Episode 6 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're on your side -

exposing the truth and tracking down the rogues.

And we won't take no for an answer.

Tonight, we're on the hunt for a rogue letting agent who's left

a trail of misery behind him.

We're from BBC Wales' X-ray programme.

I can't believe he's just walking around fine, and I just want to say,

"Do you realise everything you put my mum and dad through?"

Beryl thought she was jetting off for the trip of a lifetime, but her

Canadian holiday hit turbulence.

They came and said, "Sorry, we've only got one bedroom.

You'll have to share."

Half-an-hour later they said, "We've only got one bed.

You'll have to share a bed as, well."

Got my van, I've got my baseball hat.

I think I'll call myself Rhod's Reliable Parcels!

And Rhod becomes a courier for the day.

What could possibly go wrong!

First tonight, Rachel's been to Monmouthshire,

where a rogue letting agent has been letting down a lot of people.

He's the lettings agent everyone is after, but not for his houses.

He's taken my money.

He's taken other people's money.

My mum had actually put really nice lights in for when he moved in,

and he'd actually taken them all.

But it seems he didn't leave a forwarding address.

Do you know where I can find Neil Bradbury?

The Monmouthshire village of Portskewett was

a fabulous place to grow up.

Yasmin Jones has loads of happy memories.

We came here when I was one, I think, and it was always

a really nice family home and I've got loads of really good family

memories from here.

And she had good memories of their neighbour, Neil Bradbury.

We all got on really well.

This is a really close neighbourhood.

Everyone knows everyone.

Neil Bradbury ran this letting agency in Chepstow.

When Yasmin's parents moved to Scotland,

he didn't just find tenants, he rented their house himself.

He actually made the contract and everything

for his letting agreement here.

At the time, obviously, my mum thought that was

an amazing idea - she didn't have to go and find someone to let out

the property for her.

It all seemed to fall into place.

But Neil Bradbury wasn't going to be a dream tenant.

Next door neighbours and friends, they were telling us that there was

police coming here and debt collectors going around

the neighbourhood, so my mum and dad got really concerned about it.

Yasmin's parents were getting increasingly desperate.

He stopped paying rent and was ignoring texts from her mum.

Neil, I need to speak you ASAP!

He wouldn't return any of my mum's phone calls, he wasn't paying

his rent and that was it, then.

The rent was months overdue and Yasmin's family decided it was

time to evict him.

Yasmin was the first to go to the repossessed house.

I was really nervous about coming into the house

and what I was going to find.

At first she couldn't even get in.

A key was snapped in the lock.

Finally, a locksmith opened the door.

Literally, my heart sank, like I remember looking up

the stairs and all the banister was snapped and fallen through and I

remember my dad building that.

I walked then into the first room which is

the living room and just all along the room was just bags of rubbish.

I looked up at the ceiling, all the white fittings had been taken off,

it was just bare wires hanging down and my mum had actually put really

nice lights in for when he moved in and he'd actually taken them all.

He'd also taken the washing machine.

My mum had left a dining room table with leather

chairs and that was all gone.

The happy home of Yasmin's childhood was no more.

My mum always kept it amazingly clean.

My dad did all the decorating and built everything in here.

All that was destroyed.

The family say Neil Bradbury owes them more than ?6,000.

I can't believe that he's just walking around fine

and we're having to deal with this.

As soon as I see him, I'm so angry and I just want to say,

like, "Do you realise everything you put my mum and dad through?"

But Neil Bradbury's not just a bad tenant who left

his landlords out of pocket.

I've been investigating his letting business

and it seems that the Jones' family problems are the tip of an iceberg.

Much more on that later.

Remember, if you've got a story you'd like us to investigate,

give us a call on 03703 334 334.

Still to come:

When deliveries go wrong - we'll hear some of your horror stories.

It was completely smashed up.

Nothing happened.

It just didn't get delivered.

Before that, I've been to Anglesey to meet a globe-trotting grandmother

who was let down by her airline, not once, but three times!

When you're jet-setting around the globe with international

airlines, you want to feel sure that you're well looked after

on those long distance journeys.

Especially, if you're a passenger who needs a little extra help.

If you look on Air Canada's website, it is very proud

of what it calls its 'core values'.

One of these, it says, is to "Make every customer feel valued".

But a nightmare journey for one disabled passenger made her

feel anything but.

Last year, 72-year-old grandmother Beryl Jones was planning a trip

of a lifetime to Canada.

I wanted to go to Vancouver and then from Vancouver to

Nova Scotia, stopping at various places where I used to be.

I used to live there.

I had friends I wanted to visit, so, yes,

it would be a trip of a lifetime.

Not only would this trip cost Beryl over ?4,000 having multiple

sclerosis would provide an extra challenge.

