And these are some of the booklets for Lifestyle Claims.

They tell call centre staff how to keep people on the phone. Oh, hello,

is that Mr Jones Wrong number? Well that's okay, as there is a high

chance this will effect you too. It's Karen calling from Lifestyle

Claims. How are you today? We had a big list of objections and the

answers you should give if they were to give them. If they were to

say, "I'm not interested", my answer would have to be, "That's

the reason why I'm calling you", and I'd just carry on with the

script, go back to the script straight away without answering any

more questions. And there were plenty of incentives to make a sale.

This sliding scale starts at �300 a week for three sales, rising to

�1,000 a week if you can make 15 deals. And for the very top sales

people, �1,500 a week for 25 deals. Another former employee who worked

there for a few months last year spoke to us anonymously about how

they were told to do almost anything to get the customer on-

side. If I was speaking to a woman, I would pretend I was roughly the

same age as her. I would pretend I had a husband as well, just make up

things on the spot about my personal life, so we sort of had

something in common. They did tell us to say during rapport building,

if it comes to it, if you think they're going to hang up the phone,

build up that rapport and then say, "Oh, I had PPI. I just got mine

back for so and so amount." And then they would think, I may get

mine back for the same as her. We'll have a go at this, kind of

thing. Were there ever times where you felt the person at the other

end of the phone was vulnerable? one point, I had a woman crying on

the phone to me because her husband had died, and this, that and the

other. I just spoke to her for an hour about nothing, and she was

crying, and I couldn't do it. I had to put the phone down, but I had a

row for that because I didn't take her details. For Christine,

meanwhile, there'd been two years of frustration. She'd had one

successful claim of �100. But as for the �2,400 she'd spent on her

credit card, well, she couldn't have that back until the remaining

five claims were dealt with. And that didn't happen until last

summer. I rang them up, and I said, you know, I expect the money to

come back. The claims have been unsuccessful now, which they

admitted to. And they said, yeah, they would, within 30 days.

behind the scenes, there were mounting problems. Lifestyle Claims

was under pressure from its bank because of the number of

dissatisfied customers trying to get their money back and then from

the Ministry of Justice, which wanted it to stop charging up-front

fees. The turning point for Stephanie was when she failed to

reach her weekly target of three sales. In desperation, she signed

up her own mum, but then had doubts. I went and spoke to my floor

manager. I was like, my mother hasn't heard anything, and he was

like, leave it with me, but he never gave me an answer. I kept

asking and asking and asking, and then they sacked me. But by this

stage, it was all over for the company. In September last year,

the Ministry of Justice banned Lifestyle Claims from charging

customers up-front fees. Weeks later, it was in administration. So

a firm which in its last year appeared to make somewhere between

�7 million and �8 million was gone just like that, leaving a thousand

customers owed �1.1 million. But now, another firm appeared on the

scene. Redhawk Legal bought Lifestyle's old customer list from

the administrator. They, too, used Cellcom Communications to make

their phone calls. And if you're wondering whether these three

companies have any connections, well, Kevin Kearle was one of the

early directors of Lifestyle Claims for a few months back in 2009. He's

still a director at, yes, you guessed it, Cellcom Communications

and last year one of his fellow Cellcom directors also became a

director of Redhawk Legal. Mmmh! What was in it for Redhawk? Well,

they wanted to take the 30% cut of any pay-out the former Lifestyle

customers might get. Our anonymous Cellcom worker was there on the day

it all happened. We were told Lifestyle Claims went into

administration and we were taken into the training room by one of

the managers. He did a massive talk with us and he said, "We now from

today don't know who Lifestyle Claims are. You never worked for

them you don't know any details. You are only carrying on the claims

from the customers they previously produced and you are now Redhawk

Legal Ltd and the only thing you can tell the customer is that

you're taking the claims on from here on in and you don't know

anything else apart from that. You have to take on the mess that

Lifestyle made." So how big a mess are we talking about? We've been

told there was a massive backlog of claims, 16,000 of them, many lying

boxed up around Cellcom Communication's offices. We decided

it was time to pay them a call. We've written to Llifestyle Claims

and Cellcom Communications but they've failed to answer our main

questions. So we're here in person to see if they'll respond now. Are

they upstairs? But there was no sign of Kevin Kearle or anyone else.

