We put the word out asking you to tell us about the rip-offs
that make you rage and you didn't let us down.
Sharp practice, that's what it is.
There isn't a story too small
or an issue we feel we can't take up on your behalf.
Where do you go? Who can you rely on?
People out there believe they are being ripped off,
and indeed they are, we are Rip-Off Britain.
You've contacted us in your thousands.
You've written to us, e-mailed us and you've even stopped us in the street.
It is a blatant rip-off.
I feel aggrieved by it.
Somehow somebody's making a lot of money on this.
I think somebody should take that up.
Our team has travelled the length and breadth of the UK
to hear your stories.
Now it's time for us to investigate on your behalf.
This is Rip-Off Britain.
Hello and welcome to Rip-Off Britain.
This is a series that takes on the sharp practices that are giving you reason to really gripe.
Yes, and with the credit crunch continuing to bite,
really every penny counts,
so it's never been more important
to feel that you really are getting a fair deal.
But that's not always the case,
judging by the letters that you've been sending us,
which is why we're here, to investigate. Absolutely. We are.
Also on the programme -
the silly mistakes consumers make that can cost both time and money.
Plus, the reward schemes that can seem a little pointless.
And the competition cards that leave you feeling like a loser.
I was absolutely fuming with anger.
As a nation we work really hard for our money
and here at Rip-Off Britain
we believe that every penny that goes out should be a penny well-spent.
But you've been letting us know that it isn't always the case.
Customer loyalty means big business for supermarkets
and a number of other retail outlets.
But apparently, it's a two-way street.
Because as loyal customers, we are rewarded with points
which entitle us to savings on all kinds of goods.
But we've heard from one viewer
who doesn't believe the savings she's been offered really add up.
Running a village cafe,
Sue caters for a steady flow of customers seven days a week,
so by the time her annual holiday comes round,
she's more than ready for it.
And next year marks a special occasion -
Sue's 30th wedding anniversary.
To celebrate, she's planning on taking her family on a trip of a lifetime, to Kenya, on safari.
Is that all right for you? Have you enjoyed the scones?
We looked through the brochure and as it's our wedding anniversary
we wanted to spend it with our children
and take them somewhere special.
I was born and raised in Africa.
I wanted to take my children to show them where I was born
and this was the nearest way we could do it,
the easiest way we could do it.
Feeding the village means that Sue spends a lot on buying food.
So, it made sense to get a loyalty card.
And it made even more sense when she discovered the reward scheme
could also help with her holiday.
So I thought - well, I could use my points
and my rewards for shopping at Tesco's to put towards the holiday.
I rang Cosmos, because I had got the brochure from the travel agents,
rang them up, found the holiday we liked,
and they gave me a quote. It's a week's holiday in Kenya.
They gave me the price and I was very happy with that.
And that's for full board.
Dream holiday picked, it was time to book.
But that's when things got more than a little confusing.
Yes, I will be using my vouchers.
Sue was shocked to discover that redeeming her club card points
would actually increase the cost of the family holiday
by a massive £1,814.
Confused?
She asked Tesco for answers.
They then gave me a number to phone someone in customer services
who explained that the voucher scheme was perfectly fine
and it was the tour operators that actually inflate the price.
It's out of Tesco's hands
and it's up to the tour companies what they charge.
So much for thinking, "Every little helps".
We asked the travel company, Cosmos,
why Sue's holiday was cheaper if she didn't use her supermarket points.
They said that some holidays
have selected discounts applied to their prices
when customers book directly through their website
and these special prices are not available to people
booking through Clubcard schemes.
But they have agreed to review Sue's case
in order to provide her with what they say will be a "competitive price".
And Sue says, in future, she'll definitely be comparing prices
before she settles on her dream break.
How often have you picked up a newspaper or a magazine
only for one of these to fall out?
A scratchcard.
Now the lure of their huge cash prizes can tempt even the most risk-averse
and if the game in question costs nothing,
then it's got to be a win-win situation, right?
Not necessarily.
# Stars shining bright above you... #
Actress, life coach, reiki practitioner -
juggling a variety of roles doesn't faze Sue Alford.
And as much as she enjoys her jobs,
she still dreams of a life without work, where money is no object.
Well I'd been upstairs and I was looking out of the window.
I was having a little dream
about how I'd love to have my garden landscaped.
So then I came downstairs and on the kitchen table,
to my absolute surprise, was a scratchcard.
