Episode 22 X-Ray

Have you been ripped off? Conned? Or just short changed? We're here to

fight for your rights. At the end of their tether. Spotting the latest

scams - and making sure you make the most of your money. And at my age

I'm effectively having to sell the house and the equity will pay off

the majority of my debt and I start from nothing. Exposing the rogues,

confronting the conmen - we're here to help you fight back.

Tonight - we confront the Swansea call centre boss whose company took

thousands of pounds from customers. You people have signed terms and

conditions, I believe. They have been misled by your salespeople.

The e-cigarettes which give you more of a kick than you'd expect. About

ten, maybe 15 minutes later, there was a massive bang, like a firework

going off. And Rhodri turns detective. This is

the mysterious case of the missing birthday present. We did it go and

whodunnit? Tonight we're in Ebbw Vale - where

we're going to be hearing about a few ways to save money on your

holidays. But first - companies which are leaving customers

thousands of pounds out of pocket and making promises they can't

possibly keep. Rachel has been investigating this latest cold

calling menace. Roll up, roll up, roll up. This is

the Too Good To Be True Claims company. We will save you money.

Have a look at that - 10% of your mortgage back and your credit card

debts written off. How does that sound? Good. I'd be very suspicious.

It is too good to be true. Too Good To Be True. It certainly sounds it.

But there's a real call centre in Swansea operated by companies making

exactly these claims - and charging customers thousands in upfront fees.

Nearly a year and a half ago a company operating as CCS Advice was

based there - and it was targeting people in debt - like David Parry

from Pontypridd. I was in a vulnerable spot without a doubt, you

know, my debt was gradually increasing. Probably across my

credit cards at the time about ?20,000-?25,000. So when CCS Advice

rang out of the blue David was desperate to hear anything which

could help ease his financial plight. I resisted the urge to put

the phone down, as I normally would and tolerated it for a few moments

and the longer the conversation went on, the more plausible it sounded.

They had a number of customers who had had their debt written off due

to breaches in the Consumer Credit Act. And they were getting a high

success rate of getting credit cards and loans written off. For David it

sounded like a lifeline. But it wasn't going to be cheap. The

company wanted a ?3,800 upfront fee, with the promise that he'd have his

money back within a few months. It scared the heck out of me to be

honest, but II can get one of my credit cards written off, just one,

which was easily attainable from what they were saying, then I'd be

in a much better position. I would have had a bit of disposable income

to have a bit of a better life for me and my children. But the quick

pay out never materialised - and David is now in worse financial

trouble than ever. I was just about treading water, and reducing the

balance. I'm now, as I say, worse off. I'm actually in a position now

where I'm having to sell my house. I was going to rent my house. And at

my age I'm effectively having to sell the house and the equity will

pay off the majority of my debt and I start from nothing. Can I speak to

the householder please? The company David was dealing with was called

Claim Credit Services Ltd - run from the basement of this building in

Swansea. It's had various trading names - but the tactics stayed much

the same. When they rang Melanie Forrer offering a refund on her

mortgage they were trading as CCS Review. They told me that I would be

entitled to compensation of I think it was about ?14,000 and after their

fees I'd receive about ?10,000. She paid them ?2,400 - but when she

asked for her money back - she discovered another company had taken

over. They checked the files and they said we had no record of you. I

said you must have a record of me, you are CCS Review. At that point,

they said no, we're CCS-hyphen-Review. We're a different

company, we're nothing to do with the other company, we're based in

Poole in Dorset and the other company are in Swansea. So I said

well you all seem to have Welsh accents. That's because the calls

were still coming from that basement in Swansea - although it was now run

by a different company with headquarters in England. Melanie did

manage to get her money back through them. I want to find out if the

claims being made by this new company any more realistic. Going

off the minimal claim value there you are looking at getting

compensation back of just over ?25,000. It's 25,252. And I've got a

few questions for the man behind the company which took David's money.

Nicholas Harle? We're from X-Ray. Why have you been misleading your

customers? You've got the wrong person, sorry. We haven't got the

wrong person. It's Nicholas Harle, isn't it? Sorry, no.

