Rip Off Britain (2009) s07e02 Episode Script
Series 7, Episode 2
1 We asked you to tell us what's left you feeling totally ripped off and you contacted us in your thousands.
You've told us about the companies that you think get it wrong and the customer service that simply is not up to scratch.
If you're paying for good service, you expect a good service and a good product, whatever it may be.
At the end of the day, we expect value for money.
You've asked us to track down the scammers who stole your money and investigate the extra charges you'd say are unfair.
Wool's been pulled over our eyes.
I don't think we get a fair price.
I think they should always put the customer first.
And when you've lost out but no-one else is to blame, you've come to us to stop others falling into the same trap.
And no-one could sort that out for you over ten years? No-one has.
So, whether it's a blatant rip-off or a genuine mistake, we're here to find out why you're out of pocket and what you can do about it.
Your stories, your money.
This is Rip-Off Britain.
Hello and thank you so much for joining us here on Rip-Off Britain where, once again, we'll be getting to the bottom of some of the problems that you've asked us to investigate on your behalf.
Have to tell you, what a collection of stories we have for you today! I'll say! Each one of the people whose troubles we're going to be tackling today came to us because they are absolutely at their wits' end.
They've been trying to sort out the issues which either no-one wants to take responsibility for or that the companies or organisations that could help them really don't seem to see any urgency at all in getting things resolved.
And that's, of course, where we come in.
So, whether you've been dealing with mystery floods or road closures that stop you going about your daily business, we've been getting to the bottom of not just what's gone wrong but what's going to be done about it.
Coming up The residents paying over the odds for an energy system that they say just doesn't work but they can't escape.
I ended up having to sleep downstairs in the living room with the oven on.
Seems to me they're charging us what they can get away with.
And teetering on the edge -- the locals battling for normal access to the road in which they live.
It's been an absolute nightmare to do anything.
We have to get a wheelbarrow to transport our goods to our home.
In recent years, we've become used to seeing shocking images of parts of Britain that have been flooded after atrocious weather with property owners wading through their waterlogged homes to see the extent of the damage.
But while stories like that make the headlines, there are plenty of other examples of water damage to homes that don't -- situations where the damage can be equally severe but the problems have happened much less dramatically and where the cause of what's happened and, indeed, the solution to stop it happening again are much more difficult to pin down than if it had simply been the weather that was to blame.
High-risk flooding was the last thing Beryl Ellis expected to worry about when she and her husband moved into this Salford house almost 50 years ago.
It was our dream home, really, you know? We brought the children up in it and grandchildren have, you know, - played in it.
- Beryl lives with her daughter, Tracey.
We used to stay in the garden We used to sit out at night as well.
Yeah, when my husband came home from work, we'd sit out, we'd sit out at weekends, you know.
But eight years ago in the middle of summer, their outside space inexplicably started to flood and, since then, even without there being constant rain, Beryl says her beloved garden gets waterlogged around once a month.
It completely covers all the grass.
Yeah, it completely covers the grass, the path, and it used to cover the shed.
There was, like, a little ledge at the bottom of the garden, the shed was on that, it used to cover that.
We had to have that pulled down.
It just rotted.
As far as Beryl could see, there was no reason why her garden should flood.
Her house is a mile away from the nearest river or canal and, having lived there for half a century with no problems, Beryl was seriously puzzled.
So she contacted Salford City Council, her local water company and any other organisations that might be able to help or give her an explanation.
Unfortunately, no-one she tried could do either and it was only after six years of the same thing happening that a possible explanation was offered by a company working with Salford Council, but it wasn't one that satisfied Beryl or her family.
Well, someone came out and just said there wasn't a problem, it was just groundwater, when he sent a letter back to us saying it was groundwater, which I find really hard to believe when my mum and dad have lived in this house for 50 years and never had a problem with groundwater before.
That's not the answer.
That is not what's causing it.
There's something wrong.
Things would have been bad enough if the problem was just affecting the garden but it wasn't.
By now, Beryl and her late husband, Albert, had discovered that the implications of all of this were far worse than that.
We were sat here one night and we heard this, like, a popping sound and my husband was going round switching the television off, the microwave, the cooker, and it was still popping.
And I don't know what made him look under the floor.
But when he did look under the floor, the couple were horrified to find that water from the mysterious flooding had risen underneath the house.
Well, it was more or less touching the floorboards.
I think it's about three foot under there, I think.
And so it had been going for a while under the house.
Their insurance company paid for the water to be pumped out but it soon came back, so Beryl's husband, who was a plumber, tried installing different pumps to drain it away.
He put one in the corner of the living room, under the floorboards that connected to the outside drain.
And several years on, one of his pumps is still down there, keeping the water at bay beneath the house.
It's been going on for so long.
There is a lot of water down there.
They're on all the time.
We never have to switch them off.
Over the years, several other gardens nearby, including neighbour Gina's, have started to show signs of flooding, although not as badly as Beryl's.
And so far, no-one else has found water under the house.
Meanwhile, Beryl and Tracey have begun to develop their own theory as to why the flooding suddenly began, after so many years with no trouble.
Not far from their home are some new houses built on the site of a former industrial estate.
Before that, there was a water mill here, pumping water from an underground spring and then redirecting it to four small reservoirs.
But when the mill was demolished in the 1970s, two of those reservoirs were filled in.
Myself and all the neighbours seem to think it's to do with when Winterbottom's closed down because they used to have water pumped over to the reservoirs and now they've closed two of the reservoirs down so, I mean, where's the water going? But when Beryl put this to the council, it ruled it out based on thorough investigations by its drainage engineers and it reiterated the advice suggesting all this was purely a groundwater problem.
But for Beryl, that simply doesn't wash, so with no sign of anyone doing anything to stop the flooding, and terrified about the damage it might be causing to her house, Beryl came to us.
And we've called in surveyor Roger Southam to help.
With more than 30 years' experience in surveying and in the property industry, perhaps he can get to the bottom of what's happening.
But when he gets to Beryl's house, he's shocked by what he finds.
Wow! Let's have a look in here and see what we've got going on, then.
Crikey! I've never seen a swimming pool under a house before that wasn't intended to be there! They've had to put a pump in about eight years ago and there's still water sitting there.
Absolute miracle that this house hasn't got wet rot running right the way through the timbers.
Roger's keen to check the dampness of the floorboards.
Well, the meter reading is just off the scale, absolutely, and we're literally just below the timbers, just below the floorboards.
This is outrageous.
And elsewhere in the house, more signs are evident of the mysterious damage being caused from below.
Well, I brought my damp meter with me but on this occasion, it's completely redundant.
It's self-evident just how damp this internal wall is.
There's a different colouring within the wallpaper.
The problem is just appalling in this house.
If I lived here, I'd be extremely worried.
Roger gives everything a thorough once-over outside, too, but he can't be sure of what's going on.
I am mystified, in reality, but I am outraged that the authorities haven't taken this seriously and haven't investigated to actually solve the problem.
To have a house under water and a garden as a quagmire is absolutely appalling.
But Roger has one more thing to do before finishing his assessment.
He wants to take a closer look at where the mill used to be.
The two remaining reservoirs are still within easy reach, so does Roger agree with Beryl that the ones that have been filled in could somehow be linked to her flooded home? Well, that's where the mill used to be and you can see the new housing estate and the industrial units that have replaced what was the mill.
Now, the housing estate has been built on top of what was a reservoir before and got infilled in the '70s somewhere down there.
Quite clearly, something has happened when they built over the reservoir.
What the authorities need to do is some thorough investigation to work out exactly what is happening with the groundwater levels.
This has to be tackled as a matter of urgency.
Although Roger can't say for sure whether Beryl's theory is correct, he certainly believes there's enough evidence to suggest that the local authorities should carry out more detailed inspections to finally get to the bottom of Beryl's flooding.
In short, if the problem isn't solved and the authorities don't take the matter seriously, then the owner can be looking at the collapse of the building in the extremely long term.
