Trust Pink. Forget Stains. Vanish are the self proclaimed No.1 world's best selling stain remover. But are their claims always as white as you expect your clothes to be?
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Recently the makers launched a new ad - with miraculous claims about its ability to remove marks from fabric - but do these claims stand up? Watchdog decided to find out...
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Tonight we're investigating a garden lawn firm who promise luxury quality turf, but deliver grass you'd expect to see cattle grazing on.
Midlands Turf say they're based at Swan Turf Farm at Upton Warren near Bromsgrove, and their website advertises 'premium' quality grass that has been regularly treated for weeds. Customers who'd ordered the product have told Rogue Traders that it was infested with moss and weeds.
Please note: Midlands Turf are nothing to do with other businesses who have similar-sounding names...
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With the number of British holiday markers heading abroad falling by 8% in 2010 compared with the same period last year, more and more of us are turning to 'Staycations' to get the most value for money out of our holidays.
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We've been hearing from those who've stayed at home about what they did on their summer holidays...
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They may find a reported six million pounds a year to sponsor the X-factor, but from October 1st, TalkTalk customers will see their broadband and landline charges increase for the second time this year.
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And as costs go up, we've been hearing from hundreds of their customers that TalkTalk have been putting in some disastrous performances when it comes to customer service...
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Since its launch in 2003, the Vauxhall Meriva has become one of the best-selling multi-purpose vehicles in the UK. It's aimed at parents doing the school run and Vauxhall say it's the perfect car for you and the kids. But families we've spoken to are too scared to drive it. We sent Sian Williams to investigate...
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The family in the advert looks nice, the advert itself looks gorgeous and the car looks just the thing for mums. It's no wonder so many parents have fallen for it. But there's a serious problem with the power steering on some Merivas that's not only costly to fix, it's also potentially dangerous. So perhaps it's not so child friendly after all?
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Sit back and enjoy Watchdog's alternative take on Thomson's glossy web advert for their flagship the Dream...
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In the last series of Watchdog, we heard of the teething problems buyers experience with new build homes, even when they've spent up to half a million pounds. The National House-Building Council (NHBC) is supposed to deal with such problems. Its ten year warranty should provide peace of mind, but too often it doesn't.
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Watchdog sent Dom Littlewood to investigate...
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Two years ago we'd hardly heard of Santander. Now they're one of the biggest banks in Britain after buying Abbey, Bradford and Bingley and Alliance and Leicester. Last month they announced plans to buy another 318 former RBS branches, and promised to recruit more staff to improve customer service. They will need to be quick, they're one of Watchdog's most complained about banks of the summer.
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Santander's advert states:
"With 90 million customers and a prudent approach to banking Santander is one of the world's strongest and safest banks".
They are huge in Spain but were unknown in Britain until a massive buying spree and Lewis Hamilton's endorsement made them a familiar High Street name. Around 25 million of us now have accounts, savings, loans or mortgages with Santander. And it's not just the adverts that are driving up customer numbers. In public Santander is proud of its customer service, on its website it has a list of promises that are designed to appeal to us. But how much do they match up to the reality? According to some of the Santander customers who've contacted Watchdog - not very well...
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Locksmith, Mark Makowski is well known to us on Rogue Traders. He's one of the very first rogues we ever featured - and one of our most prolific offenders.
Back in 2002, we'd started receiving complaints about a number of companies Makowski was running. So, we rigged some houses with secret cameras and locked ourselves out...
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Tesco carrier bags are thinner, but does that mean greener too?
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The big supermarkets are all trying harder to save the planet, through recycling bins, less packaging, and of course trying to encourage us to use fewer free plastic carrier bags and bring our own instead. Sometimes though a last-minute dash to get dinner can mean you don't have your 'bags for life' on you, and so you have to use the free carrier bags provided by the supermarket instead.
Jane Hyatt and Nasim Awan nipped into Tesco without taking their own bags with them, and so had to use Tesco's free carrier bags to pack their shopping instead. However, they say that Tesco provided bags that were too weak to carry their shopping...
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The Thomson Dream is marketed by Thomson as the newest, and most luxurious, ship in their fleet. Thomson say that the cabins were recently refurbished, have 'interior-designed good looks' and that the ship is 'new for 2010'.