I hadn't travelled alone for a long, long time.

Because the MS is getting a little worse, I thought, "Wow,

could I do it?"

And yet there's another side of my brain saying, "Yes, you can.

Do it!"

But when Beryl set off on her first leg to Vancouver, Air Canada

did not get off to a flying start.

When I arrived in Vancouver, my case was there, but my walker wasn't.

I need a walker in order to walk around.

Beryl went back to her hotel hoping that her walker would

eventually turn up.

The next day it didn't, so she had to buy a new one,

at a cost of 240 Canadian dollars.

But she decided to forget about it and enjoy her holiday.

It was a fantastic holiday because I was able to see my son,

who I hadn't seen for five years, and also friends

which I hadn't seen for 20 years.

It was fantastic.

After her great three week escapade through the Canadian Rockies, it was

time for Beryl to return to Wales.

She hoped that the journey home would be less rocky

than the way out!

Sadly, she was wrong!

No sooner had she struggled on board her plane than she was

asked to get off again.

Some of us were on the airplane, but then they said everything has

to come off again because there was a technical fault.

She would be put up in the airport hotel with a fellow disabled

passenger, but Beryl couldn't believe what she was told next.

They came and said, "Sorry, we've only got one bedroom.

You'll have to share."

Half-an-hour later they said, "We've only got one bed.

You'll have to share a bed, as well."

By that time we were so tired, we just said, "OK."

She slept on one side, I slept on the other.

But this was a complete stranger.

She could have been anyone.

We decided we'd put up with it.

We certainly weren't pleased with it at all.

Finally, she was on her way home.

But with an unscheduled stop in Montreal,

her luggage just couldn't keep up!

All my keys to my house, my mobile phone, everything was

in my case under lock and key.

I thought safe and sound - I'm not going to lose them.

But, of course, they lost my case.

When she finally made it home, Beryl had to fork out to have her

locks replaced.

Together with the loss of her mobility walker,

she was out of pocket by a total of around ?325 thanks to Air Canada.

She wrote to the airline demanding compensation.

As a major airline which values its customers, Beryl was confident

Air Canada would listen, but their response came as a bit of a shock.

They wrote back to me and said, oh, you can have 25% off

your next flight to Canada with us.

They certainly didn't think about all of the expenses that I've had

and they didn't even mention them.

They only mentioned the 25% off.

Well, that was atrocious.

So, they refused to pay up on the loss

of her walking aid on her outbound journey from London to Vancouver,

despite EU regulations which say that where mobility equipment is

lost or damaged by airlines the passenger shall be compensated.

I was treated very poorly and I felt very dissatisfied with

the response I had.

Uncaring, very uncaring.

Well, after we spoke to Air Canada, they had a dramatic change of heart.

They're now fully reimbursing Beryl for all her expenses,

as well as giving her ?100 compensation and 25% off a future

flight for herself and her family.

That's what I call a result!

Phew, lucky I caught that.

It's nearly that time of year again, when we order stuff online

for Christmas and wait for the parcels to be delivered.

Sometimes, though, that doesn't go as smoothly as you'd expect.

Let's see if the shoppers here in Merthyr Tydfil have any horror

stories about deliveries gone wrong.

I ordered something off eBay, a mobile phone, and it was, like,

two or three weeks late, and then it was just completely smashed up.

I sent a parcel out to my daughter, part of it arrived

and the other part didn't.

I've had stuff left outside.

Really?

How did you feel about that?

Very annoyed because what was in it was very valuable and I was

just lucky it didn't get stolen.

I paid a lot of money for a football top to be delivered.

Nothing happened and it just didn't get delivered.

It got to the point then where we actually physically had to go

and order it direct from the football company themselves.

So you had to pay twice, did you?

I had to pay all over again, so we were out of money.

Not good.

So, what can you do if your goods aren't delivered on

time, in one piece, or even at all?

Rhod's been finding out.

50 years ago it was pretty straightforward -

parcels were delivered by the Royal Mail.

Now, though, there are any number of courier companies and it's a

booming business, with more parcels being delivered than ever before.

But, according to a recent consumer survey, one in four of us have had

problems with those deliveries.

The industry isn't regulated so anyone can set themselves up

as a courier.

Even me.

I've got my van, I've got my baseball hat.

I think I'll call myself Rhod's Reliable Parcels.

Need a delivery?

We pride ourselves on a safe and speedy service.

We'll stop at nothing to get that precious package to you.

And you can rely on us to take good care of the products you've ordered.

OK, so there are bound to be teething problems in the early days.

But, sadly, plenty of you have been in touch with us, complaining

of difficulties with real couriers.

Goods that have been damaged, delayed or lost altogether.