This is such a worrying case.
I've never seen anything like it before.
When we contacted Salford City Council and the Environment Agency about Beryl's problems, they told us that they were working together to find a solution to this complex and difficult case.
Salford City Council maintained that investigations to date suggest this is an issue with groundwater flooding and not connected to the reservoir which would mean that it's actually Beryl's responsibility as the landowner to sort it out.
Even so, the council said it sympathises with her awful situation and is now going above and beyond its legal responsibility to help.
It added that it's recommended no further development take place around the reservoirs until a suitable drainage strategy is agreed.
And, after we got in touch, there was some good news -- the Environment Agency granted funding to Salford City Council to bring some planned investigations forward from 2017 to this year.
For Beryl and Tracey, all they can do is hope that these investigations can get to the bottom of this problem before there's further damage to their home.
Nobody should be living with the damp that is in this house.
Nobody should have the worry of the structural stability of their own property.
Now, here's a question for you -- how much do you spend on your heating and hot water? Let's face it, it's one of the biggest regular expenses that people have to deal with and, of course, in recent years, the amount we all pay has gone even higher.
But for some, those dreaded bills have increased even more dramatically than they have for the rest of us.
And what makes that worse is that there's absolutely nothing they can do about it.
They're amongst the hundreds of thousands of people in the UK who have no choice whatsoever about who they get their energy from.
So while the residents we're about to meet are having particular problems with one of the country's biggest names, the situation they find themselves in is one that could easily happen to a rapidly increasing number of people right across the UK.
Highams Green Park in east London, a new-build estate, but some of the residents are deeply unhappy about what they're being charged for their energy.
I ended up having to sleep downstairs in the living room with the oven on, you know, just cos it was so cold.
For it to be a very energy-saving property, to pay such high rates when you've only just moved in, I think, is ludicrous, really.
Seems to me they're charging us what they can get away with.
Adding fuel to their frustrations is the fact that all these neighbours' homes have been fitted with a system that's been heralded as both green and affordable.
Like hundreds of other homes right across the country, the flats at Highams Green are part of what's called a district heating scheme, particularly common in blocks of flats or in affordable housing.
The idea is that rather than each individual home converting gas into its own heat and hot water, one big generator does it for all of them.
That makes it up to 30% more energy efficient, which you might think would result in lower bills, but that isn't how it's worked out at Highams Green.
Charlie, Chelsea and their daughter, Bella Rose, were one of the first families to move in in 2012.
We were actually living in Chelsea's mum's with Bella for about eight months which, as you can imagine, is pretty hard work in a single room with the three of you.
So we really wanted to just get out there and get something of our own.
Charlie and Chelsea bought their flat off-plan under a shared ownership scheme and the property's green credentials were a big pull.
We thought it was the right thing to do and it seemed like it would save us some money.
So, confident that they'd made the right decision, Charlie and Chelsea were keen to move in.
When we got the keys, as you can imagine, we were ecstatic, overjoyed, just unbelievable feeling of having your own place, as it were.
Especially when you've got children, it tends to up the ante slightly in terms of getting out of home and it worked perfectly for us.
But there was one issue that Charlie says took the shine off their new home.
The hot water started dropping out, then the heating started coming on on its own.
You kind of think, "Am I doing something wrong with the system?" We called out engineer after engineer to come round and have a look at it.
They said it was a faulty system within the property.
Now, these sorts of issues could simply be teething troubles with a new system on a new estate but what's more, Charlie says it was some time before he received any energy bills, so he'd no idea what his energy was costing him.
But when eventually, in January 2014, he did start getting bills, they were much higher than he'd expected.
The first was for £646.
45 followed, three months later, by a bill for £871.
20.
For a young family, it's unmanageable.
Charlie's bills were already much higher than the £700 most households typically pay for their gas and heating over an entire year.
It certainly wasn't what he expected from a system supposed to save them money.
Charlie's heating bills have continued to mount up and some of his neighbours have been left similarly hot and bothered.
Asif Yusuf lives just round the corner.
He bought his flat in Highams Green in February 2013.
I remember that first day I got the keys, and I remember it being really, really cold and wanting to switch the heating on.
And I switched the heating on and it'd come on for a minute and go off.
And I didn't know what to do.
It was just such a confusing system.
What had later transpired was the heating system wasn't working properly.
Like Charlie and his family, Asif didn't receive any bills for months and he was shocked when one finally did land on the doormat.
I was told that the bills would be quite low here, so to see a bill for £800 or £900 was a shock.
There's no way I was expecting to see a bill for that much.
Another Highams Green resident and others on the estate have combined forces as a residents' association to try and get some answers from the company that built the homes in the first place -- supermarket giant Tesco.
The big-name store developed the land as part of the hard-won planning consent for a new superstore.
It built 253 homes here, all of which had to comply with government policies on energy and sustainable development.
So a state-of-the-art combined heat and power plant was built as well, supplying both the store and the homes with their heat and hot water.
It's almost like -- and I hope this isn't the case -- that we're initially funding that store to have the lights on and we're all sharing the bill.
I hope that's not the case but how do we know that isn't the case? The system generates electricity and heat is a by-product.
Who uses that electricity and how much? Is it being sold to the grid back or is Tesco using it? - Where's it going? - Yeah.
- Where's it going, basically? There are two charges the residents are unhappy with -- firstly, the standing charge, which you pay just to have access to electricity and gas.
It's fixed at 93p a day.
Now, most people would typically pay much less -- a total of between 25 and 70p.
And then there's the tariff -- the price per kilowatt-hour.
The residents here are charged 7.
75p per kilowatt-hour but the average price that UK customers paid for their gas last year was just 4.
5p per kilowatt-hour -- 35% cheaper than the rate Tesco's charging.
When you look at the charges that they've been giving us, they're quite huge.
Despite several public meetings, a petition and more than 50 complaints, the residents say they still haven't managed to get Tesco to review their charges and because their supply is via the district heating scheme set up by Tesco when it built the flats, the residents are stuck with one single supplier, whether they like it or not.
It definitely feels like we're trapped and frustrated.
And it's that which experts say is currently the big problem with these types of scheme.
You just have one supplier who is providing you with your heat all year round and, effectively, that means that if you're not satisfied with the price that you're paying or the service that you're getting, you as a consumer have no choice.
Another problem is you don't have a regulator, like Ofgem, who cover gas and electricity customers, who can step in and take action against that company in the same kind of way.
At Highams Green, with little power to make Tesco sit up and take notice, some residents, including Charlie, have taken to desperate measures to register their protest.
So I haven't actually paid them a penny.
Speaking to a couple of my neighbours, we all kind of we're in the same boat.
So I decided that, between us, we should all kind of really dig our heels in and say, "Until we get some answers, you're not getting any of our money".
We contacted the various organisations involved in this dispute to see if we could nudge things towards a solution.
The housing association that rents out the properties at Highams Green told us that it's been aware of teething problems and has facilitated meetings between tenants and Tesco to try and resolve them.
As for Tesco, which supplies the energy, it says it's working hard to provide a competitive and reliable service to residents and is reviewing energy tariffs and standing charges to ensure that they remain fair and transparent.
It stressed that it's already made improvements in response to customer feedback but pointed out that its charges fall within the average cost range of district heating systems.
Meanwhile, the company that manages the billing and contract for the system claimed that the costs for district heating schemes are not directly comparable with more typical tariffs unless they take account of the total life cycle cost of each respective system.
Right now, around 210,000 UK homes -- that's less than 1% -- are part of one of these district energy schemes but that's likely to change.
The Government's ambition for this is that eight million homes will be receiving their heat in this way by 2030, so we're looking at a massive growth over the next 15 years.
All of which means what's happened at Highams Green is a lot more than simply a little local difficulty.
Residents here fear that unless district heating schemes are regulated in the same way as traditional energy supplies, situations like theirs could become all too common.
Sooner or later, this needs to be addressed.
