December 15, 2008 Archives

Nicola Evans emailed us about a flight she took with Cyprus Airways to the Netherlands. With her was her pet guinea pig, Boggle, safely stowed in the hold, or so she thought.

Running free outside the plane
When Nicola arrived in Amsterdam there was no sign of Boggle with the rest of her luggage. After much confusion, Boggle was eventually returned to her, not in her travel cage but in a box. Nicola later found out that Boggle's cage had been crushed when the plane was being unloaded. The top of the cage was totally destroyed. Boggle had a narrow escape. It seems she had jumped free before whatever crushed the cage would have got her. But she was no longer secure and at one point had even been running free on the tarmac outside the plane.

Boggle was distressed
By the time she was returned to Nicola, poor Boggle was very distressed. Nicola was told by a vet to keep an eye on her and she says her trip was ruined.

Cyprus Airways says Boggle's cage was properly loaded and well secured, but points out that the unloading is done by a third party contractor. It has been trying to get to the bottom of what happened and says that it safely flies thousands of animals every year. Even so, it has offered Nicola compensation, though she doesn't feel it makes up for what happened.

Boggle eventually recovered but will never fly again!

Last year we spent £33 billion on festivities. But this Christmas there's more to worry about with mortgages, energy bills and whether they'll be a job to go back to in the new year. Unless you live in the North Pole, you'll know it's as much about interest rates and credit limits as it is about mince pies and Santa this year. So what does this all mean for how you're spending your money this Christmas?

There have been conflicting reports in the news about how spending on the high street has been affected. One minute we're told sales are down, the next we're told that bargain hunters are setting the tills ringing.

So, to get the real story we put a questionnaire on the Watchdog website to find out if the credit crunch is putting the kibosh on your Christmas. Over five days 5,490 of you took part.

Feeling the pinch
First we wanted to know if you'd be reining in your spending or filling up your stockings. Some of the results were quite a surprise because although 62 per cent of the people who took part are feeling the pinch, that isn't going to stop them spending. Some 66 per cent of those who completed our questionnaire said they were going to spend just as much or even more than they did last Christmas.

BBC Business Editor Robert Peston isn't surprised that even in these troubled times people want to spend at Christmas: "There's a rise in fear about what the new year will bring, but also at a time when we're all a bit gloomy, we want a bit of cheering up! Nobody wants to have miserable Christmas."

Where will the money come from?
We asked how you intend to pay for Christmas this year and a whopping 63 per cent of people who took part in our questionnaire said they'd be doing it with regular earnings. Surprisingly, just 17 per cent would be using a loan or credit card.

Analysts say that one reason people are using credit less is because it's harder to get. Verdict retail consultant Neil Saunders says: "It's much more difficult to get credit cards. People also don't want to take on credit, they're very uncertain about their future, they're uncertain about whether they'll have a job in three months' time and they're not wanting to rack up huge bills on credit cards."

Christmas under £500
We also wanted to know how much you'd be spending on Christmas this year. Two thirds of the people who took part told us that they'd be spending less than £500 on Christmas but one third said they'd be spending more. Neil Saunders says £500 is quite a lot for most families: "I think that people will find there's a bit of a crunch and that they won't have quite so much money to spend overall, but it's not going to be completely gloomy. It's the new year that might get interesting, that's when the bills start coming in."

Many high-street stores such as WH Smith, BHS and Marks & Spencer have slashed their prices to try and get our cash in their tills. But is the plan working? Only 26 per cent of respondents said that the pre-Christmas sales had drawn them into the shops to spend money. Over half said they hadn't been tempted to make a purchase.

One thing that definitely hasn't tempted you is Gordon Brown's snip at VAT. A massive 91 per cent said that the 2.5 per cent cut in VAT has not made them spend more money. Robert Peston says this cut has been overshadowed by the huge high-street discounts of 20, 30 and 40 per cent.

Finally, while many of you told us that this year you'd be looking for bargains in the supermarkets or online, 41 per cent said you'd still be sticking to the high street.

A mobile phone is stolen in the UK every 12 seconds, so for many people it makes sense to buy insurance for a new mobile in case anything goes wrong. But thousands of people who have bought mobile phone insurance are being misled into buying a second policy just days, or even hours, later.

Watchdog has received complaints about two companies, both based in Swansea: Future Phones Ltd now called Reliance Cover Ltd, and Assure Phone, part of a company called Bluetooth Services Ltd.

Both Future Phones and Assure Phone cold call people who have recently bought a new mobile phone contract. Their sales agents use clever wording that can easily mislead customers into buying a second policy without realising it.

David Lake and his son Steven already had insurance for Steven's mobile phone when they were called by Reliance Cover. They thought they were speaking to their original insurance company and, when they were told that the cost of their insurance was being reduced, agreed to a new deal and confirmed their bank details. They paid an upfront charge of £44.99.

Angry and misled
What they didn't know was that Reliance Cover is an entirely separate company to their original provider and they had been signed up to a second insurance policy. David asked for a refund when he realised, but it took seven weeks for that to arrive, and Reliance Cover deducted £20 as an administration charge. He's angry and feels he was misled.

So, too, does Emily Cole. She got a call from Reliance Cover in November 2008 telling her the cost of her insurance was also being reduced. She thought she was speaking to her existing insurance provider and so agreed to a new deal, authorising the company to deduct the £44.99 upfront fee.

