Episode 5 X-Ray

You're watching X-Ray, the programme that fights for your rights.

If you've been scammed or dealt a raw deal, we are on your side.

Exposing the truth and tracking down the rogues and we won't take no for

an answer. The roadside car dealer taking

his customers for a ride. With this, it hasn't been

in any sort of accident? We go undercover to expose

the man selling write offs to The brand new house with

a hidden problem. It's so upsetting because this

should have been our family home. Rhod's been checking out ways to

save cash Rachel's on the trail of a Cardiff

car dealer who's eager to sell you a set of wheels but far less keen

on customer rights. When it comes to sales patter,

second-hand car dealers have some But sometimes,

it's what they don't tell you that really counts, like accident

history, is the car a write off? And what sort of service you can

expect from them if things go wrong? One trader who likes to keep

his customers in the dark, Catherine Morgan was tempted

by one of his ads on Gumtree, I just got chatting to him and asked

him if he did it as a one-off or He said his friend did them up,

and he sold them on. She soon discovered that Dale

doesn't bother with having No, the cars he sells are parked up

right here, It was good.

It felt like a really nice car. I met Dale

and Dale was really personable. Really,

I had a good feeling about it. Catherine handed over more than

?2,000 but, within a fortnight, the car started making

a high-pitched noise. The squeal was just so persistent

and horrible, and I think I was also very nervous because the gear

wasn't going into reverse, or you I was nervous that

if I was driving at speed Catherine decided to check her car's

history online and, to her horror, Something she says

Dale Carr never mentioned. It's what's called a Category D

write-off, meaning the insurance company decided it didn't make

financial sense to repair it. She wrote to Dale Carr twice,

demanding her money back, Now she's terrified her accident

damaged-car could be dangerous. To find out just what state it's in,

we called in expert vehicle inspector

Gareth Rees to check it over. Right, Catherine, we have got some

serious issues with this vehicle. Just

behind you there we have a split chassis section and it's within 30cm

of a load-bearing joint, so that's Here we can see serious distortion

and an attempted repair. It's had severe impact damage

and it's twisted And certainly back here we have got

a suspension-retaining bolt, which is starting to cut

into the sub-frame, the whole So that, in my opinion,

in dangerous. Gareth's verdict is damning,

so where does that leave Catherine? By using this car on the road, you

are not only putting yourself at risk but other road users as well,

so my advice to you is that you I didn't realise it

was that dangerous. So not just a write-off

but seriously dangerous. I think it's time to do

some digging on Dale Carr. We find ten recent adverts online,

from Dale Carr and his business All are described as private sales,

which simply isn't true. When we checked, we were in

for a shock because all ten of those Five are the least serious

Category D write-offs, Four are Category C -

repairing them would cost more than And one is

a far more serious Category B. By law, it should have been scrapped

or broken up for spare parts. It's sustained damage that would

necessitate that the frame Later in the programme,

we go undercover to see for ourselves exactly what

Dale Carr tells his customers. Say with this,

if something went wrong. I won't give no warranty on it but

nothing's going to happen like that. And if you're thinking

of buying a second-hand car, there are plenty of things you can

do to check before you buy. For just a couple of pounds you can

carry out an HPI check which will tell you if a car has been written

off or if it has finance on it. And, last month,

the Government launched a brand new All you have to do is enter

a car make and registration number and you'll instantly see its MOT

history and if it's ever failed You can also check

the mileage to see if its genuine. So it could save you a lot

of hassle. The website address is

on the screen now. We'll also put the details

on our website. The Carmarthenshire couple

whose plans for a big family Ah!