Back in September, college student John Roberts from Bala ordered

a ?40 computer monitor on eBay.

He needed it for his coursework.

I got an estimated delivery time of the 10th to the 11th of September.

From that time on, I hadn't heard anything or hadn't

received the parcel at all.

John checked the parcel's tracking number and discovered

his monitor was still at the depot of delivery company myHermes.

They told John to contact Parcel2Go, the broker who'd booked

the delivery, but they said they couldn't help either.

So John went back to the seller.

I pointed out to him that all these couriers have passed

me back to him and, from that point, I haven't heard anything.

We managed to get John his money back, though.

Parcel2Go told us that although he wasn't their direct

customer, they're now giving him ?50 as a goodwill payment.

It goes to show that this courier business is trickier than I thought.

So what can people do if their goods don't reach them on time or intact?

Let's get some advice from a consumer expert.

Ultimately, it's the seller who's responsible

for making sure that the goods are delivered either to you personally

or to a person of your choosing.

So if you don't get anywhere with the courier, go back to

the seller and get them to chase it up and, ultimately, if the parcel

isn't delivered it's the seller that has to give you the refund.

OK, so imagine this, I'm waiting for a parcel to arrive on

a particular day so I take the day off work to wait for it to arrive.

But it doesn't turn up.

Am I entitled to compensation?

Well, no, not for that first day because you were

going to take that day off anyway.

And although it's really aggravating that the parcel hasn't arrived,

in the legal sense you haven't suffered a loss.

But, of course, the net effect may be that you have

to take off a second day or a second morning and lose work or

holiday as a consequence of that.

And so for that you would be entitled to seek compensation.

OK, so what about some of the other common complaints we hear?

For example, the courier leaves your parcel with

a neighbour you don't really know and they don't give it to you.

Or, the courier leaves it by the front door and it gets stolen?

Well, if it's been left in a random place or with some

random person then you could reasonably argue that the courier

has been negligent and, again, it's the seller's responsibility to

make sure delivery happens, so it's up to him to chase it up.

Right, now let's turn this around.

What happens if I'm the seller and I want to get rid of my collection

of Coronation Mugs?

Your what?

My mugs.

I've got dozens of them.

But I just don't have the room for them anymore.

What do I need to do if I'm planning to send them to a buyer?

Well, you need to make sure that the delivery company or courier has

Goods In Transit insurance, against which you can claim

if anything goes wrong.

And don't forget, it's up to you as the seller to do

the complaining, so make sure they've got the right insurance when

they come to collect the parcel before you pay for their services.

So there you have it, everything you need to know to make your

parcel deliveries problem-free.

And I think with a little bit of practice I would have made

a good courier.

I'm what you call a safe pair of hands.

Leave it to the professionals, Rhod.

A few weeks ago we told you about the huge number of complaints

we've had about companies selling the government's Green Deal.

One of them was from 88-year-old Anita Juliff from Mountain Ash.

A Swansea company called First Choice Energy offered her

external wall insulation to help get rid of her damp, but first she had

to pay for an expensive Energy Performance Certificate.

It's only the ?300 cheque I done.

I wrote it out for him and, well, that was the end of that.

The company then took four months to send out her certificate.

Two days later, the Green Deal was scrapped

and First Choice Energy went bust.

Anita had lost her money and any hope of a cheap deal

on her insulation.

But after we featured her story, a kind viewer sent Anita

a ?300 cheque to replace the money she'd lost and she is delighted.

Well, now, back, to our investigation into the man behind

a Monmouthshire letting agency.

Neil Bradbury was the tenant from hell.

He left this family home a wreck, owing thousands in back rent

and legal bills.

He wasn't returning my mum's phone calls.

He wasn't paying his rent.

Landlords and tenants who rented through his Chepstow-based

businesses didn't fare much better.

I've come to meet software developer Simon Jackson who rented

a flat with his girlfriend in Chepstow in August 2013.

At first they seemed fairly professional.

There was no hint at all there were going to be any problems.

But it was a different story when they moved out 15 months later

and wanted their ?830 deposit back.

After about two weeks or so, he said it should have been paid

and it hadn't.

I checked my account many times.

He said he would pay it in a week or so and then I started

to phone him, keep pestering him.

"I'll pay it, I'll pay it".

Every time he said he would pay it and it just never materialised.

And then, after a while, he stopped answering his phone and you

just couldn't get through at all.

I started to notice there was never anyone in the office.

The post built up in a big pile underneath the door and you could

see no-one had been in there.

Simon eventually tracked Neil Bradbury down on Facebook

and he got a response.

I think it was just my constant pestering of him.

He said he'd pay me instalments and he finally made an instalment.

We got ?100 and then he went quiet again.