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It set sail on its maiden voyage in April this year - but we soon started getting complaints from passengers who had paid up to £1,200 for a week long cruise. Many of them were very disappointed, so we sent two researchers on board to find out why...
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L'Oreal, Pantene, Bourjois and Rimmel. They're all companies that promise to make women look their best, and when it comes to their adverts they're experts at putting the best gloss on their products.
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You can watch Dom's report again on the BBC iPlayer. If you have something to say about this story, you can email us here. Don't forget to include 'Kwik-Fit' in the subject line. Watchdog will publish a selection of viewers' comments underneath each story, both throughout and after the programme is on air. Please remember to include your name as you would like to see it published.
Kwik Fit: Repairs
Kwik Fit branches are dotted around the country, as are their dissatisfied customers, who have complained to us about high bills and low service standards. Watchdog met Len Henderson who booked his Volvo into a Kwik Fit centre in Reading for a routine oil and filter change...
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Find it, get it, Argos it. But once you've found it and got it, does your purchase always match the product description on the Argos website? Some of our viewers don't think so.
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iPhone applications. There are now around 250,000 of them, offering everything from map reading to social networking, and updates on your favourite TV shows. Although you can pay between 59p and £599.99 to download an app onto your phone, others come free. Or, at least some iPhone owners think they do...
Dominic from Fife, whose 6 year old son Matthew is a huge fan of iPhone games, told us of his experiences with iPhones and In-Apps earlier this year...
The dictionary says that 'unlimited' means 'Not limited or restricted in amount, extent, or degree', so you'd assume that an unlimited mobile phone package would be exactly that - unlimited. Not so. Many of the mobile firms use the term unlimited, when their call, text and mobile internet plans are subject to strict limits. And if you exceed those limits, expect large bills.
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This week, Rogue Traders looked at the people who don't respect the British countryside and its cities - the fly-tippers.
Every year, we throw away enough stuff to fill 44 Wembley stadiums. This waste should end up in a legitimate waste disposal site, but a lot of it is ending up dumped illegally in the countryside and back streets of Britain.
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*Please Note*: LBS Enforcement Ltd should not be confused with similar sounding companies. In particular it should not be confused with LBS Security Services Ltd trading as the LBS group of Dagenham, Essex.
The government may have promised to ban clamping companies from operating on private land in England and Wales. But it says that law won't come in till next year. So until then those companies are free to .... carry on clamping.
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We may have been off air over the summer but Watchdog never sleeps - and neither do our viewers! You've been alerting us to some supermarket ploys designed to make us spend more.
We found a good old fashioned mulitbuy on two bottles of squash from Tesco for just £2. Looks great ... until you see that, individually, the bottles are priced at 99p! But bizarrely when they're run through the till they come to one pound ninety-eight. Could it be a nice way of getting us to buy two?
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IPhone applications. There are now around 250,000 of them, offering everything from map reading to social networking, and updates on your favourite TV shows. Although you can pay between 59p and £599.99 to download an app onto your phone, others come free. Or, at least their owners thought they did! Now you've been telling us that when you download some of these apps, the expected fun and games can end in tears.
Dominic in Fife, whose 6 year old son Matthew is a huge fan of iPhone games, told us of his problems earlier this year, when Matthew asked his dad if he could download an app called Tap Resort Party ...a game where players can build their own holiday park.
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Legoland is one of Britain's most popular theme parks and attracts approximately one point seven million visitors every year. This year it's also had thousands of unwanted visitors. Wasps have invaded the site, ruining the day out for many families. Legoland say they're doing everything they can to control the problem. But is their best good enough? Watchdog sent Rosie Millard and her family to find out...
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When flying with a budget airline, passengers are restricted by the amount and size of bags they can take on board as hand luggage. More often than not, hand luggage gauges are used to establish that the baggage is of the correct size to take on board. If it's too big to fit in the gauge, passengers can expect to be charged to put the bag in the hold.
bmibaby stipulate on their website the maximum size of bag that can be taken on board their planes as hand luggage is 55cmx40cmx20cm. But what if bmibaby are measuring hand luggage in gauges that are too small?
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