Policymakers need to look at this or somebody needs to look at this.
Still to come on Rip-Off Britain Could this man's Mini breakdown be more than just a one-off? I was quite appalled with the fact that we should have a major mechanical failure at 25,000 miles.
It just doesn't happen on a modern motorcar.
- For two days only - A one-stop shop packed with advice It's our very famous Rip-Off Britain pop-up shop.
This year, we brought our top team of experts to the Victoria Centre in Nottingham.
And, as usual, we set up our Gripe Area, where you told us what really winds you up.
Why can't the utility companies print something that we can all read and make it, if anything, simpler? One thing I can't stand is train tickets.
Just ridiculous amounts of money just for one trip.
If we think we see a good offer, we don't think about the consequences, we just think, "Oh, it's a good offer".
That must be true.
But very often, unfortunately, it isn't true and we do get ripped off.
Angela, I think it's fair to say that we all absolutely adore - the pop-up shop every year, don't we? - I think we do.
We get sackloads of mail, we get hundreds of e-mails.
To actually see people come through the doors and say, "This is the problem that I've got," we can put them face-to-face with one of our experts and, hopefully, get a resolution of some sort for them at the same time.
But that's what I get great enjoyment from because, today, we've had results from some of the consumer problems.
So I like it when people go home and say, "Gosh, "thank you very much indeed for sorting that out".
And there was one of those results and a very unusual story that just goes to prove how long your rights last.
- Hi, I'm Sarah.
- I'm David.
- Hello, nice to meet you.
- I'm Martyn, nice to meet you.
- Hello, Martyn.
- Grab a seat.
A lifelong fan of Clarks footwear, David bought a pair of his favourite style and then put them away ready for when a similar pair of shoes he had wore out.
But five years later, when he eventually came to wear them, disaster struck -- as he explained to personal finance expert Sarah Pennels and financial ombudsman Martyn James.
So, I brought them out, put them on, just walked a few yards, - and that happened.
- Oh, gosh! - Good grief! Blimey.
- That's pretty drastic.
- I took them back to the shop I bought them from, and they said, "We'll give you £10 off a new pair of shoes.
" - Good grief.
- I said, "Well, they're brand-new.
" She said, "Well, that's all we can do.
" So, I wasn't very happy.
There's something called the Sale of Goods Act which says that anything you buy must be of satisfactory quality, it's got to be fit for purpose, so it should do what it's supposed to do, and it should also be as it's described -- and that law gives you rights for up to six years in England and Wales -- five years in Scotland -- and it does mean that you can go back to the retailer for up to six years and say that you've got a problem.
Now, it doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to get a full refund, but in your case, although you've had these shoes for quite a long - time, I mean, you've not worn them, have you? - No, I've not worn them.
- You've not gone out anywhere in them.
- No.
If you go back and say, "Now, I want to take it further, "and I'd like you to address this complaint in writing," all businesses have complaints processes, and that will usually get you to where you need to be.
I feel for you, because I hate shoe shopping with a passion, - so, I'd be furious if that happened to me! - Yeah.
Yes.
Yes, exactly.
Martyn's team at the Financial Ombudsman Service got in touch with Clarks again on David's behalf, and when they did, the company immediately offered David a free pair of new shoes.
It stressed that this was above and beyond its usual procedures for shoes of this age, but David is delighted with such a good result.
Do you know, because of rising sea levels, before the end of the century, around 7,000 homes and buildings are expected to be lost to coastal erosion, and ten times that number will go if the existing sea defences are not maintained.
Well, that's obviously a real worry for those who have homes right beside the sea, and it's been quite a concern for the residents of one particular cliffside spot whose entire road has been closed off following a couple of instances of crumbling rocks.
But does that necessarily mean their homes are in danger? With its breathtaking views, golden, sandy beaches and balmy climate, it's easy to see why the town of Sandown on the south-east coast of the Isle of Wight is such a popular place to live.
One road here, named Cliff Path, is about as close to the sea as you can get.
Around 100 residents live here -- among them, Wayne Goodison, who's been here for eight years.
The reason why we chose this particular spot is my partner's mother, Rosemary, was in the early stages of dementia, and she needed somebody in the house to look after her on a regular basis.
At the time he bought it, Wayne's house was a bungalow -- but he transformed it into a three-storey home so that Rosemary could live reasonably independently on the lower floor.
We wanted Rosemary to have a decent place to live and to walk.
Though keen to live by the sea, Wayne was aware that came with some risks.
Properties in other parts of the island had already been demolished or abandoned because of coastal erosion, so, right from the start, he'd been keen to know if that was a danger here.
We've looked at records, when we've bought the property, to say that dating back from Victorian times -- we had no concerns regarding whether that would happen to us, because of our research.
But two years after moving in, it seemed that Wayne's original fears might be realised.
During some routine maintenance work being carried out on the metal handrails that ran alongside Cliff Path, part of the upper cliff was dislodged, and began to fall away from the road and into the sea below.
Wayne's neighbour Colin Blyth lives slightly further along Cliff Path, and was at home at the time.
I came out thinking there was a problem, and there was two council men, sort of hands in the air, going, "Oh, my God, what have I done?" With the road now extremely dangerous, the council had no choice but to close Cliff Path altogether while they made it safe again.
But without proper access to their homes, the residents felt cut off, with even the most basic tasks like shopping now a struggle.
It was a nightmare.
It was a total nightmare.
Desperate to regain proper access to their own homes, the residents got together and persuaded the council to do a survey which they hoped would prove that once the railings were fixed, the road would be safe to reopen.
Indeed, once a team of structural engineers had concluded the path was safe for vehicles up to 3.
5 tonnes, and there was no erosion or ongoing risk, Cliff Path was reopened.
It was a great relief.
We could drive up here, I could park, take the shopping out, people could come and see us -- if we had to go out for the day, I could bring the car.
But now the residents have been cut off again -- and this time the road's been closed for much longer.
In the spring of 2014, a different section of the cliff fell away when a lorry driving down the road crashed into the railings.
Anyone trying to drive down the road would now be perilously close to the cliff's edge, so, once again, the council felt they had no choice but to close Cliff Path to vehicles.
This is where the accident with the lorry has taken place.
This large lorry knocked that fence completely down, and .
.
because it was knocked down so far, and then it was pulled back up again, all the vegetation around it has all fallen down.
The road has now been closed for well over a year, and, for the residents of Cliff Path, simply going about their daily business has become extremely difficult.
It's been an absolute nightmare to do anything.
We have to get a wheelbarrow to transport our goods to our home.
Anything that we have to bring things into the house -- you know, it's a logistic nightmare.
My son picks up a trolley from our garden shed, walks down the 200, 300 metres, and we decant from the car onto the box of the trolley, and then we pull it all the way back.
The council has invited the residents to discuss the issue, but Wayne feels they're simply not moving fast enough, and that there's no need for the road to have been closed for so long.
There's no reason why they couldn't put a motorway-type crash barrier along the cliff path here, all the way -- and they could actually move it out to this distance, and then we could still carry on going down.
Terry Connelly and his family have lived on Cliff Path for 70 years.
He's been so frustrated by the situation that in October 2014 he personally paid for a second structural engineer's report to be carried out on the cliff face, hoping it would get the cliff path reopened once again.
This report also concluded that the cliffs on this particular part of the island were not affected by coastal erosion.
Indeed, the thick vegetation on the rocks protected it from the weather and the sea.
There is no change.
It's 145 million years old.
It's not going to change next week.
The report did recommend, however, that to prevent any further slippage, metal barriers similar to those found on motorways would need to be installed, to shore up the cliff face itself -- but that's a job likely to cost thousands of pounds, and Wayne believes it's purely the expense that's stopping the council from carrying out the work.
There's no evidence to say that this is unsafe -- and, to the contrary, there's evidence to say that it IS safe and we are able to drive on here.