I thought, "Oh!" It said something about winning £1 million.
I thought, "What if?"
What if, indeed. Sue thought she had nothing to lose.
I scratched off the various panels
and sure enough, there was three matching symbols.
Then I had a quick look at the back of the card,
the terms and conditions.
The terms and conditions are actually written in a very tiny font.
I couldn't see any easy way
of finding out what I had possibly won.
So I thought the only way to find out is to phone this number.
Sue was getting more excited by the minute but time was ticking by.
I did acknowledge that it was going to cost £1.50 a minute,
but I had a strategy and that was going to be -
if I'd only won £10 I'd put the phone down.
I assumed a £10 prize would be announced
at the beginning of the call. Hm-mm.
What happened was, you get a waffly beginning to the message.
You're still in with the chance of winning a big prize or the £10 prize,
so you kind of keep holding on and on and on,
you're watching the clock, it's now coming up to six minutes
and then suddenly what you've won is a £10 prize.
So I put the phone down and after that I thought, "This isn't right."
So Sue had won a tenner,
but the phone call to claim her prize had cost her £9.
More than she can ever remember spending on a phone call.
I was absolutely fuming with anger.
I was angry at myself for falling for this trick.
I was angry at the scratchcard company.
So I jumped onto the computer and I thrashed out a letter to my MP.
Sue's MP contacted the scratchcard company
and they agreed to reimburse her.
But she couldn't stop thinking about the way scratchcards work
and the number of catches involved.
Sue now tries to beat the scratchcard companies at their own game.
By posting her winning cards off,
she's only out of pocket for the cost of a stamp,
not a £9 phone call.
But we've heard from lots of you who think these cards
aren't even worth the price of a stamp.
Even if you send your so-called winning card off,
you say you rarely, if indeed, ever, get sent a prize.
Consumer groups say you are best throwing these cards away.
They believe if something looks too good to be true, it usually is.
So, when it comes to competitions,
how can you tell which ones are legitimate
and which are likely to leave you feeling like a loser?
Personal finance journalist, Victoria Bischoff from Citywire
has some priceless advice.
Dodgy competitions come in all sorts of different forms.
You can find them free in magazines, newspapers,
they are delivered through your door, via text, e-mail, phone
and are all over the internet.
If something sounds too good to be true, then it usually is.
If you know that you haven't entered any competitions or lotteries
and someone calls you up to tell you that you've won
an all expenses paid trip to the Caribbean,
alarm bells should start ringing.
If you are asked to pay any money upfront to claim your prize,
such as an admin fee, it's probably a rip off.
If you have to call a phone number to claim your prize always check the rate first.
Many companies charge as much as £1.50 or more per minute
and then purposely extend the length and cost of the call.
The organiser's aim is to make more money from your call than the cost of providing you with a prize.
It's a sensible idea to avoid competitions that ask
for personal details and never, ever give out your bank details.
Giving private information puts you at risk of fraud
and details such as your e-mail or address or phone number
can then be sold on for marketing purposes.
It's advisable to always tick the box opting out of receiving further marketing information.
Not all competition are scams or designed to rip you off.
Lots of people pick up great prizes without spending a single penny.
In fact, comping is a growing trend.
Compers spend hours strategically entering hundreds of competitions
to increase their chances of winning.
Many compers prefer to enter competitions that are less publicised
or local competitions, as less people are likely to enter.
There are also a number of websites designated to providing
a list of legitimate competitions,
some of which allow you to enter more than one competition at a time.
As with anything, the best way to avoid being ripped off
is to use a little common sense and to have your wits about you.
Before you enter any competition, always ask yourself what does the organiser want to get out of this?
It's unlikely they are giving out prizes just to be nice.
If you remember this and don't expect too much, any winnings will be a bonus.
Still to come on Rip Off Britain, the sky high costs you have to carry
before your feet even leave the ground.
And I take the plunge into the World Wide Web.
Well I think it's fair to say it's been a tough year for the travel industry,
with the double whammy of recession and nature making their mark.
Many, many companies are still suffering fallout
from the volcanic ash cloud that locked down British airspace.
Add to this the fact that fewer of us are choosing to holiday abroad
and you'd think companies would be falling over themselves to offer us really competitive pricing
and all those amazing deals, but is that actually the case?
Bringing up two children, whilst studying fulltime, has not been all that easy for Sarah Keast.
When her degree was in hand, all she wanted was a relaxing break in the sun with the whole family.
