Episode 18 X-Ray

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

If you've been ripped off...

Or that deal turns out to be dodgy...

We'll battle it out on your behalf.

No, no, no! Excuse me - don't manhandle me!

You never checked those vehicles when you sold them.

We're here to fight your corner.

Tonight, the residents facing big bills for parking in their own spaces.

There's now a further 25 tickets.

We are probably looking at upwards of £5,000.

-It's stopped for a minute.

-Oh, good!

How's this for a relaxing holiday view?

Angela's battle for compensation from her travel firm.

What we went through there, it wasn't a holiday.

It really spoilt it.

The robots are rising, and they're buying up all our gig tickets.

I'll be finding out what's being done to stop them.

First tonight, the families who've been charged for parking

in their own spaces outside their own homes.

The Liberty Stadium - the jewel in the sporting crown of Swansea.

This 20,000-capacity venue often hears the roar from fans

of the Swans and the Ospreys alike.

But when the Copper Quarter estate was built nearby in 2006,

the people living there began to worry about their roads being clogged up by fans parking there.

A new scheme was brought in here

to manage parking problems on match day,

but far from helping them,

it's left some of the residents seeing red.

The reason for this anger -

local firm Millennium Parking Services, or MPS.

Three years ago, they were contracted by landowner

Barratt Homes to stop freeloaders using the estate as a car park.

But it's residents like Naomi Joyce

who feel THEY'RE in the line of fire.

This is my space.

On a morning of December, 2015, I came down to find

a parking charge notice stuck to the driver's side window of my car.

I was obviously flabbergasted.

I've lived here for six years, I've always parked in this space,

this has always been my allocated space, and yeah,

very angry and upset about the whole thing, really.

Naomi did have a parking permit, but MPS said she was still being

charged £100, because it had been obscured.

Another parking ticket had blown over the top.

Does that justify a £100 fine? No, not in my book.

To add insult to injury,

Naomi's charge wasn't even issued on a match day, and neither was

a parking notice slapped on her brother's car late one night.

They tried to get the required visitors' permit

from Barratt Homes' sales office, but it was closed.

The only people that would be here at near midnight would be

residents, owners or genuine visitors of residents or owners,

so there's no excuse for it, really.

On the other side of the Copper Quarter estate,

tenant Kathryn Lacey has also had problems with MPS.

Despite having a residents' permit,

over a year, she racked up four £100 parking charges.

So the first ticket was issued in this space here.

MPS said Kathryn's permit wasn't visible on her dashboard,

but she says she had a valid excuse.

I looked to see where my permit was, and it was on the floor

at the time, so it was visible from outside of the car.

Kathryn e-mailed MPS offering proof that she was a tenant.

The lease-hold on her flat also shows that, as a resident,

she has the right to allocated parking.

A month later, she found another ticket on her windscreen, but

she managed to corner the MPS patrol man and explain she was a tenant.

He said it was too late, the ticket had been issued and I had to pay it.

She was ticketed again just hours later,

and then got a fourth parking charge ten months after that.

Each time, MPS say her permit wasn't correctly displayed in her windscreen.

They've been trying to make hundreds, possibly thousands,

off of us in the end, and we're not standing for that.

A number of residents voiced their concerns

at a meeting with Barratt Homes last May.

Soon after, the company terminated its arrangement with MPS.

Most of Millennium's signage has come down,

and the parking operator has long gone,

but for the residents here, it isn't game over.

The company is still threatening tenants with court action

if they haven't paid outstanding parking notices.

Kirsty is being chased for a whopping 28 tickets.

We've already paid £600,

and my understanding is that there's now a further 25 tickets,

so we're probably looking at upwards of £5,000 for the privilege

of parking in our own car parking space.

Kirsty says she tried to get a permit from her letting agent,

her landlord and Barratt Homes, but had no luck.

In the end, she decided to move out to escape any further charges,

but MPS says she still owes them the money.

I think the saddest part is that moving out hasn't really helped, anyway.

Two years down the line, we're still dealing with it,

still being taken to court for it currently for another two tickets,

out of the 28, and it's just quite stressful.

Kathryn, meanwhile, has refused to pay her charges.

It's finally her day in court against Millennium Parking Services.