Fearful of the impact the road's continued closure was having on the value of his home, Wayne had his property valued, only to be told by a local estate agent that thousands of pounds could be knocked off the asking price -- and that's a real blow, now that his partner's mother Rosemary has moved into a care home.
It's too big for us now, and really we just don't know what to do.
We know we can't sell at the reduced price.
With Wayne and his neighbours baffled as to why the council has not yet reopened the road, we've brought the two sides together.
Colin is meeting one of the local councillors to get to the bottom of what's going on.
What we're doing here is we're trying to open this path here - Right.
- .
.
this road for you.
That's what we're trying to do -- and to that end, what we've done is commission some drawings and some plans and schemes that we can choose from.
It just worries me, you know -- you buy a house, lovely house, reasonable access.
I mean, when's a man's castle? You know, this is my castle -- I can't even get to it.
You've pulled the footbridge up, you've pulled the moat up.
Well, Colin, it was an event that none of us could have predicted or planned for.
That's not how we see it -- we see it as aiding you as our resident, as all the other residents are up here, and we're trying to get you back access in a difficult situation.
We're trying to work that out.
At the end of the day, I think the problem's been, in the past, is bad communication, and the council haven't been as transparent as they should be.
Behind the scenes, I can tell you, cos since I've been involved from last September, things have been happening, and are going on.
That hasn't yet resulted in a scheme that we can actually develop and deliver for you, and I take what you're saying to me, that perhaps we could convey that a little better to you.
So, it seems the council is taking the problem seriously -- even if that doesn't mean an immediate solution.
The residents here have different issues and different problems, so we need to get this thing sorted out.
As for Wayne and his neighbours, they can't wait for an end to the whole thing.
We never, ever thought it would be a gamble to live here.
There's nobody at all who would want to buy a house that's got a stigma attached to it.
We're just having to live day by day and struggle the way we are.
Stylish, economical, and loved by generations -- that's me.
No, actually, it's the Mini.
It's always been more than just a car -- it's an iconic British brand, and one that continues to be a hugely successful one for its current owners, BMW.
But we've been receiving complaints about a feature of one of the newer versions of the Mini Cooper.
It's one of the most loved cars of the last 50 years -- a true British classic.
So, when the Mini was finally relaunched in 2001, it created a huge buzz.
Since then, three million of them have been made and exported worldwide.
Nick Jones from Shropshire was one petrolhead eager to buy one and get behind the wheel.
It's a quick car, it's a pretty car -- it fulfils all the things that I enjoy about the car in terms of the driveability of the car.
It handles beautifully, and it's small for the country lanes we live on here.
And when it comes to cars, Nick really knows his spark plugs from his socket wrench.
I built my first racing car when I was about 22, and it's a passion that has grown since then.
It gives me a lot of pleasure and a lot of satisfaction, and I have a well-equipped workshop, and it really keeps me amused -- keeps me off the streets and out of the pub.
So, having had his eye on a Mini for a while, in September 2014, after searching online, he found a seven-year-old model that seemed just what he wanted.
With nearly 25,000 miles on the clock and just one previous owner, it was on sale for £7,500.
I used to drive a Mini Cooper S back in the '60s.
The Mini was my obvious choice -- and I didn't expect to have any problems going forward.
The vehicle's owner lived in Scotland, so Nick caught the train up, handed over the cash and began the long road trip back to Shrewsbury -- but just ten miles into his journey, his troubles began.
The car's ABS warning light came on, which meant that there was a potentially serious problem with the car's brakes.
Nick drove home extremely cautiously, and took the car to his local garage, where he was told it would be off the road for eight weeks while the mechanics fixed it.
The repair cost through the local dealer was circa £1,500, which is no small amount of money.
Then the mechanics fixing Nick's car rang to say that it had another, unconnected problem -- one that could prove even more serious.
They called me and explained that the engine was making a very, very bad noise -- almost sounded as if it was terminal.
The mechanic told Nick something called the timing chain tensioner appeared to be broken.
Now, if, like me, you don't have the foggiest idea what that is, all you need to know is that if they break, it can cause extensive engine damage that can lead the vehicle to lose all power -- even while in motion.
Nick was mystified.
Given what he knew about cars, he was sure the timing chain tensioner should last the lifetime of the vehicle.
Why should a timing chain tensioner -- at that stage, at just over 25,000 miles -- fail? Nick was unhappy at having to pay just under £1,000 for the repair.
As far as he was concerned, this second fault simply shouldn't be happening in a car this age -- and, as such, he felt the manufacturers should take some responsibility.
But, with the car second-hand and nearly ten years old, it was no longer covered by either the standard five-year warranty he'd have got with a new Mini, or the 12 months' support that used models usually enjoy if they've been bought from an authorised dealer.
Because I bought it privately, it was outside of warranty because of its age, and not because of the mileage.
I was quite appalled with the fact that we should have a major mechanical failure at 25,000 miles -- it just doesn't happen on a modern motorcar.
Nick took up the matter with Mini UK, but they refused to budge.
Incensed, he began researching whether anyone else had experienced problems with the timing chain tensioner -- and a quick search online immediately turned up plenty of other people, both at home and abroad, all saying they'd had the same issue.
And what annoyed him the most was that it seemed BMW, Mini's parent company, WAS fixing it for free in new cars under warranty.
Nick doesn't think that's fair.
He believes that if the problem in those cars was indeed the same, and apparently a known issue, then he should get the same treatment and have it fixed free.
The only thing I ever got back was, "The car is out of warranty.
" And that's the end of the story -- they hid behind the warranty, and were not prepared to budge.
In America, a number of disgruntled Mini owners have joined together in class actions against the manufacturers, BMW, after having trouble with the same part.
The claimants argue that the company knew about the problems with the timing chain tensioner in Minis built between 2007 and 2010, but failed to do anything about it.
BMW refute this, and, so far, none of these legal cases have come to a conclusion.
When we approached BMW, the company didn't comment on the reported wider issues with the timing chain tensioner in certain models of Mini -- but as regards Nick's case, it reiterated what it's previously told him.
His Mini was well outside any warranty period when the problems he experienced occurred.
The company said that while it offers a generous goodwill policy for new or used vehicles bought via the Mini UK retailer network, cars bought privately, like Nick's, won't be entitled to the same benefits, and repairs are It explained that's partly because there is no existing relationship with the vehicle owner, but also because if a car's been serviced outside the Mini dealer network Nick remains annoyed that the repairs for his Mini cost him an extra £2,000 on top of the £7,500 he'd already paid for it -- but, on the bright side, he's had no problems with it since, and is once again relishing the thrill of the open road.
Having forked out to carry out these ongoing repairs, I now feel I have a car which I can actually enjoy.
Really enjoyable motorcar to drive.
we're always ready to investigate more of your stories.
Confused over your bills, or feel you're paying well over the odds? It's far too small, and it's done on purpose, so that you can't actually read it.
People look at it, and they'll say, "I can't be bothered reading that.
" Unsure what to do when you discover you've lost out, and that great deal has ended up costing you money? People are buying into this -- I did, you know? And are they going to be as awkward with them as they were with me? You might have a cautionary tale of your own, and want to share the mistakes you made with us, so that other people don't do the same thing.
Just fobbed off completely, and, you know, very disappointed.
You can write to us at Or you can send us an e-mail to The Rip-Off team is ready and waiting to investigate your stories.
Well, the key message that comes out of our stories today is never close those channels of communication -- keep the dialogue going so that even if you don't get the answer you want straight away, you can at least get a better idea of what's going on.
Just as those residents of the Isle of Wight did after we were able to get both sides together -- but, you know, until that happened, some of them told us they felt that they had absolutely no idea what, if anything, was happening.
And that, of course, can be the most frustrating thing of all.
And, you know, it can be very tempting in situations like that to lose your rag and then rant at some poor soul who, more than likely, is not the one who's going to be making the decision at the end -- but you can make your point very firmly while still keeping your cool.
Which, indeed, is what everyone on our team tries to do all of the time! And we'll be back doing exactly that again very soon -- but until then, from all of us on the team, bye-bye.