Time to leave. So once again, no response. So we've got companies

here who are only too keen to engage you in conversation but when

it comes to engaging with us, they're nowhere near as upfront

with us. A lot of unanswered questions there. Well, those claims

firms are regulated by the Ministry of Justice, who have refused to

give us an interview. They did close down 209 claims firms in a

crack down last year, but clearly there's still some way to go. We'll

keep you posted. Still to come: Find out why Barbara's had to leave

her own home after it was destroyed by damp. Now, I don't know about

you but I like a nice night in. Fire on, feet up, and maybe a nice

film on the TV. But fewer and fewer shops have DVD's you can rent and

even the big daddy of them all, Blockbuster, could soon be gone. So

we sent Rhod to check out the new kids on the block. When the weather

is doing its worst, what better way to spend an evening than on the

sofa with the latest Hollywood offering. With local video shops

closing down, many of us are turning to the internet for our

films. Loads of new entertainment companies have popped up online and

it seems everyone's getting in on the act. You can even get a movie

with your pizza! But are they just as good as the old fashioned

alternative of the video store where you can walk in and pick up

the latest release? I used love of film about it did not work very

well. You never get the prioritised ones. I have used them but they

don't blow it properly. You didn't have much of a choice of current

films. You had to wait one or two years. So we're going to test two

options. Ordering a DVD online to arrive in the post and watching the

films live over the internet. We want to see how the top companies

do when we order the top five DVD releases of the week. And here they

are. At five, it's Lucy's favourite hunk, Tom Cruise, in Rock of Ages.

At four, Lucy would love this, it's Snow White and the Huntsman. At

three, the latest teenage craze, The Hunger Games. At two it's

Lawless, that's more like it. And in at number one, finally, a proper

bloke's action blockbuster, Dredd. So, first up it's the turn of the

companies offering you DVD's through the post. And technology

expert James Rivington has the lowdown on how these services work.

So With a DVD through the post service like LOVE FILM or

Blockbuster, it allows you to manage a wish list of DVD's, Blue

Rays or games and they will literally stick it in the post to

you. You keep those disks for as long as you like and when you're

done with them you post them back and they'll send you the next thing

on the list. These three companies offer this kind of service for a

monthly subscription. Blockbuster Online, Cinema Paradiso and the

biggest player on the block, Love Film. They claim to have thousands

of titles in their libraries including new releases. So can we

order our top five DVD's from these firms on a Wednesday and have at

least one of them through our door in time for our Saturday night in?

Both Blockbuster and Love Film came up with the goods by the Friday

after we ordered, well in time for our Saturday night in. Blockbuster

sent Snow White and the Huntsman and Love Film, The Hunger Games.

But Cinema Paradiso didn't deliver in time for the weekend. Their DVD

turned up six days after we ordered it. They say that's down to delays

in the post and not their service. But why wait three days for a DVD

to arrive when you can watch movies online straightaway? You choose the

one you want you press "Go" and then the movie literally comes down

through your broadband 3G or 4G connection, and you watch it direct

on your device. These companies all offer this service for a monthly

subscription. Love Film Instant, Netflix, Now TV and Picture Box.

And like the firms offering DVD's by post, they claim to have a

selection of movies for you to watch. So all four firms are making

claims that wouldn't look bad on a movie billboard but can they live

up to their own hype? All it takes is a quick check online to see if

our top five films are available. Let's see if Dredd is there. Nope.

What about Lawless. No sign of that one either. But despite their

blockbusting claims, none of them have the top five films in the DVD

charts. Not the VIP treatment we were hoping for. The current

services aren't really ideal for anyone. If you're going to go

through the postal route, the fact that you can't guarantee the latest

movies isn't great. If you're going to go streaming, the fact that the

latest releases simply aren't available on any service isn't

great. The fact is that the movie studios, the TV studios, they want

you to go out into a shop and pay �15 for a DVD because that means

that they get more money for their content. $WHITE So if you're really

desperate to see the latest DVD, you'll still need to get up off

your sofa, find a local rental shop that's still open and pick it up

yourself. So. Now you know. And what are the companies saying?