A little bit nervous, I suppose. This kind of thing should never

have been allowed to escalate to the point that it has now.

After half an hour sat in the same courtroom

as Millennium Parking Services' owner, David Bellis,

Kathryn's case was adjourned.

Some of the tenancy agreements were missing,

so we've got to provide the rest of the documents to complete that

and prove our case, so we will send in our documents

and we will complete the case and we will win.

Well, Millennium Parking Services told us they have

a legal right to enforce the charges,

and that their terms and conditions were clearly displayed

on more than 90 signs across the estate.

They add that most of the residents living in the 600 homes

were happy to display the permits clearly in the windscreens,

but that didn't happen in Naomi, Kathryn and Kirsty's cases.

They also told us any late call-outs were at the request

of residents and the landowner, Barratt Homes.

Now, if there's anything you want us to look into, please get in touch.

The number to call is...

You can e-mail...

Or send us a tweet at...

Still to come tonight...

We ask shoppers here in Porthcawl

what they make of the new pound coin.

-It's like a thruppence!

-Oh, do you think?

-Yeah, but posher.

Now, we all look forward to getting away from it,

a bit of relaxing summer sun, but what if your holiday

doesn't live up to the promises made in the brochure?

Well, that's the complaint we keep getting about one travel firm.

Thomson family holiday...

They're the world's largest travel firm.

TUI Group, owners of Thomson and First Choice,

with 20 million customers. But some of those customers aren't happy.

Last autumn, Nev and Cynthia told us about

the building work which ruined their holiday to Mauritius.

-They actually drained the pool totally.

-Scaffolding.

-Scaffolding.

There was dust absolutely everywhere.

Three months earlier,

Gary Williams and Jackie Lewis faced similar problems at the same resort.

Thomson failed to warn either couple about the work.

You'd hope lessons would have been learned,

especially with so many of us looking to escape the Welsh weather

over the next few months and go for our holiday in the sun.

Brrr!

But we're still getting similar complaints.

Angela and Doug Powell wanted to celebrate their anniversary

in style, so, just before Christmas,

they chose a break with First Choice to Fuerteventura in the Canaries.

It was our 59th wedding anniversary and because we hadn't had

a holiday for eight years with my daughter,

we took some of our savings and we thought, "Right,

"this is going to be really lovely and it's going to be worth it."

They couldn't wait to relax on their balcony and enjoy the view,

but it wasn't quite what they'd hoped for.

LOUD DRILLING

When I looked out through the patio doors,

I could see about six men and they were shouting on the top of

their voices, then I see barrels coming down with loads of stuff,

and there was one heck of a racket.

-It's stopped for a minute.

-Oh, good.

All this started before seven o'clock this morning, wasn't it?

DRILLING RESUMES

There it goes again. Here it starts.

On day two of their holiday,

they were moved to another part of the complex opposite a noisy bar,

and the building work continued around the pool and restaurant.

They'd been hacking and knocking walls down, there was dust

flying around - it was going on till seven in the night.

Angela complained both, during the holiday and when she got home,

but hasn't been offered any compensation.

Travel lawyer Nick Harris says that's not good enough.

In resorts, tour operators have a lot of staff who should be

reporting these things back.

If somebody books something, they're relying on the promises made,

and, if those turn out to be false or untrue,

then there should be no contract, it should be the tour operator

that is putting this absolutely right for Angela.

And it's not just holidays ruined by building work.

We've heard from customers who said they paid for one thing only to

discover they were actually going to get something very different.

Simon Hughes from Rhyl was looking forward

to two weeks in Cuba with his wife and family.

I was just so excited to be going to somewhere different that I've

never really envisaged that I'd be able to afford to go.

They chose a suite at the Grand Memories Hotel,

advertised on the First Choice website as new for 2017.

The pictures drew us straight in. It looked absolutely fantastic.

It was a brand-new property which was exciting, because we thought,

it's going to be so clean and so modern.

We absolutely fell in love with the place.

But then Simon discovered the hotel wasn't new,

but partly refurbished, and he wouldn't be getting

the pristine room he thought he'd booked.

We were just going to get an outdated and refurbished room

that's been around for several years.

I was absolutely fuming, because I paid £500 deposit

so far and what for?