And you can see the shocking claims which that call centre made to

Rachel later in the programme. Now, if you're booking your summer

holiday you may be booking a hire car to get around when you're there.

It's not something many of us do very often. So guess what? The car

hire companies have plenty of tricks up their sleeve to bump up the

price. Well, travel writer Tom answer is with me now. Let's talk

first of all about the fuel tank because this is one area where we

can be caught out, isn't it? Well, something to watch out for with car

hire companies now days especially budget companies is when they try to

loan you the car with a full tank of fuel that you can then return to

them empty. Now that fuel is going to cost more than you are able to

buy for elsewhere in the country that you're renting the car in and

you're never going to use it all up, so you're going to end up returning

the car back to them with some fuel left in there which they will gladly

sell on to somebody else for the same price again. Yeah, you don't

want to do that. OK, let's take a look in the back of the car. The

child's car seat, an essential piece of kit isn't it if you've got kids.

Any advice on keeping the costs down? It's another one of those

little extras, It'll be about ten or 11 quid a day, can be even more and

do you know what you can take one of these on the plane for a tenner and

it's going to be your own one and you know exactly how to fit it into

that car. Now, in the front, we've got a sat nav. You may well need one

of those if you're exploring a foreign country. Any advice on that?

Well, these are again another little add on but it is far cheaper and

more economical to try and take care of yourself. Tenner a day but for 25

quid you can rent one privately for two weeks. You can also quite easily

re-condition your own to work in European countries. But you know

what? You're on holiday, why not go with the traditional method of a

paper map and just get lost in a beautiful country you travel to! The

excess waiver. Do you really need one of those? Most car hire

companies are going to include a collision damage waiver but this

means there will still be an excess. A big excess of an average of about

700 quid. You can pay for the excess to be waivered completely but this

is going to cost you again at least a tenner a day with most companies.

You can get private damage excess waivers from other companies online

from as little as 25 quid per week, maybe even less. That's really great

advice, Tom, thank you. Now, when things get lost in the

post, it can be really frustrating. But for one family, it became a bit

of a detective story - as Rhodri's been finding out.

This is the case of the missing birthday present. It's a tale of

mystery and intrigue-where did it go and who done it. The victim in this

mystery - Lucy Myers Sleight, a business development manager from

Quakers Yard near Treharris. Last October she and husband Keith

treated themselves to a little getaway. It was Lucy's Birthday so

on their return they thought they'd come home to a few nice surprises.

When we got back we actually only found one or two cards and there

was, you know the one we expected to see from my mum nothing was there at

all. Keith's mum Barbara lives near Leeds. She'd been to the local post

office, popped ?50 cash in a card and paid ?4.10 to send it via the

First Class Signed For service. Yes, I could've put it through the bank

but I like, it's not the same really is for a Birthday present. I like

the excitement of them opening something and seeing what's inside

and what have you. Barbara told them she's sent something - so they were

looking out of it. -- looking out for it. She's very good to be

honest, you know she'd sent it in advance so that it would be there in

time. So when we got back from our weekend away and we looked through

the cards and we could see that her's wasn't there it was a little

bit confusing as to what had happened. So Keith went online to

track the present. The website revealed that the card had been

delivered to the right address and signed for in the name of Myers

Sleight. But the signature was like nothing they'd ever seen before-so

who had signed for it? Well, when I saw the signature it was

unrecognisable really, it didn't look like a signature, it just

looked like a couple of letters. Obviously it didn't resemble our

signature at all-we weren't here. I was really perplexed at that point

as to where the card had actually gone. I thought, oh, has somebody

been stood on our doorstep waiting for the postman and stolen it or

something like that? So the couple decided to do some detective work.

Keith went off to investigate at the local delivery office in Pontypridd.