Blockbuster says it offers customers the latest films faster

than the other firms, and their Top Ticket service is something other

companies don't have. Cinema Paradiso, whose DVD didn't arrive

in time, admit it can be difficult for them to supply popular new

films as a first choice. Love Film say that 94% of their customers get

their top choice through the post but the choice they offer to their

online customers is limited to films made by the studios they have

agreements with. That's also true of NETFLIX. And Now TV say their

customers can view blockbuster releases around six months after

they've ended their cinema run. So if you're thinking of subscribing,

I'd say it's worth checking out the films on offer from each company

Next up it's the online holiday firm that promised one family a

magic deal on flights to a faraway land. Rachel has the story.

I love looking having a good old nose around these kinds of old

curiosity shops because just like Aladdin's cave, you never know what

you're going to find. If I had one of these, I know what my first wish

would be. And no, I'm not going to tell you but I can reveal what the

Batacan family from Pontyclun's wish is - a trip to the Philippines.

Dad Jeffrey is from Manila. He met Rebecca when they both worked on

cruise ships. Since 2001 they have lived happily ever after in

Pontyclun. Now family man Jeff is keen to take his children Megan,

Jack, Maya and Natasha back to his homeland to meet his ten brothers

and sisters. It is important for us, for me, to go back to the

Philippines to see them and see them growing. All together there's

ten of them so when we get together there's quite a lot of us. You have

fun together? We do, absolutely. Oh yes, singing, dancing. Getting to

the Philippines certainly isn't cheap. The family saved hard for

five years in order to spend Christmas 2011 with Jeffrey's

family. Then they made a magical discovery - online travel firm

Holiday Genie claimed they could grant three wishes of convenience,

value for money and expertise. So the couple made a booking. The six

of them would fly from Heathrow to Manila at the end of November and

return home five weeks later. All for just under �3,500. What about

the children, were they excited? Well Maya is packed three months

before we go. Yes, three months. That's how excited she is. She had

a bag packed three months before. But just eight days before they

were due to fly, it seemed like Holiday Genie's magic spell was

broken. We received a phone call from somebody from Holiday Genie,

informing us that our tickets had been cancelled because a third

party had apparently gone into administration. We had no written

confirmation of anything, just that one phone call telling us we would

have to pay an extra �1,000 or to get a full refund. Paying the extra

money wasn't an option for Rebecca and Jeffrey. So Holiday Genie

offered the family a new wish - rather than pay the extra �1,000

for the same dates, they could change their return flights and

stay in Manila for an extra fortnight but they'd still be

paying an extra �600 for the privilege! We couldn't cancel. The

plans had been made, we hadn't seen everybody for so long. So we

decided to pay the extra �600 and stay for longer. They felt forced

into the decision and just days before their holiday, they asked

Holiday Genie for a refund. But they found it almost impossible to

summon any response from the firm about what went wrong. What

concerned us was they phoned us a week before we were due to fly and

we didn't get anything in writing at all, it was all done on the

phone. It just seems... It doesn't feel right at all. But it's not

just Rebecca and Jeffrey who have had their holiday wishes turn sour

after summoning the Holiday Genie. We have found dozens of other

unhappy customers online, many of them complaining that they couldn't

get any answers. Holiday Genie is a member of the travel association

ABTA, which should guarantee good service and offers to help put

things right. We contacted ABTA and they said to leave it for a longer

period, which I then did and still to this day, I have not heard

anything at all. More than a year has now passed since the family

returned home from Manila and while they did manage to collect some

magic memories on the trip, Jeffrey and Rebecca remain out of pocket.

They would still like Holiday Genie to fulfil one last wish and put

things right. For them not to respond to any of the emails or the

letters they've been sent, it just seems really, really unfair.

isn't just their customers that Holiday Genie are reluctant to

speak to. It took us weeks to speak to a manager at their call centre.