Other holiday makers shared similar problems on this Facebook group.

Simon complained to his tour operator, but also to Abta,

the trade body for the travel industry.

They fined the TUI group, owners of Thomson and First Choice 48 times

in the last two years for breaching their code of conduct.

If there was significant building work going on, we would

require them first of all to tell you about it before you went,

and, if it's going to significantly impair your enjoyment of the

holiday, give the option to go somewhere else.

When you book a room, you are very reliant on the description given

to you by your travel company, so that needs to be accurate as well.

When holiday makers fail to resolve disputes with their travel companies, Abta can step in.

Last year, it received almost 13,000 complaints,

but only fined its members 109 times.

We will always fine somebody if they breach the code of conduct,

but fines aren't always the best way to deal with a problem.

It's about raising standards, making sure people have decent holidays

and making sure the problems don't occur in the first place,

that's the primary purpose of the code of conduct -

it's not to raise money, it's to make sure that people have good holidays.

And that's what Simon and Angela want, too.

I will never book a hotel again, or a package deal, with Thomson.

I've lost complete confidence in the company.

We paid the money, we wanted a quiet holiday and a restful holiday,

and we didn't get it.

Did not get it.

Well, Thomson say they're sorry that Angela was unhappy with her holiday.

They blame a small amount of emergency maintenance work which

began the day before she arrived, and they say this is rare... Hmm.

But there is good news for Simon.

Thomson have apologised, and they've given him a £700 upgrade

to a different hotel, and he is delighted.

Now, if you've had any problems with your holidays, please do let us know

because we're back in the summer with a special travel programme.

Next, if you have a dig around in your purse or pocket,

chances are you may find one or two of these one pound coins.

Now, they've been around for more than 30 years.

But this week, a new pound coin has been launched.

Let's see what shoppers here in Porthcawl make of it.

-Did you know there was one coming in?

-I didn't.

-You didn't?

-No idea at all?

-No.

-Have you seen one yet?

-I haven't.

Dah-dah! What do you think? Have a look.

-Oh!

-It looks more shiny than the other one.

-It's quite light, isn't it?

-Hm-mm. Have you seen one?

-No.

-Do you want to take a look?

-Oh, my gosh!

-It is...how many sided?

-It's 12.

-Oh!

Giving it away, are you?

No, I'm not giving it away!

I'm hanging onto it, thank you very much!

Do you know why they've brought them in?

-Um... Is it because of fraud?

-It is.

-Copying the pound coins.

-Won't take 'em long to forge it again.

-Shape of it.

Like the old thrupenny piece.

-Let's have a look. What's this?

-Thrupenny bit.

-No way!

-Yeah.

-You're too young to remember.

-Gosh, look at that.

You're right - they are similar.

Do you know how it's going to work with the changeover?

Do you think your old ones will still work in the machine?

Probably not.

Are they going to change all the shopping trolleys,

so that you can use them for that?

It's going to be mayhem, isn't it?

-Do you think?

-I think so!

Well, to clear up any confusion

about the launch of the new one pound coin,

I've come to the Royal Mint to talk to Chris Barker.

-Hi.

-Hiya.

-You've been pretty busy here, haven't you?

-We have, yes.

For the last 12 months,

we've been producing the one pound coin on 12 presses, 450 per minute.

It equates to about four million a day.

We're hitting new production records.

How many are you producing in total?

We have a roundabout stockpile at the moment of 700 million,

and in total we're aiming for about 1.5 billion,

so it gives you a huge idea of the job involved in producing this coin.

So tell me a little bit about the new coin, then.

Well, what you have here is you've got several features on there.

So what you're looking at is the two-colour appearance,

the bi-metallic appearance, this makes it more harder for

counterfeiters to produce, as does the 12 sides that you see here.

Much more difficult to make.

Then you've got other special features on here,

such as this below the Queen's portrait here.

Now, this is like a holographic feature,

so, if you turn it one side, you can see a one,

turn it to another side, you'll see the £1 symbol.

Then you've got things like covert security,

which is the special additive to the nickel plating in the centre,

which will then be picked up by machines in cash centres

and banks in order for the security purposes to prevent counterfeiting.

-And is that what the launch of this coin is all about?

-It is, yeah.