I'd just graduated, so this holiday was kind of like, you know
we were deliberating as to whether we could afford to go and all the rest of it.
We decided it's been a really busy year
and we all wanted some time away as a family
just to relax and chill out in some hopefully good weather, really.
Having to fit around the school holidays,
Sarah and her husband were very keen to find an affordable break.
And a big swimming pool and there is a bridge there.
They settled on an all-inclusive deal to Turkey
with Direct Holidays, that's the no-frill internet arm of Thomas Cook.
They felt they'd made the right choice.
After all, the company was offering a price match guarantee.
A lot of swimming pools
and the ocean looks really nice and blue.
So the family began to prepare for the trip.
But, first, Sarah couldn't resist comparing the cost of her holiday with others online.
I was anxious to make sure I'd made the right choice
in the resort we'd chosen and that's when I found that, you know...
shocked and I actually felt physically sick.
I thought, we've just spent, not 12 hours before, £300 more.
I know it's not loads and loads of money but it is to us.
£300 is probably what we'd take there or thereabouts for a little bit of spending money.
So I thought, I'm not happy that Thomas Cook have got my £300.
So, that's what fired it all off, really.
Scarlett and Jack may have been jumping for joy
at the thought of the trip to Turkey.
But Sarah was hopping mad.
She wanted to know why Direct Holidays were charging £300 more
than its parent company, Thomas Cook,
for exactly the same holiday
and that's in spite of their price match guarantee.
I spoke to someone at Direct Holidays
and they wouldn't put me through to a team manager, or team leader,
even though I said I think it's going to be quite a long phone call,
I don't want to prevent other customers getting through, so it's maybe best that you transfer me.
But no. Again, not in so many words, it's tough luck,
you should have checked the other websites before you booked.
I said but you've got a price match guarantee.
Oh, no, I can't do anything about that.
I said my money is going in Thomas Cook's pot.
Basically I just feel that Thomas Cook are ripping me off and that's how I felt.
So Sarah put pen to paper.
I live quite close to Thomas Cook's head office.
I'm going to go down there, I'm going to deliver a letter.
It needed, as far as I was concerned, action, there and then.
However, Sarah's hand-delivered letter went unanswered.
So she contacted the newspapers instead.
They'd not actually even seen the letter I had hand-delivered.
They hadn't looked at the e-mail either my husband had sent previously
and the chap that I spoke to there said that because the press was involved,
his words were that, "he had accelerated matters somewhat."
Sarah finally got an answer but it didn't really make much sense.
She was told the price discrepancy came about because
Direct Holidays don't price match within their own company.
I can't get my head around how Thomas Cook can effectively undercut themselves.
It doesn't seem to make sense to me.
We asked Thomas Cook to explain themselves and unbelievably, they told us...
However they added...
For which they have apologised.
They claim they very rarely are beaten on price
and have agreed to honour Sarah's holiday booking at the lower price.
She's also the proud owner now of a money-off voucher,
if she can bear to use Direct Holidays or indeed Thomas Cook ever again.
Recent research suggests that around half of the UK's 55 to 64-year-olds
would just love to leave their current life behind for up to a year
and an increasing number of people seem to be doing just that.
So many in fact, that there is even a nickname for them these days,
they're called the grey gappers.
I might be one of those myself one day.
Now, it usually involves signing up with an organisation
but the money you pay not only funds your trip but also contributes to the local communities you visit
but we've heard from one viewer who isn't convinced that everything is as it seems.
Gill Sinclair from West London recently felt that the time was right
to escape from the rat race and do something more with her life.
A lot of my friends, their kids were having gap years. I hadn't had a gap year.
When I was a teenager they hadn't been invented in the same way.
So I decided I wanted to go to South America.
I wanted to do a combination of voluntary work and travelling.
Gill planned a trip that would involve
working on volunteer projects in Bolivia,
Ecuador, Peru and the Galapagos Islands
and like many other grey gappers, as they are called, she booked it all through a specialist company.
I paid nearly £6,000 for the trip.
Which I calculated was about £1,000 for the first flight
to get me to South America, to Bolivia and then after that,
I would guess it would be roughly equivalent to £1,000 a month for five months.
That included some accommodation with host families,
placements at these various projects and travelling in between times
to get to the different countries and the different projects.
Gill jetted off, but before too long she began to worry that the trip wasn't quite what she had in mind.
Each of the projects seemed rather underwhelmed to have me there.