And Lucy asked the neighbours if they knew anything about it. But

both trails went cold. With still no trace of the card they filled in an

official Royal Mail compensation form to try and claim back the money

they had lost. And that's how the mystery was solved. The Royal Mail

wrote to Barbara and the identity of the letter signer was revealed. It

was a postman. He'd signed for it himself and he said posted it

through their door. Unbelievable. But Royal Mail wouldn't give the

family their money back. Every letter we've received has been, you

know, blah blah blah we've looked into it, end of story, we can't do

anymore. Well, Royal Mail says it has

disciplined the postie concerned but they've not been sacked. They say

that Lucy's mum used the wrong service to send cash - it went first

class signed for - when it should have gone Special Delivery

Guaranteed. If it had it would have been covered for the loss. But the

Royal Mail have now agreed to refund the ?50, so Lucy can have that

special treat after all. Now, you might have seen people

smoking things like these - e cigarettes. There's been lots of

debate over there health benefits - but not so much has been said about

the risk of them exploding. Lucy's been finding out more.

Electronic cigarettes. More than a million people are using them and

the market is booming. But they're controversial, and some pubs and

restaurants have banned them. As for the long-term impact on health,

well, the jury's still out. That's not what's troubling Keirran

Francis and his family in Neath. A month ago a friend came round and

asked to charge her e-cigarette in his kitchen. About 15 minutes later,

there was a massive bang, like a firework going off. First thing, we

turned the electric off by the mains to obviously, just in case it was an

electrical fault, and then scarpered into the kitchen and realised then

that it was the e-cigarette that did actually blow up. Basically, it's

shot across the room, caused a little of damage to the window sill,

it's melted parts of the floor. Have you thought about what could have

happened if you weren't here? If we were out, obviously, the house would

have gone up in flames, but more importantly if we were here all in

bed then obviously it could have cost, cost our lives. A Florida man

is recovering from severe injuries to his mouth and face after an

electronic cigarette exploded in his mouth. Cases of exploding cigarettes

have been reported around the world. I was charging one of my electronic

cigarette batteries via the USB cable and check out what happened.

Look, the damn thing exploded! They're a problem across Britain too

- and they caused a blaze at this Derbyshire nursing home which left

one woman dead. And X-Ray has learned of at least six other cases

dealt with by fire-fighters in Wales in the past two years, and that

could just be the tip of the iceberg if more people aren't reporting

incidents. In my left hand we have got the remains of the rechargeable

battery. Then we have got the actual cigarette. So how are these fires

starting then? The users charge their e-cigarettes too long. Unlike

other rechargeable batteries like in mobile phones for example they

aren't fitted with a default setting which switches off the charger to

prevent the battery from overcharging. There's also people

using different components to charge different e-cigarettes so that's a

cause in itself because they're set at different ratings. What do you

think needs to be done to find out more about what's causing this? It's

obvious that more testing needs to be carried out and maybe more

regulation needs to brought in. Trading Standards are investigating

the problem - and this lab in Blackwood is among the first to

conduct tests. Overseeing this test is senior safety engineer Leigh

Picton. Hi, Leigh. Hi. So, what's going on here? Um, basically, we are

measuring the surface temperatures of these e-cigarettes using these

temperature sensors, and we'll be monitoring the temperatures using

this graph and what we'll be looking for is any sharp rises in

temperature, and that could indicate that something is going wrong with

the batteries. As the test progresses, one of the e-cigarette

chargers appears to be heating up more than the others. What does it

show you? Straightaway, looking at that graph, I can see a spike there.

This spike here, this was basically the temperature of this particular

charger. The battery was initially empty so it was an initial surge of

power. But the fact that it eased off, you're satisfied that these

devices are safe? Yeah. In this instance, because the temperature

just started to decrease, it's considered safe. If the voltage did

not drop off as you can see here, then what can happen is temperatures

increase, increase and increase until the battery potentially could

rupture. With more testing, it's hoped that e-cigarettes can be made

safer but until then, users need to take care. It's important we get the

message out and say, buy them from reputable sources, make sure you

don't mix and match, and don't overcharge them, don't leave them

unattended when you're charging them.