It's all about combating counterfeiting.

The round pound has become susceptible to counterfeiting

over the last few years,

and round about 45 million round pounds today are now counterfeit.

So this is an attempt,

a way of dealing with that counterfeiting problem, and what

we're producing here is probably the most secure coin in the world.

So how is the changeover going to work, then, Chris?

Well, there's going to be a period of six months where the two coins will run side by side,

then, from October 15th, the round pound will be demonetarised.

So we're hoping and encouraging people to get out there and spend

their round pounds in that six-month changeover period, because what will

happen is that those round pounds will come back to us and then

we can re-use that metal for producing the new one pound coin.

Do you anticipate any problems with the changeover?

Are people going to find themselves a bit frustrated if their coin

doesn't work in the parking meter or doesn't work in the trolley?

There may well be occasions when they come across some machines which will accept one or the other.

We do know that about 60% of vending machines are ready to take both,

and we also know that the vast majority of supermarkets are

very confident that their trolleys will also accept both coins,

so I would advise people, just for a safeguard,

keep a stock of both coins handy, you know, in your car

or in your pockets or in your purses, ready to use just in case.

Good thinking. Chris, thank you very much.

And we'll put all of that information on our website for you.

Next, it's time for a news update.

Changes that bring cheques into the 21st century are to be phased in from October.

At the moment, it takes up to six days for money to clear after

a cheque is paid into the bank, but soon, it'll take just a day,

and some customers will be able to pay in cheques via pictures

on their banking apps.

Parking will be reduced or even free in some town centres from tomorrow.

In a move to support local high streets, there'll be no charges

to park in council car parks in Porth, Tonypandy and Mountain Ash.

In Aberdare and Pontypridd, parking will cost no more than £2 a day.

And there are fears changes to the rental market could push up rents for private tenants.

From next month, tax relief on buy-to-let mortgage interest

payments will be slashed, hitting many landlords financially.

The National Landlords Association warns

members may sell up or increase rents.

Now, have you ever had trouble getting in to see your favourite band?

Well, Omar's been investigating who or what

has been snaffling up all the concert tickets.

Olly Olly Olly! Oi! Oi! Oi!

For music fans, there's nothing more exciting than seeing your

favourite star perform in the flesh.

We love Olly!

But where there are excited music fans,

there are ticket touts ready to take advantage.

I always thought that a ticket tout was a dodgy guy walking up and

down a queue like this in a trench coat saying, "Do you want a ticket?"

But like many things, touting has now gone hi-tech.

Sophisticated software known as bots is used to hoover up hundreds

of tickets at a time before real fans get the chance to buy them.

The touts will then sell them online at an inflated cost.

It's a frustration music fan Bethan knows all too well.

I was trying to get tickets for a Fallout Boy concert.

As soon as the tickets went on sale,

I went through all the process of putting in all your card details.

When I pressed, "proceed to checkout", it came up saying,

"Sorry, they're all sold out."

It literally happened within minutes.

Bethan was confused about how this could happen.

I'm shocked that they could go that quickly. I couldn't have got

in there any earlier. I couldn't have typed it in any faster.

I understand why Bethan is so annoyed.

Don't tell anyone, but I am a massive Coldplay fan,

and this year they are only playing one city in the whole of the UK.

Cardiff. So I thought it was a sign.

I went online, tried to get a ticket,

it was sold out within minutes.

I was heartbroken.

But when I checked on resale sites like these, tickets were

being advertised for hundreds of pounds above their original price.

Now, we've got no way of knowing for sure,

but some of these tickets could have been bought by the bots.

So what is a bot? Catherine Tryfona knows all about them.

A bot is a piece of software that does a task that a human would normally do,

and, if you've ever bought tickets online,

you will know that it can be a little bit tedious.

You have to put in your contact details and your payment details,

but bots are able to do that automatically and they can do it very accurately and very quickly.

When I go on a website to buy tickets,

it says that I'm limited to a certain number per person.

How do the bots get around that?

Quite often, these organisations will have lots of different addresses to use in the form,

or they may have lots of different credit cards, and usually

a combination of the two, but that's usually their workaround.

Very sneaky, but what about the seemingly foolproof "I am not a robot" test?