They weren't very welcoming.
They were a bit sort of grudging in their welcome.
It took me a little while to figure it out but I realised
that actually they didn't need short-term volunteers
and they didn't need people who couldn't speak the language.
Imagine someone comes to your place of work, can't speak the language,
they'll only be there three weeks,
how much time will you invest in them? How much will you give them to do?
You won't even show them where the kettle is.
So I was there, trying to be helpful, wanting to be helpful
and they just didn't want me there.
There was nothing I could do.
OK, so this was Monday, March 17th.
"Walked to the bus stop with Meg, US volunteer, off to the Galapagos tomorrow.
"She went to the cable car, I went to work.
"Hardly any kids in the mornings.
"Kathy asked me if I had brought a book to read.
"'To the children?' I asked her. 'No', she said, 'to yourself, out of the way, in a corner.'"
Then I discovered that actually they weren't being given any money for me being there.
So all the time I thought,
Well, I can't be helpful,
I'm very upset about that, but at least they've got some money.
They didn't get the money either.
Gill was beginning to wonder just where her money was going.
Remember, she'd paid almost £6,000.
I calculated one evening, over a large glass of rum and coke,
which cost less than £1 in Ecuador,
that you couldn't spend £5,000 in five months in South America.
Not in the countries I went to.
I think it's more expensive in Rio and perhaps Chile.
But if you spent five months in Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands,
if I gave you £5,000 and said, "Off you go", you could not spend that money.
Gill's final stay was in the Galapagos Islands
looking after giant tortoises and once again there was no sign that any of the money she'd paid
had been handed over to the local community, as had been promised.
I said to them, "Why haven't you got nice brushes
"and why haven't you got proper paint brushes
"and the right equipment?
"We've given you all this money."
They had no idea that we'd donated any money or that any money had come from the company.
They hadn't had any money.
They were astonished to discover we'd paid money to go there.
Returning home, Gill decided to confront the travel company by taking them to court.
The judge wasn't at all familiar with the idea of voluntourism.
He said he didn't understand why two weeks in Spain
wasn't enough for everybody
and he was just bewildered by this notion of volunteering overseas
and paying to do that and he did say in his summing-up
that it wasn't a court of morals or ethics, it was a court of law.
In terms of the law, the contract I had with the travel company
was so vague and so wooly that it was what they call "injusticable".
The judge couldn't judge on it. There wasn't enough of a contract
to make it possible to make a judgment.
But Gill was undeterred.
Her second course of action was to appeal to the Advertising Standards Authority.
The ASA ruled in my favour
that the wording in the brochure
was misleading
and it mustn't be used again
so the company was forced
to rewrite their brochure and I was really delighted by that.
So, it's a victory for Gill and one she hopes will act as a cautionary tale
to others keen to do a spot of voluntourism for themselves.
I think it would be hard to tell from the brochure that I had,
that this company was simply a commercial travel agent.
Because the wording was so alluring and so enticing.
But, now, I know that really if you go with a commercial travel agent,
their first responsibility is to make money.
So, if you're considering leaving it all behind to go travelling,
there are a facts you really can't afford to ignore.
The best advice that Tourism Concern can give to any potential volunteer
is to really make sure the company you're going with
has done the best thing for the locals.
You need to en sure that you are properly prepared,
you understand the culture that you are going to be visiting,
you'll know what environment you are going to go into
and you are definitely going to know where your money goes.
The company you go with has to be transparent.
It needs to let you know what proportion of your money
is going to the local community
and how they're going to benefit from this.
It's more likely that you'll find such a company if it's a non-profit.
If it itself is a charity
and working directly with that community.
The second thing you really ought to think about
is that you don't want to take someone's job away from them
in the destination that you are going,
that the job you are doing is really necessary,
that you have the skills or the time to do things that they can't.
So make sure that the company you're going with
is really in good contact
with the host community you are going to be living with
and knows that the work you're going to be doing is really wanted.
And the third thing that you want to ask for is an interview.
You'll want to make sure the company knows who you are
and what you can offer,
not just on paper but because they've talked to you
either by a one-to-one interview, on Skype, over the telephone,
or in some other way.
They'll want to know what you can best offer, what your skills are
and you're going to want to ask them a huge amount of questions.
Make sure you're fully prepared.
Don't go out and come back having been very shocked and dissatisfied.
The battle for your hard-earned cash is well and truly on
and with every penny counting, we're here it sure
you're not being ripped off and you've certainly been keeping us busy.