- Bye.
- Goodbye.
You've told us about the companies that you think get it wrong and the customer service that simply is not up to scratch.
If you're paying for good service, you expect a good service and a good product, whatever it may be.
At the end of the day, we expect value for money.
You've asked us to track down the scammers who stole your money and investigate the extra charges you'd say are unfair.
Wool's been pulled over our eyes.
I don't think we get a fair price.
I think they should always put the customer first.
And when you've lost out but no-one else is to blame, you've come to us to stop others falling into the same trap.
And no-one could sort that out for you over ten years? No-one has.
So, whether it's a blatant rip-off or a genuine mistake, we're here to find out why you're out of pocket and what you can do about it.
Your stories, your money.
This is Rip-Off Britain.
Hello and thank you so much for joining us here on Rip-Off Britain where, once again, we'll be getting to the bottom of some of the problems that you've asked us to investigate on your behalf.
Have to tell you, what a collection of stories we have for you today! I'll say! Each one of the people whose troubles we're going to be tackling today came to us because they are absolutely at their wits' end.
They've been trying to sort out the issues which either no-one wants to take responsibility for or that the companies or organisations that could help them really don't seem to see any urgency at all in getting things resolved.
And that's, of course, where we come in.
So, whether you've been dealing with mystery floods or road closures that stop you going about your daily business, we've been getting to the bottom of not just what's gone wrong but what's going to be done about it.
Coming up The residents paying over the odds for an energy system that they say just doesn't work but they can't escape.
I ended up having to sleep downstairs in the living room with the oven on.
Seems to me they're charging us what they can get away with.
And teetering on the edge -- the locals battling for normal access to the road in which they live.
It's been an absolute nightmare to do anything.
We have to get a wheelbarrow to transport our goods to our home.
In recent years, we've become used to seeing shocking images of parts of Britain that have been flooded after atrocious weather with property owners wading through their waterlogged homes to see the extent of the damage.
But while stories like that make the headlines, there are plenty of other examples of water damage to homes that don't -- situations where the damage can be equally severe but the problems have happened much less dramatically and where the cause of what's happened and, indeed, the solution to stop it happening again are much more difficult to pin down than if it had simply been the weather that was to blame.
High-risk flooding was the last thing Beryl Ellis expected to worry about when she and her husband moved into this Salford house almost 50 years ago.
It was our dream home, really, you know? We brought the children up in it and grandchildren have, you know, - played in it.
- Beryl lives with her daughter, Tracey.
We used to stay in the garden We used to sit out at night as well.
Yeah, when my husband came home from work, we'd sit out, we'd sit out at weekends, you know.
But eight years ago in the middle of summer, their outside space inexplicably started to flood and, since then, even without there being constant rain, Beryl says her beloved garden gets waterlogged around once a month.
It completely covers all the grass.
Yeah, it completely covers the grass, the path, and it used to cover the shed.
There was, like, a little ledge at the bottom of the garden, the shed was on that, it used to cover that.
We had to have that pulled down.
It just rotted.
As far as Beryl could see, there was no reason why her garden should flood.
Her house is a mile away from the nearest river or canal and, having lived there for half a century with no problems, Beryl was seriously puzzled.
So she contacted Salford City Council, her local water company and any other organisations that might be able to help or give her an explanation.
Unfortunately, no-one she tried could do either and it was only after six years of the same thing happening that a possible explanation was offered by a company working with Salford Council, but it wasn't one that satisfied Beryl or her family.
Well, someone came out and just said there wasn't a problem, it was just groundwater, when he sent a letter back to us saying it was groundwater, which I find really hard to believe when my mum and dad have lived in this house for 50 years and never had a problem with groundwater before.
That's not the answer.
That is not what's causing it.
There's something wrong.
Things would have been bad enough if the problem was just affecting the garden but it wasn't.
By now, Beryl and her late husband, Albert, had discovered that the implications of all of this were far worse than that.
We were sat here one night and we heard this, like, a popping sound and my husband was going round switching the television off, the microwave, the cooker, and it was still popping.
And I don't know what made him look under the floor.
But when he did look under the floor, the couple were horrified to find that water from the mysterious flooding had risen underneath the house.
Well, it was more or less touching the floorboards.
I think it's about three foot under there, I think.
And so it had been going for a while under the house.
Their insurance company paid for the water to be pumped out but it soon came back, so Beryl's husband, who was a plumber, tried installing different pumps to drain it away.
He put one in the corner of the living room, under the floorboards that connected to the outside drain.
And several years on, one of his pumps is still down there, keeping the water at bay beneath the house.
It's been going on for so long.
There is a lot of water down there.
They're on all the time.
We never have to switch them off.
Over the years, several other gardens nearby, including neighbour Gina's, have started to show signs of flooding, although not as badly as Beryl's.
And so far, no-one else has found water under the house.
Meanwhile, Beryl and Tracey have begun to develop their own theory as to why the flooding suddenly began, after so many years with no trouble.
Not far from their home are some new houses built on the site of a former industrial estate.
Before that, there was a water mill here, pumping water from an underground spring and then redirecting it to four small reservoirs.
But when the mill was demolished in the 1970s, two of those reservoirs were filled in.
Myself and all the neighbours seem to think it's to do with when Winterbottom's closed down because they used to have water pumped over to the reservoirs and now they've closed two of the reservoirs down so, I mean, where's the water going? But when Beryl put this to the council, it ruled it out based on thorough investigations by its drainage engineers and it reiterated the advice suggesting all this was purely a groundwater problem.
But for Beryl, that simply doesn't wash, so with no sign of anyone doing anything to stop the flooding, and terrified about the damage it might be causing to her house, Beryl came to us.
And we've called in surveyor Roger Southam to help.
With more than 30 years' experience in surveying and in the property industry, perhaps he can get to the bottom of what's happening.
But when he gets to Beryl's house, he's shocked by what he finds.
Wow! Let's have a look in here and see what we've got going on, then.
Crikey! I've never seen a swimming pool under a house before that wasn't intended to be there! They've had to put a pump in about eight years ago and there's still water sitting there.
Absolute miracle that this house hasn't got wet rot running right the way through the timbers.
Roger's keen to check the dampness of the floorboards.
Well, the meter reading is just off the scale, absolutely, and we're literally just below the timbers, just below the floorboards.
This is outrageous.
And elsewhere in the house, more signs are evident of the mysterious damage being caused from below.
Well, I brought my damp meter with me but on this occasion, it's completely redundant.
It's self-evident just how damp this internal wall is.
There's a different colouring within the wallpaper.
The problem is just appalling in this house.
If I lived here, I'd be extremely worried.
Roger gives everything a thorough once-over outside, too, but he can't be sure of what's going on.
I am mystified, in reality, but I am outraged that the authorities haven't taken this seriously and haven't investigated to actually solve the problem.
To have a house under water and a garden as a quagmire is absolutely appalling.
But Roger has one more thing to do before finishing his assessment.
He wants to take a closer look at where the mill used to be.
The two remaining reservoirs are still within easy reach, so does Roger agree with Beryl that the ones that have been filled in could somehow be linked to her flooded home? Well, that's where the mill used to be and you can see the new housing estate and the industrial units that have replaced what was the mill.
Now, the housing estate has been built on top of what was a reservoir before and got infilled in the '70s somewhere down there.
Quite clearly, something has happened when they built over the reservoir.
What the authorities need to do is some thorough investigation to work out exactly what is happening with the groundwater levels.
This has to be tackled as a matter of urgency.
Although Roger can't say for sure whether Beryl's theory is correct, he certainly believes there's enough evidence to suggest that the local authorities should carry out more detailed inspections to finally get to the bottom of Beryl's flooding.
In short, if the problem isn't solved and the authorities don't take the matter seriously, then the owner can be looking at the collapse of the building in the extremely long term.
This is such a worrying case.
I've never seen anything like it before.