Wow! These are the two pipes that

our actually in our garden. And if you need our help give us

a call 03703 334 334. Now, when it comes to household

expenses, you'd expect to fork out to heat your home or fill up

your car but it seems lots of people are also feeling the pinch when it

comes to using their printer. We set Rhod a challenge, to check

out those costly cartridges. Crikey, better not forget that one

but what can you get And she's already got

the designer perfume. And, this year,

I'm really pushing the boat out, Don't worry, I haven't suffered

a technical malfunction. I'll re-think

the anniversary present. Believe it or not, drop for drop,

you're looking at ?150 a litre for Dom Perignon, ?960 a litre for

Chanel No 5 but a whopping ?1,700 a litre for standard black ink from

one of the leading manufacturers. Mum Bev Reed

from Newport runs a chocolate making business and that means printing

a lot of flyers and menus. How much would you say you spend

on it? In a month, on cartridges, does one

batch last you the whole month? It varies depending

on how much printing I am doing. If I'm printing full colour then

it's going to be like ?40 a month, So are printer inks just

a licence to print money? We're going to test two of

the most popular budget printers. A nifty little Canon Pixma,

which costs ?25 and an Epson Both manufacturers recommend you

only print with their pricey inks. To buy a new set of black

and colour cartridges for the Canon, That's only ?4 cheaper than

the printer! And to buy new Epson-branded

cartridges, That's just ?8 less than

the printer. But there is one way to

save yourself some cash. You can buy remanufactured

cartridges, recycled casings We bought a set for the Canon

for ?13.95. And other companies make

cheaper alternatives too. So we're trying some for the Epson

which cost just ?5.51. Time to find out how many

pages you get for your pound. Using the official industry test,

we're going to compare branded and unbranded cartridges to see how

long they last and While they whir away,

I'm off to meet a man who knows Now buying branded ink,

does that mean you actually get Yes, it does, in my opinion,

but if it's printing everyday things like letters and reports and things

like that, you're probably not going Some manufacturers warn that

unbranded inks can damage your printer but, if that happened,

it could almost be cheaper to When you're buying the printer,

don't just take the headline cost of the machine itself but look at the

cost of running it on the inks as well, how much the cartridges are

and work out how much it is going to Both of our colour printers have

been busy all day, Using

the branded ink we got 185 pages. We only got 137 pages

from the remanufactured cartridges. But because they're cheaper,

the cost was still lower, Using the branded provider we got

171 pages, making it 14p per sheet. But with the cheaper alternative we

got a whopping 351 pages, But here's the real test -

can we convince Bev to switch? I have got the result here

of our test, now one of these has been printed

using a branded ink cartridge, the Have a good little look,

which is which? I would say that's the branded

and that's the unbranded. Because the colour is

a lot brighter on this one. Well,

you have actually chosen the cheaper So looking at these results,

could you be tempted now to go I certainly think so, looking

on those results, definitely. We asked the companies why

their cartridges cost so much. Canon told us they work hard to keep

costs down and customers who print a lot can buy extra large inks with

a higher yield. But Epson, whose ink worked out

nine times more expensive than the Now, it's Bonfire night on Thursday

and here in Bangor, and across Wales, people are

stocking up on fireworks. Well, Geraint Hughes is from

North Wales Fire service. The problem, Lucy, is this time of

year people are obviously wanting to purchse fireworks for Bonfire night

and out on the market there are cheap imported fireworks which don't

meet the current standards and which can cause a risk to

the people who use them. So how can you tell the difference

between a genuine good-quality Well, I've got a couple

of packets of genuine fireworks here, Lucy, you can see they are

contained within a pack, one thing people can be looking at,

they're buying them as a pack. Secondly, there should be

instructions on the back of the firework, how to use it and the

instructions are written in English. More importantly, there should be

some indication that it meets the standard, in this instance it

clearly displays the certification, the CE mark or the British Standard

is displayed on the firework. And where are these fake

fireworks being sold? Unfortunately, there is evidence

that fake ones are being sold out of the backs of vans, for example,

or you may have retailers opening up in the period leading up to bonfire

night that sell fireworks and selling them cheaply,

which should give a suggestion that And how dangerous

can these fakes be? The risk, with a fake firework,

is that firework could go off at any time and shower an

individual with burning particles, it can lead to some serious

injuries and potentially be fatal. If you have to have fireworks

at home, ensure you buy from reputable dealer and ensure that you

follow the advice on the box. And if you're concerned

about fireworks you may have bought, or you've seen any dubious ones

for sale, get in touch with your local Trading Standards

department or Crimestoppers. Next,

Rachel's been to Carmarthenshire where a new house had an unwelcome

surprise for its owners. and when developer Haywood Homes

built some smart new houses on the edge of town, Phil and Victoria

Ashley were eager to look around. A lot of the estates that we know

of are sort of crammed together, With three children,

the Ashleys were looking for large At ?200,000, it was the most

expensive house on the estate. The house is actually

on such a large plot, obviously the It was, you know,

the fact we could make the house bigger and, obviously,

extend to the size of our family. What was the vision then

for this massive plot? Well, long-term we would have had

two rooms on the top and the bottom, They even discussed their dreams

with the owner of Haywood Homes. We actually had

a meeting here with Mr Haywood and explained our intentions for the

future, why it was ideal for us and So he thought it would be

a good idea? He said, fantastic,

it would look stunning. But they had no idea that lurking

beneath their lovely new home. It was a problem which only surfaced

months after buying their house, when Haywood Homes sent Phil

and Victoria a copy of their plans. It stated that there was pipes

in the garden. Not just pipes,

they were massive surface-water One of their neighbours took

photos during the build, which These are the two pipes that

are actually in our garden. They are that big that you

could walk through them. There's another photograph

and they're massive, Phil and Victoria were furious

that the developers had never This is the information hand book

that was supplied by Haywood Homes and, if we look through it,

it asks about any adverse rights, easements or any cables wires or

pipes and the answer is no. Yeah, in black and white it

tells you there are none. And the big pipes meant

another big problem. Phil and Victoria signed a deed of

easement allowing the council to access the garden.

The worst thing was, nothing could be built on top of them.

It was the end of their dream to extend their home.