For Simon it's meant months of hardship.

We had to cut back on the way we live so we couldn't

really go out or anything, spend less on food and things,

until you can earn back that money.

This should never have happened.

These laws say that letting agents must place deposits in a secure

scheme but that didn't happen.

Simon's deposit was never protected.

And even when Neil Bradbury did use a deposit protection scheme,

people still lost out.

When Mark Chadwick and his family moved overseas,

they thought Celtic Lettings were the ideal people to let his house.

We got some blurb from them and, on the face of it, they looked pretty

good and to begin with they were.

When they came back in December 2013, the house had been damaged

but the deposit should have covered the ?1,000 bill.

All along we thought, well, it's not a big problem because we were going

All along we thought, well, it's not a big problem because we were going

to get the money to cover it.

It's been assessed by an independent third party, that's the level

of damage, so even though it's not nice, it's not a big problem.

But the money was slow to arrive.

Chased it a number of times, thought nothing of it really

because I understand these sometimes take a few months to resolve.

He told me that the bond was in dispute with the tenants.

This went on for months and months and months.

And in the end it got to this point where I

couldn't get hold of him, which you can imagine was very frustrating.

After chasing the money for more than a year, Mark contacted the

Deposit Protection Service direct.

He was shocked by what they told him.

There was no dispute and they paid the full amount back to Mr Bradbury.

The deposit scheme had done its job.

It looked after the money and paid out for the damage to the house.

But Neil Bradbury had held onto it.

Mark confronted him about the missing money.

I did get an email back saying, "I'm sorry but I can't find this in

"my records.

"I don't know what's happened.

"I will pay you the money back".

And then nothing.

So is Neil Bradbury just going to get away with it?

Mark is worried he might.

I feel very strongly that it's wrong that he's taken my money,

he's taken other people's money, with no accountability,

and he's still walking the streets.

Turns out he's been doing more than just walking the streets.

He's been setting up new companies.

We wanted to ask him what was going on.

First we head to an address in Caldicot.

Neil Bradbury, we're from BBC Wales' X-Ray programme.

The people inside tell us he no longer lives there.

Next we go looking for his new company.

He gave his address as this office block near Chepstow.

I'm after Neil Bradbury.

This was once his mailing address but, guess what,

they say he didn't pay the bills.

There's one final address used by his most recent business.

The company is registered at the offices

of his old lettings agency, which is being turned into a flooring shop.

Excuse me, do you know where I can find Neil Bradbury?

No sign of him here either, but we're not the only ones after him.

There's a pile of post and we're told police and trading

standards are investigating.

The elusive Neil Bradbury there.

And we've had absolutely no response to the questions we've put to him.

So if you know where he is, do let us know.

The only small bit of good news is that Simon has now had the rest of

his deposit back after his landlord gave him ?700 out of his own pocket.

Eleri Griffiths is here from Shelter Cymru.

Eleri, this seems pretty shocking to me.

What do you make of this case?

It is shocking.

What it isn't is uncommon, and routinely as case workers we do

see a lot of cases where either the landlord or agent isn't protecting

the deposit, isn't providing the required information or isn't

complying with what they need to do at the end of

the tenancy to return the deposit.

How can this happen, though?

Aren't deposit protection schemes supposed to look

after tenants' money?

When it works, it works reasonably well.

The problem is that a scheme can't operate

and regulate a landlord who hasn't protected the deposit in that scheme

and that then leaves the tenant only with one recourse, which, of course,

is the court system.

And a new law for Wales on this is coming in on the 23rd

of November, isn't it?

Is that going to make a difference?

Well, the new law is a great step in Wales and, really, what it looks

at is regulating, licensing and accrediting landlords and agents.

The problem that we've seen is that the law

in relation to tenancy deposits has been in force for some time now and

we are still seeing issues arise.

Hopefully, this new law, this new regulation and accreditation

training, will help with that.

So what's your advice?

How can tenants protect themselves?

What I would say is, when you move into a property, make sure you get

an inventory done - photographs, any receipts or payments that you've

made, show your bank statements if you have to in regards to rent

payments, make sure you've got everything that you need so that you

can go to the tenancy deposit scheme or, if you have to, a judge, and

show that you have actually made these payments and that what the

landlord is claiming perhaps he shouldn't be. Eleri, thank you.

And that's it for tonight.

Next week:

The piano teacher who took thousands in fees from her young pupils for

exams that turned out to be fake.

There had been no examinations, no grade 2, no grade 3.

It was a complete sham.

In the meantime, if you've got a story you want us to

investigate, get in touch.

Call us on 03703 334 334.

We're here until 8.30pm.

Or you can email us at [email protected]

and you can follow us on Twitter.

See you next Monday.

Bye.