When we contacted Salford City Council and the Environment Agency about Beryl's problems, they told us that they were working together to find a solution to this complex and difficult case.
Salford City Council maintained that investigations to date suggest this is an issue with groundwater flooding and not connected to the reservoir which would mean that it's actually Beryl's responsibility as the landowner to sort it out.
Even so, the council said it sympathises with her awful situation and is now going above and beyond its legal responsibility to help.
It added that it's recommended no further development take place around the reservoirs until a suitable drainage strategy is agreed.
And, after we got in touch, there was some good news -- the Environment Agency granted funding to Salford City Council to bring some planned investigations forward from 2017 to this year.
For Beryl and Tracey, all they can do is hope that these investigations can get to the bottom of this problem before there's further damage to their home.
Nobody should be living with the damp that is in this house.
Nobody should have the worry of the structural stability of their own property.
Now, here's a question for you -- how much do you spend on your heating and hot water? Let's face it, it's one of the biggest regular expenses that people have to deal with and, of course, in recent years, the amount we all pay has gone even higher.
But for some, those dreaded bills have increased even more dramatically than they have for the rest of us.
And what makes that worse is that there's absolutely nothing they can do about it.
They're amongst the hundreds of thousands of people in the UK who have no choice whatsoever about who they get their energy from.
So while the residents we're about to meet are having particular problems with one of the country's biggest names, the situation they find themselves in is one that could easily happen to a rapidly increasing number of people right across the UK.
Highams Green Park in east London, a new-build estate, but some of the residents are deeply unhappy about what they're being charged for their energy.
I ended up having to sleep downstairs in the living room with the oven on, you know, just cos it was so cold.
For it to be a very energy-saving property, to pay such high rates when you've only just moved in, I think, is ludicrous, really.
Seems to me they're charging us what they can get away with.
Adding fuel to their frustrations is the fact that all these neighbours' homes have been fitted with a system that's been heralded as both green and affordable.
Like hundreds of other homes right across the country, the flats at Highams Green are part of what's called a district heating scheme, particularly common in blocks of flats or in affordable housing.
The idea is that rather than each individual home converting gas into its own heat and hot water, one big generator does it for all of them.
That makes it up to 30% more energy efficient, which you might think would result in lower bills, but that isn't how it's worked out at Highams Green.
Charlie, Chelsea and their daughter, Bella Rose, were one of the first families to move in in 2012.
We were actually living in Chelsea's mum's with Bella for about eight months which, as you can imagine, is pretty hard work in a single room with the three of you.
So we really wanted to just get out there and get something of our own.
Charlie and Chelsea bought their flat off-plan under a shared ownership scheme and the property's green credentials were a big pull.
We thought it was the right thing to do and it seemed like it would save us some money.
So, confident that they'd made the right decision, Charlie and Chelsea were keen to move in.
When we got the keys, as you can imagine, we were ecstatic, overjoyed, just unbelievable feeling of having your own place, as it were.
Especially when you've got children, it tends to up the ante slightly in terms of getting out of home and it worked perfectly for us.
But there was one issue that Charlie says took the shine off their new home.
The hot water started dropping out, then the heating started coming on on its own.
You kind of think, "Am I doing something wrong with the system?" We called out engineer after engineer to come round and have a look at it.
They said it was a faulty system within the property.
Now, these sorts of issues could simply be teething troubles with a new system on a new estate but what's more, Charlie says it was some time before he received any energy bills, so he'd no idea what his energy was costing him.
But when eventually, in January 2014, he did start getting bills, they were much higher than he'd expected.
The first was for £646.
45 followed, three months later, by a bill for £871.
20.
For a young family, it's unmanageable.
Charlie's bills were already much higher than the £700 most households typically pay for their gas and heating over an entire year.
It certainly wasn't what he expected from a system supposed to save them money.
Charlie's heating bills have continued to mount up and some of his neighbours have been left similarly hot and bothered.
Asif Yusuf lives just round the corner.
He bought his flat in Highams Green in February 2013.
I remember that first day I got the keys, and I remember it being really, really cold and wanting to switch the heating on.
And I switched the heating on and it'd come on for a minute and go off.
And I didn't know what to do.
It was just such a confusing system.
What had later transpired was the heating system wasn't working properly.
Like Charlie and his family, Asif didn't receive any bills for months and he was shocked when one finally did land on the doormat.
I was told that the bills would be quite low here, so to see a bill for £800 or £900 was a shock.
There's no way I was expecting to see a bill for that much.
Another Highams Green resident and others on the estate have combined forces as a residents' association to try and get some answers from the company that built the homes in the first place -- supermarket giant Tesco.
The big-name store developed the land as part of the hard-won planning consent for a new superstore.
It built 253 homes here, all of which had to comply with government policies on energy and sustainable development.
So a state-of-the-art combined heat and power plant was built as well, supplying both the store and the homes with their heat and hot water.
It's almost like -- and I hope this isn't the case -- that we're initially funding that store to have the lights on and we're all sharing the bill.
I hope that's not the case but how do we know that isn't the case? The system generates electricity and heat is a by-product.
Who uses that electricity and how much? Is it being sold to the grid back or is Tesco using it? - Where's it going? - Yeah.
- Where's it going, basically? There are two charges the residents are unhappy with -- firstly, the standing charge, which you pay just to have access to electricity and gas.
It's fixed at 93p a day.
Now, most people would typically pay much less -- a total of between 25 and 70p.
And then there's the tariff -- the price per kilowatt-hour.
The residents here are charged 7.
75p per kilowatt-hour but the average price that UK customers paid for their gas last year was just 4.
5p per kilowatt-hour -- 35% cheaper than the rate Tesco's charging.
When you look at the charges that they've been giving us, they're quite huge.
Despite several public meetings, a petition and more than 50 complaints, the residents say they still haven't managed to get Tesco to review their charges and because their supply is via the district heating scheme set up by Tesco when it built the flats, the residents are stuck with one single supplier, whether they like it or not.
It definitely feels like we're trapped and frustrated.
And it's that which experts say is currently the big problem with these types of scheme.
You just have one supplier who is providing you with your heat all year round and, effectively, that means that if you're not satisfied with the price that you're paying or the service that you're getting, you as a consumer have no choice.
Another problem is you don't have a regulator, like Ofgem, who cover gas and electricity customers, who can step in and take action against that company in the same kind of way.
At Highams Green, with little power to make Tesco sit up and take notice, some residents, including Charlie, have taken to desperate measures to register their protest.
So I haven't actually paid them a penny.
Speaking to a couple of my neighbours, we all kind of we're in the same boat.
So I decided that, between us, we should all kind of really dig our heels in and say, "Until we get some answers, you're not getting any of our money".
We contacted the various organisations involved in this dispute to see if we could nudge things towards a solution.
The housing association that rents out the properties at Highams Green told us that it's been aware of teething problems and has facilitated meetings between tenants and Tesco to try and resolve them.
As for Tesco, which supplies the energy, it says it's working hard to provide a competitive and reliable service to residents and is reviewing energy tariffs and standing charges to ensure that they remain fair and transparent.
It stressed that it's already made improvements in response to customer feedback but pointed out that its charges fall within the average cost range of district heating systems.
Meanwhile, the company that manages the billing and contract for the system claimed that the costs for district heating schemes are not directly comparable with more typical tariffs unless they take account of the total life cycle cost of each respective system.
Right now, around 210,000 UK homes -- that's less than 1% -- are part of one of these district energy schemes but that's likely to change.
The Government's ambition for this is that eight million homes will be receiving their heat in this way by 2030, so we're looking at a massive growth over the next 15 years.
All of which means what's happened at Highams Green is a lot more than simply a little local difficulty.
Residents here fear that unless district heating schemes are regulated in the same way as traditional energy supplies, situations like theirs could become all too common.
Sooner or later, this needs to be addressed.
Policymakers need to look at this or somebody needs to look at this.