When we finally got through, they told us they had already offered

the family a full refund, and they had answered the Batacan's letter

of complaint. But Rebecca and Jeffrey say they have never

received any letters from Holiday Genie. The couple has also written

to ABTA with no success, so we chased them up, too. ABTA has now

promised to investigate Holiday Genie's actions and make sure they

sort things out. We'll be checking! If you're a regular viewer, you'll

know that problems with cavity wall insulation feature on this

programme fairly often. But when we heard about one great grandmother's

five year battle to get her home put right, we had to find out more.

Meet Barbara Davies. She moved to this house in Ammanford with her

family 65 years ago. How long have you lived here? Since I was seven

years old and I am 72 now. So this house must be full of memories?

my memories are here, every one. Barbara's home has been pride and

joy all her life - here she has cared for children, grandchildren

and even great grandchildren. So when a company called Miller

Pattison knocked on her door back in 2005 offering free cavity wall

insulation to make her home warm and cosy, she jumped at the chance.

Now, here on X-Ray we're no strangers to cavity wall insulation,

having heard from dozens of viewers over the years who all believe the

process left their homes damp and dismal. It seems Barbara would be

no exception. Just two years after it was installed, things started to

go wrong and damp patches began appearing around Barbara's house.

It was six months after my husband passed away. The paper was going

black and then in the kitchen the wall had blown behind the fridge

freezer, well, it blew then in the living room. Barbara called out

Miller Pattison who found rubble in the wall cavities. They removed it

and plastered and re-rendered the walls but the damp kept coming back.

I had them back then to take the insulation out and it was coming

out and it was absolutely soaking, but it wasn't solving the problem

for me. Fast forward to 2011 and all of a sudden things got really

bad. Barbara had to enlist the help of her grandson Jamie, who was

shocked to discover they were now dealing with dry rot. When we took

the floor up in this bedroom and we could see what was actually

underneath, it was beyond words of what was going on. The floor didn't

exist. There was nothing there, it had all disintergrated. There were

all these spores, the beams had gone. I was so shocked I didn't

know what to do. She was lying in bed at night balanced on basically

nothing because the floorboards had just putrefied into dust. She could

have just gone straight through and landed downstairs. Barbara moved to

a different bedroom. Just in time. It must have been about 3.00am in

the morning, I heard this almighty crash and when I got up in the

morning, it was the ceiling, coving, all fallen through downstairs.

Horrendous. How did you feel, your house is literally collapsing

around you? My house is falling apart around me and there's nothing

I can do. I have had, excuse me saying it, I have had a hell of a

year of it. Terrible. For months Jamie persevered - telephoning and

emailing Miller Pattison, now known as SIG Energy Management By now it

was 2012 and most of Barbara's house was affected by the damp.

just wanted the house to be repaired. The house wasn't falling

down through no fault of our own, it was purely because of the cavity

wall insulation and we felt it was their responsibility to put it

right. Then suddenly things looked up. SIG agreed to pay another

company �10,000 to fix all the problems. At last it looked like

everything would be put right. It was September and Barbara packed

her bags, her furniture went into storage and she headed off to her

daughter's. But whilst Barbara was optimistic, Jamie wasn't convinced.

If you think of the works that needed doing, we needed two living

rooms redecorated, there's a bedroom, there's a kitchen. The

kitchen itself was costing way over �5,000 so we knew the �10,000

wasn't even going to scratch the surface of what was needed. Then

Jamie was told by SIG's insurers that the kitchen had rising damp

which they claimed wasn't caused by the cavity wall insulation. They

now refused to pay for a replacement kitchen at all. It was

beyond belief, it was ridiculous, because we have had reports to say

that the damage was caused by the CWI. What was your reaction to

that? It was disappointing because we wanted to get my Gran back in

before Christmas. The longest I have ever been away is a fortnight

on holidays. They told me six weeks and I am still here 16 weeks later.

Six years now this has been going on back and forth, back and forth,

and I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy - terrible. Poor Barbara, I

really felt for her. SIG Energy Management, who installed the

insulation, are denying it caused the damp in Barbara's house. But

they have apologised for the time it has taken to deal with it, and

said they will put everything right, including paying for a brand new

kitchen as a gesture of goodwill. It is being installed today. So

after all those months living with her daughter, Barbara should be

able to move back home very soon. Next week - how did Donna end up