So, when you tick that box,

the software is checking things like how long it took you to fill

out the form, or the way you moved the cursor into the box

to determine whether you are in fact a human or a robot.

They will sometimes give you an additional puzzle.

Some organisations are hiring lots of people in essentially what

are sweat shops to solve these images and send the answers

-back live to the bot software.

-So the bots are definitely winning?

At the moment, yes.

It doesn't seem to matter what sort of barriers we put up,

these companies will often find ways around it,

because it's worth a lot of money to them.

So bots are always going to be faster than us at getting hold of tickets.

That's why the UK government has just announced new legal measures to try to stop them.

Britain's battle against the bots has begun,

cos soon touts who use them could be fined, and the amount is unlimited.

And the music industry is also getting tough at the gig doors.

Marcus Russell has managed big names like Oasis and the Super Furry Animals.

He wanted to make sure that only genuine fans bought tickets

to see Brit-award-winning band Catfish And The Bottlemen.

We had a deluge of screaming fans and parents of fans going,

"We tried to buy tickets, we couldn't.

"We sat online at nine o'clock on the Monday morning and now we find

"that there's a whole load of tickets for sale on these

"unauthorised secondary sites for four, five, six times the value."

And we decided that enough was enough, and the band said,

"We can't stand this, we want to do something about it."

What we did was make sure that everyone who purchased

the original ticket had their name on those tickets.

And if the name on the ticket didn't match your ID,

you weren't getting in.

It's difficult to police, it's a little cumbersome and it takes

a bit of time getting everyone into the event, but it worked.

Putting names on tickets is one measure to stop the touts.

Fans will be hoping that that, along with big penalties

for those using bots, will mean a better deal for them in future.

Up until now, I'd just given up on seeing my favourite band live.

It was too expensive.

But hopefully soon, I'm going to get my hands on some Coldplay tickets.

# Para para para paradise... #

And that's just about it for this series of X-Ray.

Thank you for watching and for all your calls and e-mails.

Before we go, here's a quick look back at some of the investigations

we've brought to you over the last six months.

This series, we've exposed scams and shoddy service,

and we've tracked down some of the people responsible.

-Dan Cassar?

-Yeah.

Dan Cassar's waste collection business really was rubbish.

Just ask his customers.

I think he's a conman and a worm.

-Why didn't you put a stop to this sooner?

-I should've.

I was just stupid and foolish.

And I'm really sorry to everyone who's been affected in this.

Dan promised he'd quit the waste collection trade, but he hasn't.

Instead, he's launched a new business called Broomsgardens.

We'll be keeping an eye on him.

And remember Direct Choice Home Improvements,

who were cold-calling people they shouldn't?

We went undercover in their call centre to reveal their tactics.

After our investigation, Direct Choice closed down its call centre.

And JAS Financial Advisory Services was the most complained about

claims company in England and Wales.

We confronted their boss and, weeks later, they shut up shop.

Rogue letting agent Neil Bradbury stole more than £70,000

from tenants and landlords in Monmouthshire,

but with X-Ray's help, he's now serving 28 months in prison.

There was a great result on this night raid with Trading Standards and police, too.

More than £1 million worth of fake goods were intercepted and taken off the streets.

And all for a lot of Apple chargers.

Big concern, really, as far as the safety is concerned.

Viewer Mel Davies reported on the poor service

she'd experienced with Onmiserv,

a company which is supposed to help disabled air passengers.

But they lifted Mel, who's had breast cancer, by the chest,

and left her stranded in the airport.

Shocking.

Let's do this.

-Omar's been busy, too.

-Is this how rich people do sit-ups?

Sometimes he seems to be having a bit too much fun!

Oh! Can you see that?

So, in December,

we got our own back by checking him into the Big Sleep Hotel in Cardiff.

Oh, my gosh!

That is a gargantuan stain.

But as always, X-Ray's keen to help.

Hopefully, this'll be enough for you to clean up your act, OK?

Thanks very much.

The Big Sleep promised to take action to raise standards.

Some great results there, and, this series, we've managed

to get back more than £20,000 for our viewers,

so, if you need our help, you know what to do.

Our contact details are on the screen now.

We're back in the summer with some special programmes.

We'll see you then. Bye-bye.