Still to come on Rip-Off Britain Could this man's Mini breakdown be more than just a one-off? I was quite appalled with the fact that we should have a major mechanical failure at 25,000 miles.
It just doesn't happen on a modern motorcar.
- For two days only - A one-stop shop packed with advice It's our very famous Rip-Off Britain pop-up shop.
This year, we brought our top team of experts to the Victoria Centre in Nottingham.
And, as usual, we set up our Gripe Area, where you told us what really winds you up.
Why can't the utility companies print something that we can all read and make it, if anything, simpler? One thing I can't stand is train tickets.
Just ridiculous amounts of money just for one trip.
If we think we see a good offer, we don't think about the consequences, we just think, "Oh, it's a good offer".
That must be true.
But very often, unfortunately, it isn't true and we do get ripped off.
Angela, I think it's fair to say that we all absolutely adore - the pop-up shop every year, don't we? - I think we do.
We get sackloads of mail, we get hundreds of e-mails.
To actually see people come through the doors and say, "This is the problem that I've got," we can put them face-to-face with one of our experts and, hopefully, get a resolution of some sort for them at the same time.
But that's what I get great enjoyment from because, today, we've had results from some of the consumer problems.
So I like it when people go home and say, "Gosh, "thank you very much indeed for sorting that out".
And there was one of those results and a very unusual story that just goes to prove how long your rights last.
- Hi, I'm Sarah.
- I'm David.
- Hello, nice to meet you.
- I'm Martyn, nice to meet you.
- Hello, Martyn.
- Grab a seat.
A lifelong fan of Clarks footwear, David bought a pair of his favourite style and then put them away ready for when a similar pair of shoes he had wore out.
But five years later, when he eventually came to wear them, disaster struck -- as he explained to personal finance expert Sarah Pennels and financial ombudsman Martyn James.
So, I brought them out, put them on, just walked a few yards, - and that happened.
- Oh, gosh! - Good grief! Blimey.
- That's pretty drastic.
- I took them back to the shop I bought them from, and they said, "We'll give you £10 off a new pair of shoes.
" - Good grief.
- I said, "Well, they're brand-new.
" She said, "Well, that's all we can do.
" So, I wasn't very happy.
There's something called the Sale of Goods Act which says that anything you buy must be of satisfactory quality, it's got to be fit for purpose, so it should do what it's supposed to do, and it should also be as it's described -- and that law gives you rights for up to six years in England and Wales -- five years in Scotland -- and it does mean that you can go back to the retailer for up to six years and say that you've got a problem.
Now, it doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to get a full refund, but in your case, although you've had these shoes for quite a long - time, I mean, you've not worn them, have you? - No, I've not worn them.
- You've not gone out anywhere in them.
- No.
If you go back and say, "Now, I want to take it further, "and I'd like you to address this complaint in writing," all businesses have complaints processes, and that will usually get you to where you need to be.
I feel for you, because I hate shoe shopping with a passion, - so, I'd be furious if that happened to me! - Yeah.
Yes.
Yes, exactly.
Martyn's team at the Financial Ombudsman Service got in touch with Clarks again on David's behalf, and when they did, the company immediately offered David a free pair of new shoes.
It stressed that this was above and beyond its usual procedures for shoes of this age, but David is delighted with such a good result.
Do you know, because of rising sea levels, before the end of the century, around 7,000 homes and buildings are expected to be lost to coastal erosion, and ten times that number will go if the existing sea defences are not maintained.
Well, that's obviously a real worry for those who have homes right beside the sea, and it's been quite a concern for the residents of one particular cliffside spot whose entire road has been closed off following a couple of instances of crumbling rocks.
But does that necessarily mean their homes are in danger? With its breathtaking views, golden, sandy beaches and balmy climate, it's easy to see why the town of Sandown on the south-east coast of the Isle of Wight is such a popular place to live.
One road here, named Cliff Path, is about as close to the sea as you can get.
Around 100 residents live here -- among them, Wayne Goodison, who's been here for eight years.
The reason why we chose this particular spot is my partner's mother, Rosemary, was in the early stages of dementia, and she needed somebody in the house to look after her on a regular basis.
At the time he bought it, Wayne's house was a bungalow -- but he transformed it into a three-storey home so that Rosemary could live reasonably independently on the lower floor.
We wanted Rosemary to have a decent place to live and to walk.
Though keen to live by the sea, Wayne was aware that came with some risks.
Properties in other parts of the island had already been demolished or abandoned because of coastal erosion, so, right from the start, he'd been keen to know if that was a danger here.
We've looked at records, when we've bought the property, to say that dating back from Victorian times -- we had no concerns regarding whether that would happen to us, because of our research.
But two years after moving in, it seemed that Wayne's original fears might be realised.
During some routine maintenance work being carried out on the metal handrails that ran alongside Cliff Path, part of the upper cliff was dislodged, and began to fall away from the road and into the sea below.
Wayne's neighbour Colin Blyth lives slightly further along Cliff Path, and was at home at the time.
I came out thinking there was a problem, and there was two council men, sort of hands in the air, going, "Oh, my God, what have I done?" With the road now extremely dangerous, the council had no choice but to close Cliff Path altogether while they made it safe again.
But without proper access to their homes, the residents felt cut off, with even the most basic tasks like shopping now a struggle.
It was a nightmare.
It was a total nightmare.
Desperate to regain proper access to their own homes, the residents got together and persuaded the council to do a survey which they hoped would prove that once the railings were fixed, the road would be safe to reopen.
Indeed, once a team of structural engineers had concluded the path was safe for vehicles up to 3.
5 tonnes, and there was no erosion or ongoing risk, Cliff Path was reopened.
It was a great relief.
We could drive up here, I could park, take the shopping out, people could come and see us -- if we had to go out for the day, I could bring the car.
But now the residents have been cut off again -- and this time the road's been closed for much longer.
In the spring of 2014, a different section of the cliff fell away when a lorry driving down the road crashed into the railings.
Anyone trying to drive down the road would now be perilously close to the cliff's edge, so, once again, the council felt they had no choice but to close Cliff Path to vehicles.
This is where the accident with the lorry has taken place.
This large lorry knocked that fence completely down, and .
.
because it was knocked down so far, and then it was pulled back up again, all the vegetation around it has all fallen down.
The road has now been closed for well over a year, and, for the residents of Cliff Path, simply going about their daily business has become extremely difficult.
It's been an absolute nightmare to do anything.
We have to get a wheelbarrow to transport our goods to our home.
Anything that we have to bring things into the house -- you know, it's a logistic nightmare.
My son picks up a trolley from our garden shed, walks down the 200, 300 metres, and we decant from the car onto the box of the trolley, and then we pull it all the way back.
The council has invited the residents to discuss the issue, but Wayne feels they're simply not moving fast enough, and that there's no need for the road to have been closed for so long.
There's no reason why they couldn't put a motorway-type crash barrier along the cliff path here, all the way -- and they could actually move it out to this distance, and then we could still carry on going down.
Terry Connelly and his family have lived on Cliff Path for 70 years.
He's been so frustrated by the situation that in October 2014 he personally paid for a second structural engineer's report to be carried out on the cliff face, hoping it would get the cliff path reopened once again.
This report also concluded that the cliffs on this particular part of the island were not affected by coastal erosion.
Indeed, the thick vegetation on the rocks protected it from the weather and the sea.
There is no change.
It's 145 million years old.
It's not going to change next week.
The report did recommend, however, that to prevent any further slippage, metal barriers similar to those found on motorways would need to be installed, to shore up the cliff face itself -- but that's a job likely to cost thousands of pounds, and Wayne believes it's purely the expense that's stopping the council from carrying out the work.
There's no evidence to say that this is unsafe -- and, to the contrary, there's evidence to say that it IS safe and we are able to drive on here.
Fearful of the impact the road's continued closure was having on the value of his home, Wayne had his property valued, only to be told by a local estate agent that thousands of pounds could be knocked off the asking price -- and that's a real blow, now that his partner's mother Rosemary has moved into a care home.