If you do anything on the internet, you will have ticked those endless

boxes which say, I agree to the terms and conditions. Pages and

pages of waffle usually and most of the time we just tick. But ignoring

the boring bits of a web page can be expensive as Lucy's been finding

out. We all know the dangers of e-mail

scams, fake websites and virus threats. But when we're using the

websites of well-known companies, we can let our guard down. That can be

expensive. Back in September, paramedic Malcolm Morrison used the

Trainline.com to buy tickets for a trip to London for him and his wife

Sue. A few days later the website sent us another e-mail asking if we

wanted to buy some West End show tickets and we thought that was a

good idea, so we did. Malcolm entered his credit card details and

that's when another window popped up with some great news - he was

entitled to a free gift. One stuck out, Lift Serum Pro, which is

supposed to be better than Botox and so I thought well, my wife might

like it. Bet she was pleased about that! Malcolm pressed on and was

asked to pay ?1.99 postage. I had my credit card in my hand so I paid the

?1.99 postage and there was obviously this little box you had to

tick to accept the terms and conditions of the offer which you

always do on the internet, so I ticked that. So Malcolm and Sue went

off to enjoy their weekend in London. When we come back, the

package was there, inside was this Lift Serum Pro. I gave it to my wife

and I thought that was the end of that. Malcolm had paid the?1.99

postage for the sample, but when he checked his statement the next

month, he had a nasty surprise. There was ?85.00 gone out to the

same company and I thought, what an earth is this? I thought there's

been a mistake, apparently that terms conditions box I'd ticked,

I'd agreed for them, after 14 days, to take ?85.00 out to pay for that

first supply, and worse than that, I was going to receive another supply

every month until I asked them to stop. I was suckered into this one.

So how did Malcolm fall for this? I'm asking consumer law expert Huw

Evans to look at the website. You go onto the Lift Serum Pro website and

at first glance you can see why he thought he was signing up for ?1.99.

You've just got to read the first line of the small print, you

wouldn't think you'd need to read any further, it says we will send

you a 30 day supply of the product for just shipping and handling fee

of ?1.99. Then you've got above, the prominence, get your risk free trial

today. It's only when you read a lot further down in the small print at

the bottom of this page that you see this sun of ?84.71. It's not

prominent, you are directed towards ?1.99. The issue that you have to

pay this extra amount on top of the ?1.99 is not mentioned in any

prominent form whatsoever. I could be fooled by that. Is this illegal?

On the face of it, I think we have misleading selling here, and that it

should be stopped. We wrote to Lift Serum Pro's head office in Las Vegas

but they've not responded to any of our letters or e-mails.

Thetrainline.com which is the website that Malcom says he was

using when he saw the Lift Serum Pro pop up, says it has nothing to do

with that company and it doesn't allow any pop up adverts on its

booking confirmation page. Earlier we met victims of a company

which made big promises to cut customers debts, then failed to

deliver. Time for Rachel to pose as a customer and hear the sales pitch

for herself. David Parry is a victim of a Swansea

company cold Claim Credit Services. He was deeply in debt when they

cold, offering to wipe out his credit card balances. But they

wanted a fee of nearly ?4,000. Now ease worse off than ever. I was just

about treading water, and reducing the balance. I'm now, as I say,

worse off. I was going to rent my house out. I'm a chilly in a

position now where I'm having to sell my house. At my age, I'm

effectively having to sell the house and the equity will pay off the

majority of my debt and I start from nothing. The company that took

David's money had this mild Nicholas Harle as its director. It was based

in the basement of this listed building in Swansea. It has no

connection with the other companies based there. This is a place with a

bit of history as a call centre. It used to be home to one of misty

Harle's businesses, Consortium Reclaim. They were on X-Ray a few

years ago. Then came CCS Advice, CCS Review, and most recently

CCS-Review. That last one is a chilly a different company and it's

not run by Nicholas Harle but it works out of the same call centre

and offers the same services. Are the claims made by this company any

more realistic than the last? I ring them and tell them I'm up to my neck

in debt, and desperate. We specialise in financial hardship and

in regards to the misselling of mortgages as well. This is how we

can get compensation for clouds like yourself. Fantastic! Compensation,

just what I need when I'm in debt. They're going to make some big

promises. First up, a massive reduction in my debts. Going off the

minimal claim value there, you're looking at getting compensation

back. If you want to write this down for me, it's just over ?25,000. It's

?25,252. That's just on the mortgage. He then promises nearly

?25,000 off my credit card debts. With the mortgage agreement, that is

a lot of money back for you. Then obviously, with the debt getting

eliminated, it is like a ?50,000 swing for you too, isn't it? Second,

we have to pay a ?3,200 fee but they'll charge that to my credit

cards and it'll be wiped out, too. The ?3214 is gone with the credit

card debt you have. There's nothing left for you to pay on that. Next

up, I'll have the money in just a few months. Right, well what's the

month today? It's January today, call it say start of February.