Haywood Homes say the Ashley's only mentioned

an extension after they bought the house but the couple dispute this.

If we knew then that the pipes were there, we wouldn't

When they complained, the developers said it was

the couple's solicitor's fault for not conducting proper searches.

I just hope they have the decency to try and resolve this.

Because that's all we've wanted, we haven't wanted anything else.

Feeling they were getting nowhere, the Ashleys took their case to

The ombudsman ruled in the couple's favour.

They agreed that, because Haywood Homes hadn't told them about the

But the ruling wasn't legally binding and Haywood Homes have

It's now been six years since the Ashleys bought

their house and they're still not living in it because it's not big

And they fear the giant pipes could make it almost impossible to sell.

It's so upsetting because this should have been our family home.

Well, Haywood Homes have told us the Ashleys' situation is 'regrettable'.

They admit their information handbook was written three years

before the couple bought their house and it hadn't been

updated to show the drains, but say it also clearly states that

They also say the couple didn't tell Mr Haywood about the plans for the

Haywood Homes say plans showing the drains were on display

at the site office, and the onus was on the couple and their solicitors

The Ashleys insist they did do this though, and the legal

As for compensation, Haywood Homes aren't offering any,

they say they will help the Ashleys explore the option of building

an extension on a different part of the house, but the couple say

Now, back to our investigation into a dealer selling cars

Dale Carr, yes that is his name, is a dealer who advertises cars online

He doesn't have a forecourt or anything boring like that, instead

he parks up his cars beside this lake in Cardiff, and invites people

Catherine Morgan fell for his sales pitch, but he failed

to tell her that her Nissan Micra had been badly damaged in a crash.

I'm just angry more than anything, that he was potentially putting

Mr Carr seems to specialise in selling write offs which,

as a trader, he must disclose to his customers.

Time to find out exactly what Dale Carr tells people about his cars.

Our researchers call him up posing as customers.

They ask him about the history of several cars we know are write

So, our researchers arrange to meet him face to face

In his adverts, Dale had claimed to be a private seller,

but he soon admits he's a builder who sells cars as a sideline.

And he parks them here because a garage would cost too much.

One of the cars Dale is selling, this Ford Fiesta, is a category B

write off and is showing up on checks as having been scrapped.

But what would Dale tell our researchers about it?

A few days before passing its MOT, the car had failed because of

damage to its structure which had seriously affected its strength.

We then asked Dale where we'd stand if anything went wrong with

I won't give no warranty on it but nothing's going to happen like that.

So, any problems with our accident damaged car, and we're on our own.

A clear breach of the law for a dealer,

He's a trader and there are obligations that flow

from that, he's claiming he will not accept goods once they are sold,

he is in clear breach of his obligations as imposed

Dale then shows us a blue Fiesta, which we know is a less serious

But when we ask about its accident history, he tells

Not checking a vehicle's history before selling it is another

He has a duty under the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading

Regulations to exercise professional diligence, each car that is being

sold for use you would expect it to be safe and so some basic checks

about the history of a vehicle would be entirely

Our researcher then asks Dale whether he'll be getting any more

I wonder if it could it be this one, which we saw on a recovery truck,

Looks like more than a bit of wing mirror damage to me.

Some of the laws Dale seems to be ignoring

They are matters that can go to the Crown Court

and are imprisonable up to a maximum sentence of two years..and

also can be subject to an unlimited fine or both.

We asked Dale Carr to explain his actions, but he didn't admit to

He claimed there was a 'mix up' with the Category B Fiesta,

but there was 'no harm done' as he's now taken it off the market.

He also said his cars have new MOTs and are roadworthy.

But Dale didn't explain why, even though he's a dealer,

he fails to tell his customers they're buying write offs which they

So we've been parked up outside Dale Carr's home all morning,

we were hoping to catch him before he went out to work.

There's been no sign of him up until now, so the decision is we're

No sign of life because the curtains are closed.

Hi there, is it possible to speak to Dale Carr?

We've been here since pretty early and he's not left.

Okay, so we understand that that is his home address, but the lady who

answered the door, could be partner, is telling us he's not available to

So no real answers there, but his cars are still for sale, though.

He may not be prepared to tell you the true accident history

This one was written off as a Category C in June.

And this another Category C write off.

Now you know exactly what you're getting when you buy from Dale Carr.

And we get lots of complaints from people who've had about

So straight after the programme, vehicle expert Gareth Rees will

doing a live advice chat on the BBC Cymru Wales Facebook page,

So if you want his advice on the dos and don'ts of buying a car, and the

warning signs to look out for, send him a message before 8.30pm tonight.

And remember, please don't mention any company names.

And that's it for this week, but remember we're here to help you,

Next week Beryl is a seasoned traveller but when she had to chair

an airline with a complete stranger she was lost for words. They said,

sorry, we've only got one bedroom. They said, sorry, we've only got one