Now here at Rip Off Britain we've joined forces with the BBC campaign First Click.
Its aim is to help the nine million people who've never
used the internet to get online and Gloria is one of them.
Or at least she was.
Not any more.
I'm back at Sevenoaks library to meet up with my First Click tutor
for another session on how to use the internet.
I've been practising and I'm all ready to get back online.
Hey, Chris, here I am. Welcome back!
Lesson number two.
Today I really want to get to my e-mail address.
So how do you get me to that point, then?
Well first of all, you have to log in.
I've got to log in, OK. And put in your PIN number.
And put my PIN code in.
OK and then take it down, login.
See, I remembered. Well done. There we go.
Just to remind people that this service within the library
is absolutely free, anybody can access it. Absolutely.
It also, I gather, takes place
in church halls and schools and community centres.
So it's a really good service. It certainly is. It's marvellous.
Is your 80-year-old lady still coming in to see you?
Yes, she is.
So all ages? Definitely.
Tell me about getting an e-mail address.
Does it cost you to get an e-mail address?
No, there are free ones and there are many providers, like Google and Hotmail and Yahoo.
Can I call myself anything I want basically?
Yes, as long as nobody else has thought of that themselves.
So what do I do now?
First of all we have to get on to the internet.
And you'll see on your desktop you have all the tools you would normally have to start any project.
Down here there is a little icon, they are called icons
and it is a blue "e", with a yellow circle around it
and that's called Microsoft Internet Explorer.
We're going to take your mouse across there.
Hover over that and hold it very steady and double click it.
Double click. I have done that. Has it worked? It hasn't worked.
It won't work if the mouse moves between clicks.
So I'm going to double click. Double click, yes, please.
Yes, there you are, well done.
Good, success. Where do I put my e-mail address in?
This is what is called the address bar at the top.
It's like when you are writing your letter.
So if you click to here and you see it has gone dark,
that means it is highlighted and as soon as you start typing that will disappear.
So I can put in my... If you put in www.hotmail.com.
And then press the enter key.
Connecting. Yes.
Free Hotmail. It doesn't cost you anything then, I could access this, for example,
if I was in Australia, I could go into an internet cafe and enter... Yes, you could.
What you are wanting to do, is you are wanting to register, so if you click on register,
put in Gloria first, click.
OK, so that's my... Now you've got that bit there.
Now we can check availability.
If you click on here, we'll see if there is one at Hotmail.
Yes, it's available. I'm in! I've got my first e-mail address. OK.
So now you have to create a password.
It's got to be something that you will remember. Nobody look.
I'm going to put in my password now.
It has to be a minimum of six characters.
Strong.
This is the main motivation for having these lessons at all.
The mere fact that I can now send an e-mail to one of my grandsons.
So where do I go to type in his...
Now you are going to compose a new e-mail
and you can see along here there is new, delete, junk,
all of these, so you click new.
Now, we do have the e-mail address.
OK. I do. So I just type that in now.
And where...?
Where it says "to". Very impressed with your keyboard skills.
I was taught to type. I'm out of practice.
I was taught to type with a typewriter cover over my head, so we had to do it blind.
That's it.
"Dear Charlie, you probably thought you'd never see this day when I would send you an e-mail but here it is,
"my own piece of personal computer history.
"I look forward to seeing you at the weekend and we'll have some fun.
"Due to the fact I'm doing this for the telly, it would be lovely if you would reply. Much love, Nanna."
Now, how do I send it? Go here and click send. As easy as that.
This is the moment, Chris, you have taught me to do it.
Your message has been sent.
Yay! Marvellous, my first one.
That's marvellous. That's really good.
I must say when I did my first text I felt equally pleased!
Chris, I have been talking about this day for a very long time, up here anyway.
And I've done it, I've actually sent my first e-mail so that's a bit of a landmark day for me.
So anyway, next time I see you, I'm going to go on the internet
and learn how to shop and maybe save money. Exactly.
This programme is all about rip-off.
I'm anxious to find out how I can be avoid being ripped off in travel,
in all sorts of ways, energy bills and all that stuff.
Exactly. So I'll see you very soon.
Look forward to that.
As we've heard today from both Angela and Gloria, holidays don't come cheap.
But, in most cases they're a special treat that we save up for and plan in advance
but what we probably won't be counting on when we set off on our travels
are the sky high costs we face before we even leave the ground.