You're probably looking at April to get the money back. So are these

claims realistic? I've come to ask an expert. Processing the claim

forwards and obtaining compensation within 90 days then. Is that

feasible? It's wholly unrealistic. A mortgage misselling claim could,

certainly if it turned into litigation, go on for up to 18

months. The notion that you could get compensation back in that sort

of timescale is ridiculous. We have a 100% success rate. With the FSA

assessment, we haven't had an unsuccessful outcome. He is giving

the impression that they have done this for 28,500 people. They've

never had an unsuccessful case. What do you make of that? On the face of

it, it seems to be a completely wild and unrealistic claim. No lawyer is

100% successful. It's just unrealistic. You have got a business

which is claiming to be professional, which is behaving in a

thoroughly unprofessional manner. Preying on vulnerable, financially

distressed people, offering them a service which they must know they

can't realistically deliver on, and in a timescale which is also wholly

unrealistic. David Parry faces losing his house after falling for a

similar sales pitch from the company which used to operate that call

centre. He gave them nearly ?4,000 when he was deeply in debt. Now I

want to find out what happened to his money. Time to pay a visit to

director Nicholas Harle. Nicholas Harle - we're from X-Ray. Why have

you been taking thousands of pounds for a service you can't deliver? I

think you've got the wrong person. No I haven't, It's Nicholas Harle.

Why have you been misleading your customers? You've got the wrong

person, sorry. We haven't got the wrong person, it's Nicholas Harle

isn't it? Sorry, no But he finally remembers who he is. You signed for

a letter here in the name of Nicholas Harle. OK, yeah. But can he

remember what happened to David's money? Your member of staff told him

there was no wind, no fee. He hasn't won but ease paid the fee. Nearly

?4,000. Ease never seen that money again. You'll have to speak to the

legal representative. I don't want to speak to a legal representative,

I want to speak to you. You're the director of the company. I'm unable

to comment on it, sorry Tell me your staff haven't been misleading

people. I'm unable to comment on it, sorry. Why are you unable to

comment? If you're the mild whose name is registered to the company,

why aren't you prepared to talk? You're prepared to ring people up in

their homes and mislead them and get them to pay over thousands of pounds

to your company, but you're not prepared to sit here and answer

questions. Do you know what that makes you look like? Spineless! So

you've got nothing to say to the people who are thousands of pounds

in debt? No. Because of you and your company. These people have signed

terms and conditions I believe. They were misled. They were misled by

your sales people. I don't think that's the case. Obviously I

apologise if somebody's lost money but I don't think that's the case.

You apologise if people have lost money? Are you going to give them

their money back? I don't have their money. So who's got the money,

because somebody's got it? I don't know, sorry. So that's Nicholas

Harle, a mild who's quite prepared to disturb you at home and ask you

lots of personal questions, but he really doesn't like it when you try

and do it to him. So that was the mild in charge of

running the call centre when David lost his money. By the time Rachel

rang, it was a different company and another mild in charge - Simon

Helliwell from Dorset. He didn't respond to our letters. Since our

investigation, his company has a new trading name - The Full Financial

Review. Let us know if you get a call from them. We'll see if they've

cleaned up their act. Next week, they promised her a

lifetime guarantee after she spent thousands on laser eye surgery. Now

they've changed their mind. It's the worst thing I ever did, Until then -

if you have anything you want us to investigate, give us a call.

Hello, I'm Ellie Crisell with your 90 second update. There's still no

sign of a Malaysia Airlines plane that suddenly disappeared three days

ago. The search area has been widened but so far no wreckage has

been found. Officials say it's an unprecedented mystery. The latest