It's too big for us now, and really we just don't know what to do.
We know we can't sell at the reduced price.
With Wayne and his neighbours baffled as to why the council has not yet reopened the road, we've brought the two sides together.
Colin is meeting one of the local councillors to get to the bottom of what's going on.
What we're doing here is we're trying to open this path here - Right.
- .
.
this road for you.
That's what we're trying to do -- and to that end, what we've done is commission some drawings and some plans and schemes that we can choose from.
It just worries me, you know -- you buy a house, lovely house, reasonable access.
I mean, when's a man's castle? You know, this is my castle -- I can't even get to it.
You've pulled the footbridge up, you've pulled the moat up.
Well, Colin, it was an event that none of us could have predicted or planned for.
That's not how we see it -- we see it as aiding you as our resident, as all the other residents are up here, and we're trying to get you back access in a difficult situation.
We're trying to work that out.
At the end of the day, I think the problem's been, in the past, is bad communication, and the council haven't been as transparent as they should be.
Behind the scenes, I can tell you, cos since I've been involved from last September, things have been happening, and are going on.
That hasn't yet resulted in a scheme that we can actually develop and deliver for you, and I take what you're saying to me, that perhaps we could convey that a little better to you.
So, it seems the council is taking the problem seriously -- even if that doesn't mean an immediate solution.
The residents here have different issues and different problems, so we need to get this thing sorted out.
As for Wayne and his neighbours, they can't wait for an end to the whole thing.
We never, ever thought it would be a gamble to live here.
There's nobody at all who would want to buy a house that's got a stigma attached to it.
We're just having to live day by day and struggle the way we are.
Stylish, economical, and loved by generations -- that's me.
No, actually, it's the Mini.
It's always been more than just a car -- it's an iconic British brand, and one that continues to be a hugely successful one for its current owners, BMW.
But we've been receiving complaints about a feature of one of the newer versions of the Mini Cooper.
It's one of the most loved cars of the last 50 years -- a true British classic.
So, when the Mini was finally relaunched in 2001, it created a huge buzz.
Since then, three million of them have been made and exported worldwide.
Nick Jones from Shropshire was one petrolhead eager to buy one and get behind the wheel.
It's a quick car, it's a pretty car -- it fulfils all the things that I enjoy about the car in terms of the driveability of the car.
It handles beautifully, and it's small for the country lanes we live on here.
And when it comes to cars, Nick really knows his spark plugs from his socket wrench.
I built my first racing car when I was about 22, and it's a passion that has grown since then.
It gives me a lot of pleasure and a lot of satisfaction, and I have a well-equipped workshop, and it really keeps me amused -- keeps me off the streets and out of the pub.
So, having had his eye on a Mini for a while, in September 2014, after searching online, he found a seven-year-old model that seemed just what he wanted.
With nearly 25,000 miles on the clock and just one previous owner, it was on sale for £7,500.
I used to drive a Mini Cooper S back in the '60s.
The Mini was my obvious choice -- and I didn't expect to have any problems going forward.
The vehicle's owner lived in Scotland, so Nick caught the train up, handed over the cash and began the long road trip back to Shrewsbury -- but just ten miles into his journey, his troubles began.
The car's ABS warning light came on, which meant that there was a potentially serious problem with the car's brakes.
Nick drove home extremely cautiously, and took the car to his local garage, where he was told it would be off the road for eight weeks while the mechanics fixed it.
The repair cost through the local dealer was circa £1,500, which is no small amount of money.
Then the mechanics fixing Nick's car rang to say that it had another, unconnected problem -- one that could prove even more serious.
They called me and explained that the engine was making a very, very bad noise -- almost sounded as if it was terminal.
The mechanic told Nick something called the timing chain tensioner appeared to be broken.
Now, if, like me, you don't have the foggiest idea what that is, all you need to know is that if they break, it can cause extensive engine damage that can lead the vehicle to lose all power -- even while in motion.
Nick was mystified.
Given what he knew about cars, he was sure the timing chain tensioner should last the lifetime of the vehicle.
Why should a timing chain tensioner -- at that stage, at just over 25,000 miles -- fail? Nick was unhappy at having to pay just under £1,000 for the repair.
As far as he was concerned, this second fault simply shouldn't be happening in a car this age -- and, as such, he felt the manufacturers should take some responsibility.
But, with the car second-hand and nearly ten years old, it was no longer covered by either the standard five-year warranty he'd have got with a new Mini, or the 12 months' support that used models usually enjoy if they've been bought from an authorised dealer.
Because I bought it privately, it was outside of warranty because of its age, and not because of the mileage.
I was quite appalled with the fact that we should have a major mechanical failure at 25,000 miles -- it just doesn't happen on a modern motorcar.
Nick took up the matter with Mini UK, but they refused to budge.
Incensed, he began researching whether anyone else had experienced problems with the timing chain tensioner -- and a quick search online immediately turned up plenty of other people, both at home and abroad, all saying they'd had the same issue.
And what annoyed him the most was that it seemed BMW, Mini's parent company, WAS fixing it for free in new cars under warranty.
Nick doesn't think that's fair.
He believes that if the problem in those cars was indeed the same, and apparently a known issue, then he should get the same treatment and have it fixed free.
The only thing I ever got back was, "The car is out of warranty.
" And that's the end of the story -- they hid behind the warranty, and were not prepared to budge.
In America, a number of disgruntled Mini owners have joined together in class actions against the manufacturers, BMW, after having trouble with the same part.
The claimants argue that the company knew about the problems with the timing chain tensioner in Minis built between 2007 and 2010, but failed to do anything about it.
BMW refute this, and, so far, none of these legal cases have come to a conclusion.
When we approached BMW, the company didn't comment on the reported wider issues with the timing chain tensioner in certain models of Mini -- but as regards Nick's case, it reiterated what it's previously told him.
His Mini was well outside any warranty period when the problems he experienced occurred.
The company said that while it offers a generous goodwill policy for new or used vehicles bought via the Mini UK retailer network, cars bought privately, like Nick's, won't be entitled to the same benefits, and repairs are It explained that's partly because there is no existing relationship with the vehicle owner, but also because if a car's been serviced outside the Mini dealer network Nick remains annoyed that the repairs for his Mini cost him an extra £2,000 on top of the £7,500 he'd already paid for it -- but, on the bright side, he's had no problems with it since, and is once again relishing the thrill of the open road.
Having forked out to carry out these ongoing repairs, I now feel I have a car which I can actually enjoy.
Really enjoyable motorcar to drive.
we're always ready to investigate more of your stories.
Confused over your bills, or feel you're paying well over the odds? It's far too small, and it's done on purpose, so that you can't actually read it.
People look at it, and they'll say, "I can't be bothered reading that.
" Unsure what to do when you discover you've lost out, and that great deal has ended up costing you money? People are buying into this -- I did, you know? And are they going to be as awkward with them as they were with me? You might have a cautionary tale of your own, and want to share the mistakes you made with us, so that other people don't do the same thing.
Just fobbed off completely, and, you know, very disappointed.
You can write to us at Or you can send us an e-mail to The Rip-Off team is ready and waiting to investigate your stories.
Well, the key message that comes out of our stories today is never close those channels of communication -- keep the dialogue going so that even if you don't get the answer you want straight away, you can at least get a better idea of what's going on.
Just as those residents of the Isle of Wight did after we were able to get both sides together -- but, you know, until that happened, some of them told us they felt that they had absolutely no idea what, if anything, was happening.
And that, of course, can be the most frustrating thing of all.
And, you know, it can be very tempting in situations like that to lose your rag and then rant at some poor soul who, more than likely, is not the one who's going to be making the decision at the end -- but you can make your point very firmly while still keeping your cool.
Which, indeed, is what everyone on our team tries to do all of the time! And we'll be back doing exactly that again very soon -- but until then, from all of us on the team, bye-bye.
- Bye.
- Goodbye.