The price of flights may have dropped considerably over the past few years,
but, when it comes to travelling, there are still plenty of businesses
keen to get their hands on your spending money.
Travel writer Serena Cowdy has checked in to answer some of your concerns.
Prices at airports are high because essentially the operators of those airports
make a large proportion of their profits from retail outlets in the space
and, so, you've got to assume that they're going to try to make as much profit out of you as possible
and you've got to try to stop them fleecing you.
I think it's all geared up for getting as much of money out of you as possible.
The food is just a rip-off, the drinks.
You may assume the prices in these shops are the same as you would
find in the high street but that isn't the case.
A bottle of water in one of these shops is going
to be a lot more than you pay in the same shop on the high street.
So try and bring food of your own, try and have a good meal before you
leave the house and bring lots of snacks in case you face long delays.
The car parking is very expensive and the amount of cars they
can get in the car park, they could half the prices of that for a start.
First of all if you book a week in advance or more you're going to have much better value for money.
You'll have much lower prices.
Also, it's a good idea to try to avoid using the airport operators own parking facilities.
If you can find private parking near the airports, for example, run by private companies or even
entrepreneurial home-owners who rent out parking spaces if they live near the airport.
Those parking spaces are likely to be a lot cheaper.
Why you have to pay to come in to unload your luggage and somebody
has to pay just to park the car, in our case ten minutes drop off,
you are paying £1.
You might stop for ten seconds, someone will get out of your car,
go into the airport and you will be charged for that.
Some airports still have free drop-off zones
but others are charging, for example, £1 for a ten-minute drop-off or even five minutes.
If you looks like you'll be charged horrendous amounts think about other options.
Don't think your car is the best way of getting to the airport.
Look into public transport options.
At one time the trolleys were free. A lot of things were free.
But I think they're taking people, ripping people off.
Charging for trolleys in airports is a particularly nasty rip-off.
It targets physically vulnerable people who can't carry their luggage themselves,
for example the elderly or infirm.
A couple of airports have charged £1 for trolleys for a while now.
But now, a couple of airports have put their prices up to £2 per trolley.
I think that is a worrying development and one we need to keep an eye on.
You end up paying lots of extra charges for baggage,
for online check-in, for all sorts of things that used to all be included.
When it comes to baggage and check-in charges, it's really hard to avoid being charged anything at all.
One way or another they will take money off you.
There's really no way you can avoid being charged because everybody has to check-in somehow.
Duty free is not duty free at the end of the day.
You can buy stuff just as cheap on your local high street.
I think duty free is quite misleading.
If you look at the prices, duty-free, relative to those found on price comparison sites,
you find it is not always the cheapest option.
What I'd recommend is if you check the World Duty Free website before you leave the house,
find the item you want and then see, using a price comparison site,
whether you can get it cheaper elsewhere.
I would never change money at an airport, because it's too expensive.
They charge too much.
I can say categorically I would never wait until I got to the airport to get my cash out to go abroad.
You might see a 0% sign which you will think means great value,
I'm not being charged anything extra.
Although they're not taking commission the exchange rates will probably be bad.
So, for example, the same brand in an airport or online
may have very different rates of exchange.
If you have a complaint about a particular airport,
I recommend you go on their website, first and foremost
and you find out how they would like you to complain to them.
Most of them will show what complaints procedure they want to you go through.
If you don't get a response go to a consumer forum who can take your complaint further.
Well, I'm joined now by Noel Josephides from the Association of Independent Tour Operators
and ABTA, the Association of British Travel Agents.
Noel, imagine the disappointment of Sarah when she found that the holiday that she had booked,
already booked, could have been much cheaper if they'd gone through part of the same company?
Disappointed and cheated she felt. It's ludicrous, isn't it?
What you have to understand, I think,
or what the public has to understand
is that you're dealing with huge organisations.
And dare I say it, but very often huge organisations
one hand doesn't exactly know what the other is doing.
For instance, the company has probably at any one time got 50 or 60 different special offers out.
I really don't think one of our market leaders would do this sort of thing on purpose.
You've really got to the crux of the problem there.
You say even the industry itself is in a state of confusion,
that a big company, quite likely, the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing.
How on earth is the public meant to?
In many areas in the travel industry that's correct.
When you come to financial regulation and protection,
we don't understand exactly what is happening, let alone the public.
There's a lot that needs to be done within the industry to regulate it.
You are painting a picture worse than I could have anticipated from what we have heard from our viewers.