She then received a second call from Reliance Cover, to confirm her details. But Emily was still not clear which company she had been speaking to, or to whom she had given her bank details. She thought it was her original insurance provider, but when she phoned the company to check, she was told it wasn't.

Emily was confused, and because she couldn't work out who she had actually given her bank details to, decided to cancel all her bank cards.

So where does Reliance Cover get your phone number from?

Well, when it calls it knows practically nothing about you. It has picked your number at random from a sequence of thousands of numbers and knows only which phone network you're on. It doesn't even know your name. When it asks you to 'confirm' your details it is actually getting them from you for the very first time.

Undercover sales agent
We sent a researcher to work undercover at the company as a sales agent. The script he was given told him to tell customers he called that their insurance cover was being reduced, which gives the very clear impression that the call is from their original provider.

David Sanders, lead officer in civil law from the Trading Standards Institute, told us that the script used by Reliance Cover is very misleading and gives the clear impression that the company is negotiating a contract that customers already have.

However, at least Reliance Cover's insurance cover does exist.

Assure Phone, part of Bluetooth Services, also claims to offer mobile phone insurance. But the company isn't regulated by the Financial Services Authority (FSA), and isn't allowed to sell insurance. So although the company makes big claims when it calls, in reality the 'cover' it offers isn't a real insurance policy at all.

Replacement phone was second-hand
Chris Foot knows all too well about that. He became an Assure Phone customer after receiving a call in January 2008 from what he thought was his original insurance company. He realised later that he was paying for two policies but kept his cover with Assure because he'd already paid an upfront fee of £69.99. When his phone was knocked out of his hand in September he claimed for a replacement phone. It took over two months to arrive, and when it did it was second-hand. It even had someone else's appointments in the phone's calendar.

Watchdog wanted to put these companies to the test, and a researcher bought a new mobile phone contract from a high-street retailer. Sure enough, we received a call from Assure Phone just days later. During the call we were told that the caller was representing our mobile phone network and that our original insurance cover was being reduced. This wasn't true - the call was very much from Assure and it wanted to sell us a second insurance policy.

Swansea Trading Standards is aware of the problem and is working with the FSA to try to find a solution. It has asked for anyone who has been called by the company and feels they have been misled to contact them.

Company responses
Reliance Cover told Watchdog that it doesn't recognise the portrayal of the way it company operates. It says that its processes and scripts have been developed after taking advice from Trading Standards and other regulatory bodies. It also says that it makes it clear during its phone calls who it is, and gives its name over the phone. The company adds that it makes a second phone call, which it records, in which it confirms its details with customers. It says that it does occasionally have problems but that when it does it fixes them.

Assure Phone told Watchdog that it sells warranties rather than insurance so it does not need to be regulated by the FSA. It said that our call must have come from a member of its temporary Christmas staff it has taken on and that it will be retraining all of its staff fully. It says that it strives to do its best and that customers who are unhappy may be attempting to claim for something not in their warranty terms and conditions.

The Isle of Portland, just off the Dorset coast, is probably most famous for its distinctive stone used to build St Paul's Cathedral and Buckingham Palace.

Gill Ward bought her house here in 2005. Her home has a beautiful view overlooking the sea and a lovely back garden for her and her mum to potter about in.

Gill's house is also about 100 yards from HM Portland Prison where inmates have been held since 1848.

Unpleasant smell
A few months after moving in, Gill started to smell something very, very unpleasant. She discovered that there was a manhole hidden underneath the patio in the middle of her back garden. The manhole was overflowing with raw sewage, the source of which turned out to be the neighbouring prison.

When the prison's drains become blocked and overflow, raw sewage floods Gill's back garden with "very smelly, very slimy" results.

The effects are felt by Gill's neighbours too. Martin Jones Gill has lived next to Gill since she moved in. He says it affects him because he can't use his garden either: "We have to accommodate the smell by coming out the front. The pictures can't really do it justice because pictures don't give you the scale of the problem or the smell that comes with it."

Still waiting for a solution
Over the course of three years the manhole cover has overflowed several times. Gill has written to the prison and to the Ministry of Justice to try and resolve the issue but when we caught up with her she was still waiting for a solution and a date for when the problem would be fixed.

So, we invited Henry Eldred, a forensic engineer and surveyor to look at the problem. He reckons it's down to the type of material the pipes are constructed from. He can't understand why Gill has had to put up with the stink for so long. He thinks everything could be put right in just a few days.

The Ministry of Justice response
Watchdog contacted The Ministry of Justice who said that: "We are sorry for any distress and inconvenience that Mrs Gillian Ward may have suffered - we have sent contractors to the property a number of times and attempts to solve the problem have only cleared the blockages temporarily. The latest incident revealed the blockage to be caused by a mop head and an accumulation of grease and fat which are inappropriate items to be flushed into drainage systems.

"We have appointed a specialist consultant and commissioned a detailed CCTV examination of the sewer. We are now arranging to expose the defective section of pipe so that our specialist can investigate further and determine what work is required to fix the problem. We would anticipate the work being done during January 2009 and in the meantime will arrange a precautionary clean of the drain to reduce the risk of flooding before then."