:00:07. > :00:13.Tonight on Panorama, we go under cover to expose the bailiffs
:00:14. > :00:19.bringing misery to motorists. Do you want the bad news or the bad news? I
:00:20. > :00:27.couldn't believe the parking had gone up that much. Investigate how
:00:28. > :00:33.?65 fines can Spiral out of control. ?777. What starts out as a very
:00:34. > :00:37.small issue quickly ramps up into something that can destroy people's
:00:38. > :00:44.lives. Then you have removal costs an then you have storage costs. It's
:00:45. > :00:48.over ?1,000. And can end with your car being take ton pay off the debt.
:00:49. > :00:55.-- taken to pay off the debt. He's going to seize my BMW over a bus
:00:56. > :01:00.lane ticket? As new rules come into force, we ask - will it really stop
:01:01. > :01:05.bailiffs who act like this? I'm taking the microwave and the fish
:01:06. > :01:08.tanks. I will take the paint off your walls as well. I'll leave wow
:01:09. > :01:15.nothing. -- you with nothing.
:01:16. > :01:25.Parking is big business, Town Halls in England raking in nearly ?1
:01:26. > :01:30.billion a year, a third of it from parking fines. Meet Britain's
:01:31. > :01:34.parking bailiffs, they're hired by councils to make sure that motorists
:01:35. > :01:39.who notch up parking tickets don't get away Scot free. The firms they
:01:40. > :01:46.work for are worth big money and the bailiffs can turn a tidy penny too.
:01:47. > :01:51.This job, if you do it right, the week leading up to Christmas I took
:01:52. > :01:58.two grand. Bailiffs say it's a difficult job, they've got to be
:01:59. > :02:02.ready for abuse and worse. (BLEEP), (BLEEP). They say they can be
:02:03. > :02:07.trusted to do it fair and square, keeping to the rules that govern how
:02:08. > :02:12.much they can charge for collecting debts. We've been handed a hefty
:02:13. > :02:16.file of documents, a detailed break down of bailiff fees, which raises
:02:17. > :02:23.concerns about the fees being charged by some of Britain's leading
:02:24. > :02:30.bailiff companies. It pie lights several -- highlights several firms.
:02:31. > :02:34.The file details the company's debt enforcement in ten councils across
:02:35. > :02:39.London and the South-East. We wanted to see for ourselves what was going
:02:40. > :02:47.on. We sent in an undercover journalist. He got a job as a
:02:48. > :02:54.trainee with JBW, an award-winning firm in Darlington. I'm here from
:02:55. > :03:00.the bailiff's office... This is the boss. He's become something of a
:03:01. > :03:07.celebrity. Here he is on daytime telly. He's also a cheerleader for
:03:08. > :03:11.the industry. Our strap line is a trusted approach, we say if you
:03:12. > :03:21.employ our services, we will do the right thing. The bailiff showing off
:03:22. > :03:26.JBW's trusted approach is this man. I'm a certificated bailiff from the
:03:27. > :03:32.courts. John, a JBW contractor, is supposed to stick to national
:03:33. > :03:38.guidelines. He's going to teach our undercover the tricks of the trade.
:03:39. > :03:55.Over a month, they make almost 200 visits.
:03:56. > :04:23.How to clamp a car. And how to make debtors pay up.
:04:24. > :04:29.Meet Keith, he's found out the hard way some bailiffs operate. Keith has
:04:30. > :04:34.three outstanding parking tickets worth ?55 each. He mistakenly
:04:35. > :04:46.thought the council had torn them up, following an appeal last autumn.
:04:47. > :04:50.In February this year, John and our undercover paid Keith a visit.
:04:51. > :04:59.Bailiffs start early, so they can catch people at home. By 7am, he has
:05:00. > :05:04.clamped Keith's mini cab. JBW bailiffs are given a hand-held
:05:05. > :05:05.device which records every visit and tells them how much to charge
:05:06. > :05:28.debtors like Keith. Keith works late shifts. He's barely
:05:29. > :05:44.had time to put his trousers on before the bailiff comes in.
:05:45. > :05:51.I was in shock, I really was. I couldn't believe the parking tickets
:05:52. > :05:53.had gone up that much. I was expecting maybe twice, something
:05:54. > :06:10.like 180, ?200 per ticket. Keith is being treated for skin
:06:11. > :06:11.cancer and he says he's had lengthy spells off work to recover from a
:06:12. > :06:31.series of eye operations. This is 7am, I didn't know what they
:06:32. > :06:37.were allowed to do. All I knew was if they took the car away, I'd be
:06:38. > :06:43.unemployed. How did Keith's bill go up from three ?55 tickets to more
:06:44. > :06:48.than ?1800? JBW says this was the third time a bailiff had visited
:06:49. > :06:54.Keith. On each of the three visits JBW has tripled most of the fees it
:06:55. > :07:00.charges. This is called multiple charging. It's allowed, but is it
:07:01. > :07:06.fair? Where multiple fees have been charged for a council tax debt, the
:07:07. > :07:12.local Government ombudsman said that placed a wholly unreasonable burden
:07:13. > :07:16.on people already in debt. John the bailiff is paid on
:07:17. > :07:21.commission, a 40% cut, from some of the fees he collects for JBW. If a
:07:22. > :07:33.debtor doesn't pay up, he doesn't get paid.
:07:34. > :07:39.Keith has made it clear that as a result of ill health, he's
:07:40. > :07:43.struggling pay. Under Government guidelines, which do allow John some
:07:44. > :07:47.discretion, he should tell the council that Keith is a potentially
:07:48. > :07:52.vulnerable debtor. But he doesn't. If Keith is to get the clamp off his
:07:53. > :08:05.cab, he needs some money, so he asks his neighbour, Steve, to help.
:08:06. > :08:16.His neighbour pays off one of the tickets for ?610.
:08:17. > :08:24.Keith still owes ?1200. John calles head office to ask about a monthly
:08:25. > :08:26.payment plan. But John says, at this stage, they don't seem willing to
:08:27. > :08:59.help. The bailiff time lay greez to un--
:09:00. > :09:08.final lay greez to unlamb -- finally agrees to unclamp the mini cab.
:09:09. > :09:14.They're not actually allowed to remove a person's tools of trade. In
:09:15. > :09:35.this case the mini cab. John knows this all along.
:09:36. > :09:45.Three weeks later, JBW put Keith on a monthly repayment plan. Citizens
:09:46. > :09:50.advice questioned 350 parking ticket debtors about the bailiff industry.
:09:51. > :09:54.One in three said bailiffs had threatened force, a quarter were
:09:55. > :09:59.told that items would be taken that didn't belong to the debtor. We
:10:00. > :10:03.found that people were scared and intimidated routinely by bailiffs,
:10:04. > :10:08.that what starts out as a very small issue, quiply ramps -- quickly ramps
:10:09. > :10:15.up into something that can destroy people's lives. John, meanwhile is
:10:16. > :10:26.looking for a motorist who owes more tan ?1,000 for two parking fines.
:10:27. > :10:35.The woman tell it's John that the debtor is out of the country.
:10:36. > :10:40.She doesn't speak English, so a neighbour offers to translate.
:10:41. > :10:45.Our undercover points out a letter from the DVLA addressed to the
:10:46. > :10:52.debtor, but it's not there when John goes to look at it.
:10:53. > :11:01.By law, only the debtor can be made to pay, but ignoring the rules, John
:11:02. > :11:10.demands more than ?500 and threatens to remove goods.
:11:11. > :11:33.When she insists she has no money, John gets angry.
:11:34. > :11:54.Then John appears to think she's just being rude to him.
:11:55. > :11:59.John the bailiff finishing off with some choice words about the family
:12:00. > :12:16.he's just intimidated. Back in the van, the bailiff tells
:12:17. > :12:22.the undercover that his behaviour should serve as a lesson in how to
:12:23. > :12:26.do the job. Part of the reason I done all, that you need to see how
:12:27. > :12:30.we enforce as well. John's hand-held device was supposed to record the
:12:31. > :12:39.whole visit, but in the this time. I made sure that weren't recording.
:12:40. > :12:46.People are very often very, very frightened by bailiffs. That is
:12:47. > :12:50.partly to do with their physical presence, but much more often, it's
:12:51. > :12:56.to do with deliberately aggressive and threatening behaviour.
:12:57. > :13:00.But it's not just the behaviour of individual bailiffs causing concern,
:13:01. > :13:04.it's what some bailiffs charge for. There are laws governing the fees,
:13:05. > :13:12.but they can be difficult for the debtor to understand.
:13:13. > :13:19.The campaign group has uncovered evidence of how big some of the
:13:20. > :13:23.bills can be. They're exploiting a little-known law to compel local
:13:24. > :13:27.authorities to hand over sample invoices, detailing the fees charged
:13:28. > :13:32.by bailiff companies, working for the councils.
:13:33. > :13:37.This is the upshot of their work, bills from the bailiff companies to
:13:38. > :13:41.motorists, who haven't paid their parking fines. Some of these bills
:13:42. > :13:50.can run up to hundreds, sometimes thousands of pounds. Here's one for
:13:51. > :13:55.?2,244. 20. The bailiff companies say their charges are lawful and
:13:56. > :14:03.reasonable. Some motorists use one word to describe bailiff charges:
:14:04. > :14:07.Disproportionate. Andrew has helped the group uncover evidence of
:14:08. > :14:13.charges they believe to be wrong. We were really scrutinising the
:14:14. > :14:19.contracts and we went onto the bailiff contracts and about how they
:14:20. > :14:22.was just carrying out their business and doing their work and we found
:14:23. > :14:29.things that were wrong. Double charges or incorrect charges. Some
:14:30. > :14:33.of the concerns were about fees charged on the bailiff's first
:14:34. > :14:40.visit. This should be an opportunity for debtors to settle the fine. Meet
:14:41. > :14:44.Steve from Essex, he owns a fleet of black cabs. When one of his drivers
:14:45. > :14:49.failed to settle a ticket, a man from the bailiff firm turned up at
:14:50. > :14:56.his door demanding payment. The visit was recorded on Steve's CCTV.
:14:57. > :15:03.I answered the door and when he said to me, "?667" I could have fallen
:15:04. > :15:15.over. The original fine was for ?60. Steve wanted to know how the bill
:15:16. > :15:18.could be so high. He said he was not there to explain, he was just there
:15:19. > :15:24.to collect the money. Steve asked for a take-down of the fees
:15:25. > :15:27.Equita's head office. Included in the bill was a charge for sending
:15:28. > :15:33.the van to take away his goods. So where was the van? What were you
:15:34. > :15:38.expecting to see, Steve? You would expect to see a truck
:15:39. > :15:42.capable of taking away a two tonne taxi or goods up to the value of
:15:43. > :15:49.their charges. Here he comes. This is our bailiff. I'm not Jeremy
:15:50. > :15:55.Clarkson, but that is know to truck, that is a car. He would be lucky to
:15:56. > :16:00.get a telly in there. So why did you pay the bill? I paid it under
:16:01. > :16:05.duress. The threat of them coming in and removing goods, in the end, I
:16:06. > :16:10.paid it just to put an end to the matter. Equita says all its fees and
:16:11. > :16:16.charges are applied according to the law, agreed client guidelines and
:16:17. > :16:21.industry best practice. But it is when bailiffs take your card that
:16:22. > :16:23.things can go from bad to worse. Motorists can be charged for
:16:24. > :16:30.removing and selling their cars to pay off the debt, and these charges
:16:31. > :16:36.can rapidly escalate, costing the motorists thousands of pounds. John
:16:37. > :16:37.the bailiff and our undercover are still working the streets of
:16:38. > :17:08.London. There was a reason the man behind
:17:09. > :17:20.the door is not being friendly to a bailiff. The ticket has already been
:17:21. > :17:22.paid, but Lawrence houses in a dispute with his counsel over other
:17:23. > :17:40.tickets. Lawrence is a full-time volunteer at
:17:41. > :17:45.a Swan Sanctuary. Come on, fella. Bottle top, usual kind of thing we
:17:46. > :17:51.get over here. Every day, he crosses London in his veterinary ambulance.
:17:52. > :17:55.I can get calls from anyone, the police, Railtrack, Thames Water.
:17:56. > :17:59.Fortunately, with my van being an ambulance, I can use the bus lanes
:18:00. > :18:06.to get where I have got to go in the rush-hour. Ambulances on official
:18:07. > :18:10.business are allowed to use the capital's is lanes by law, and
:18:11. > :18:13.Lawrence' vehicle is taxed and registered as an ambulance. Yet one
:18:14. > :18:18.London borough repeatedly finds him. Barking and Dagenham Council issued
:18:19. > :18:24.the first ticket in 2009, and more followed. I went back to the council
:18:25. > :18:28.and said, you have been sending me this bustling tickets and you are
:18:29. > :18:32.wasting money doing this. Just knock some heads together and sort the
:18:33. > :18:37.problem out. What happened? Nothing. The bus lane tickets just kept
:18:38. > :18:42.coming. At least 30 tickets were issued over the next few years. And
:18:43. > :18:48.while some were cancelled or waived, three were passed to JBW. By June
:18:49. > :18:55.last year, the company was demanding more than ?2000, so it sent one of
:18:56. > :19:00.its bailiffs to his house. And he said he was going to seize my BMW,
:19:01. > :19:12.over a us lanes to get for my veterinary ambulance. -- a bus lane
:19:13. > :19:16.ticket. So we had a dispute over it. Get your phone off my property. The
:19:17. > :19:22.incident was filmed on Lawrence' mobile phone. With the bailiff
:19:23. > :19:28.refusing to move, Lawrence hoped the police would intervene to resolve
:19:29. > :19:32.the dispute. The police, who I thought were there to help me,
:19:33. > :19:41.actually came into my home and put me in handcuffs. Official police
:19:42. > :19:45.guidance makes it clear that officers should not help bailiffs
:19:46. > :19:51.remove people's buds, but Lawrence says the two officers refused to
:19:52. > :19:56.release him until he agreed to let the bailiff move his tow truck onto
:19:57. > :20:02.the driveway and take his car. I am a law-abiding citizen, and you have
:20:03. > :20:05.allowed this to happen. The bailiff to Lawrence' BMW, worth around
:20:06. > :20:16.?15,000, to pay the three disputed tickets. The car was sold for just
:20:17. > :20:24.over ?12,000. JBW took a hefty ?3490. Lawrence felt that more than
:20:25. > :20:34.1600 of the fees from charges have not been properly explained. The
:20:35. > :20:39.debt is just impossible to work out. JBW says it did provide a breakdown
:20:40. > :20:44.of the fees, and Lawrence did not ask for them to be broken down
:20:45. > :20:48.further. It says it's bailiff complied with all relevant
:20:49. > :20:52.obligations in his dealings with Mr Howes. The Metropolitan police said
:20:53. > :20:56.the incident was being investigated as part of a civil complaint made by
:20:57. > :21:05.the family, and it was unable to comment. Mr Howes is not the only
:21:06. > :21:09.person to face steep bills after failing to pay a ticket. The invoice
:21:10. > :21:12.is obtained by the NoToMob shine a light on the fees motorists are
:21:13. > :21:20.charged by the bailiff companies once their cars have been removed.
:21:21. > :21:25.Take this invoice from JBW. The storage in encouraging, ?420 plus
:21:26. > :21:32.VAT. For getting keys cut, ?180 plus VAT. The whole bill tops out at
:21:33. > :21:37.almost ?2000. The bailiff companies say their charges are fair and
:21:38. > :21:42.reasonable. The motorists say, oh, no, they are not. The law sets out
:21:43. > :21:48.that the charges for removing and selling cars should be reasonable,
:21:49. > :21:52.but it has left the court is to define what this means in practice.
:21:53. > :21:56.If it is the council 's that are hiring the bailiffs to collect
:21:57. > :22:03.unpaid parking fines, shouldn't they ensure that motorists are treated
:22:04. > :22:06.fairly? The NoToMob, which has been investigating bailiff fees, says the
:22:07. > :22:11.councils are not doing enough to check up on the bailiffs. They get
:22:12. > :22:17.away with it because nobody is monitoring what they do. At one
:22:18. > :22:23.council acted on the campaign group's findings, and suspended JBW.
:22:24. > :22:31.They were acting outside the rules and regulations. They were charging
:22:32. > :22:34.for things they did not actually do, and they were charging for
:22:35. > :22:40.things they were not entitled to do as well. The council said it made
:22:41. > :22:49.JBW return ?13,000 to motorists who had been overcharged. The company
:22:50. > :22:54.was reinstated after a month. So as we speak, JBW is still collecting
:22:55. > :22:59.debts for Hackney Council? Yes, that is correct. But be in no doubt. If
:23:00. > :23:04.we hear instances of this happening again, we will suspend the contract
:23:05. > :23:09.and investigate and if needs be, we will terminate the contract. JBW
:23:10. > :23:13.disputes Hackney's version of events. But what happens when
:23:14. > :23:18.councils failed to hold a lift companies to account? Hoody
:23:19. > :23:24.motorists turn to if they believe bailiffs are in the wrong -- who do
:23:25. > :23:26.they turn to? I think most people in the position of being up against
:23:27. > :23:32.bailiffs are in a vulnerable position. For starters, they don't
:23:33. > :23:35.necessarily understand the law, and they are in a terrible position to
:23:36. > :23:44.push back cos it is hard for ordinary people to sue the bailiffs
:23:45. > :23:52.or take other action. Mr Howes had already lost one car, but the
:23:53. > :23:55.tickets for driving his ambulance in bus lanes kept coming. In February,
:23:56. > :24:00.he started getting visits from another company. It a lift was
:24:01. > :24:07.demanding more than ?1500 for three tickets. He said he was there to
:24:08. > :24:13.seize the ambulance. He said he was going to take the daily may
:24:14. > :24:17.ambulance, but also my wife's car. I then said to him, you are not going
:24:18. > :24:21.to seize my car. It is in my name and has nothing to do with the
:24:22. > :24:25.ambulance or my husband. It is solely my car. We all need our
:24:26. > :24:30.cars. Beverley uses hers for work. She helps the tins of domestic file
:24:31. > :24:36.in. The next thing I know, he has put my ambulance in the tow truck.
:24:37. > :24:41.Then I looked out, and he is pushing my wife's car into the street.
:24:42. > :24:44.Lawrence' ambulance is essential to his voluntary work. Is a tool of
:24:45. > :24:49.trade, it should not have been taken. Nor is the bailiff allowed by
:24:50. > :24:55.law to take Everly's car. She is not the debtor -- Everly's. But a
:24:56. > :25:04.Kominsky says he was legally entitled to remove her car, as he
:25:05. > :25:07.believed it belonged to her husband. Just went away. Haven't heard
:25:08. > :25:16.anything since, so we don't know where our vehicles are. The Howes
:25:17. > :25:22.reported the bailiff to the police and they appeal to the bailiff
:25:23. > :25:26.company, but in vain. When I meet with the Howes, they still don't
:25:27. > :25:32.know the whereabouts of Everly's car, or this one ambulance, so they
:25:33. > :25:34.call the bailiff, Mr Kominsky. I would like to know what you have
:25:35. > :25:56.done with our cars. Who sold it? The towing company sold
:25:57. > :26:09.my van? Mr Kominsky, in regards to my Vauxhall, what do I need to do to
:26:10. > :26:14.get my car back, and where is it? The Howes have now had two cars and
:26:15. > :26:20.an ambulance seized from them come with a total value of more than
:26:21. > :26:23.?30,000 over disputed tickets. Barking and Dagenham council says
:26:24. > :26:29.both bailiff companies acted properly, and that it was right to
:26:30. > :26:34.enforce payment against Mr Howes, as he had not always provided a defence
:26:35. > :26:37.or adequate grounds for exemption. For our undercover, after 12 days as
:26:38. > :26:44.a trainee bailiff, it was the end of the road. He was sacked. JBW said he
:26:45. > :26:47.was unsuitable for the role. Yesterday, the government brought in
:26:48. > :26:54.new rules limiting the powers of bailiffs. There is also a new,
:26:55. > :26:58.simplified fee structure. But the first visit will be more costly.
:26:59. > :27:04.Debtors will now pay, with the fine, as much as ?500. There are some
:27:05. > :27:09.small improvements, but the gaping hole in this is a lack of
:27:10. > :27:13.regulation. So we want to see a much longer, independent, tough
:27:14. > :27:18.regulator. So will there be an independent regulator? My
:27:19. > :27:20.responsibility is to say to local authorities that if you are
:27:21. > :27:25.employing bailiffs, you should employ them in an ethical and
:27:26. > :27:31.reasonable way. You should look in terms of fines to be reasonable
:27:32. > :27:34.towards the motorist. That is wonderful, but unless you have
:27:35. > :27:40.regulator, all of this is pie in the sky. That is something the Justice
:27:41. > :27:44.Secretary will address. The Ministry of Justice has told us there are
:27:45. > :27:56.currently no plans for a regulator. Following our investigation, John
:27:57. > :28:00.was suspended by JBW. The company says that as a self-employed
:28:01. > :28:06.contractor, he was acting outside its policies and procedures. It says
:28:07. > :28:10.it has apologised to the people whose cases were raised by Panorama.
:28:11. > :28:15.The bailiff told us he takes is no response ability for the isolated
:28:16. > :28:23.comments made -- he takes responsibility. We have been told
:28:24. > :28:26.Mrs M2' car will be returned. But as to the veterinary ambulance,
:28:27. > :28:31.Lawrence has given up all hope of getting it back. And on Thursday,
:28:32. > :28:35.don't cut my benefits. I could be uprooted all over again
:28:36. > :28:39.to come back to London. It doesn't make sense. A Panorama special on
:28:40. > :28:45.the front line of Britain's benefit reforms.