It's shocking.
We've learnt to live with it. What we need is a
good dose of regulation, so that we know exactly where we all stand.
And who should provide that regulation? The Government should provide that regulation
and we are about to have such regulation.
What's happened is the election came along and the coalition Government
came along so it's probably delayed things for a few months.
By September 2011, we will have much more stability within the industry
and we will all be able to understand exactly where we stand when we operate.
Well, I hope so. Because, clearly from what you are saying,
Sarah's case will be far from unique, where, you know her company,
the company she went to and booked her holiday with, Direct Holidays, a subsidiary of Thomas Cook,
she found she could have got it so much cheaper.
How can you justify them not honouring their guarantee?
In the end, did they honour it, once it was brought to their attention?
In the end they did, they did because she fought.
Sarah is a feisty lady, clearly, and she fought but do we all have to fight for it?
You'd be surprised how we all have to fight against each other within the travel industry as well, in that very
often you go into a travel agent, you book a holiday and then go on
to the web and you book the same holiday and it's a lot cheaper.
So in short, it seems it's all far too complicated and far too easy to get ripped off.
I don't like the expression ripped off. I didn't think you would!
But, yes, it is very complicated.
The thing to do is, if you're unhappy with what you've seen,
that you shouldn't be frightened of saying so, because generally the company will back down.
This is common sense. It must be.
In the end it's common sense.
Well it's a sad state of affairs but that's very, very good advice, I must say.
Let me turn to the other case study we had about Tesco reward vouchers.
A lady called Sue is a loyal Tesco's customer.
She saved up lots of vouchers and went through to the Cosmos holiday company.
Incredibly, they said the price of the holiday she wanted to book was
going to go up, not down, but up if she used her reward vouchers. It's nonsense.
I would be very curious to see their reply to that one.
Again, I don't know how they justified it.
And I'd be very curious to know.
It does seem unreasonable.
So is it something that your associations are going to
take on? If this matter is brought before the association, and things are brought before the association,
looking back, when ABTA felt that the whole question of fuel surcharges was being abused,
that came before the association and basically the association came
out and said, I'm sorry but you can no longer, without justification, either levy fuel surcharges.
So that put an end to that.
Have you got the teeth to do it? Oh, yes, we do.
Of course we have the teeth to do it. Are you going to look into this, then?
Well, if it's brought before ABTA and I don't know if it has, then
certainly this would be something that ABTA would have to look at.
So your advice to anyone who is using rewards vouchers and
finding that similarly they are being charged
or asked for more rather than less for their holidays, should come to you and ask you to investigate?
Your organisations?
It should be something that ABTA is very well-qualified to look at
because it's something that shouldn't be happening.
The reason why it's happening, again,
is never very sure. Is it greed on the part of the travel operators?
I don't think it's greed.
Personally, I think it's just bad communication but they shouldn't be doing it.
If I may say so, that's a very polite way of putting it.
Thank you very much.
Here at Rip Off Britain we're always ready to investigate more of your stories.
Perhaps your finances have been mismanaged, leaving you to face an uncertain future.
We're not asking for charity. We're not asking tax payers to pay us, this is our money we invested.
Or it could be a case of charges that just don't add up.
I'm like, I want to pay it off, I'll pay this money each month.
I want to pay a certain amount and get rid of it.
I thought this is loan shark territory, this is ridiculous.
You might even have a cautionary tale of your own.
Share mistakes you've made with us, so that others don't do the same.
I didn't read all the paperwork.
The print was so tiny.
They actually said that because of this clause, we wouldn't be covered in this instance.
These are tough financial times and with every penny
counting, it's never been more important to ensure that you're getting the deals you deserve.
You can write to us at:
Or send an e-mail to:
The Rip Off Britain team is ready and waiting to investigate your stories.
Now from the stories you've shared with us today, one thing is crystal
clear - if something looks too good to be true, the chances are it probably is. Too true.
Price comparison is arguably the consumer's most important weapon in the battle against rip-off rates.
So do always do your homework before you hand over a single penny.
And remember, if you feel you're not getting the deal you were expecting, don't be afraid to question it.
As a consumer, you have rights.
That's one of the main messages from this programme, as a consumer you definitely have rights.
That's just about it for today, I hope you'll join us next time
when we'll be investigating even more of your rip off claims.
Until then, from the three of us, bye-bye.
Bye-bye. Bye.
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd
E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk