We asked you to tell us what's left you feeling totally ripped off,
and you've 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 I walk in somewhere and they treat me badly,
then I walk and I will never go in again.
You've asked us to track down the scammers who stole your money
and investigate the extra charges you'd say are unfair.
You've paid for a service,
and you expect it to be the service that you've paid for.
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.
As a customer, you've got to be more savvy in terms of what you're buying
and make sure it's something you want or need
and not something that they're trying to trick you into getting.
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 welcome to the Rip-Off Britain office, where,
as you can see, the team has been very, very busy investigating
some of the pitfalls that can crop up right the way through
the process of buying some really common, everyday products.
Yes, from doing your initial research to purchasing your goods
or even when they're finally in your hands,
all too often things can go badly wrong --
in some cases, as we'll see in our stories today,
quite disastrously so.
And when that happens -- for instance,
maybe the product that you've bought has turned out to be faulty --
then obviously you're going to want to know
that everything has been done to make you aware of it
and, most importantly, also be aware of the possible dangers.
But, of course, that's not what always happens.
Coming up...
when a household appliance is recalled for safety reasons,
why will so few of the people who've got it in their homes
be told about it?
I am angry there's not better procedures in place for items
that are recalled, because our story could have been so much different.
We did lose absolutely everything,
and although, yes, we survived, thankfully,
it could have been so different.
And how you, like this family of restaurateurs,
could be given duff advice that seems to take away your rights.
We sent letters, e-mails, and it was no help at all.
It was like we're not getting our money back,
we're just not getting it back.
Well, I don't know about you,
but whenever I've bought a new appliance --
let's say a washing machine or a fridge --
and I'm almost afraid to confess this,
I often put all the paperwork to the one side
and don't bother filling in the form asking me to register my product.
But it turns out that could be a pretty serious mistake,
because if that product becomes part of a manufacturer's recall process,
perhaps because somebody else's has gone wrong,
unless I've registered my details with the company,
well, they won't know I've got one,
so they won't be able to tell me if I'm at risk.
Sometimes, though, even if you HAVE filled out the forms,
you may not get the warning about a product that you need.
And then, if the unthinkable happens, as it did in our next story,
you'll probably be left wondering if the notices sent out when a product
is recalled on safety grounds are anywhere near as clear enough.
If you've ever ripped the packaging off a brand-new appliance
and thrown it all in the bin, barely reading the instructions as you go,
then you probably didn't notice or bother
with the little card or leaflet that usually comes with it.
It might have the company's customer service number on it,
be offering to extend your warranty or to enter you into a prize draw.
Perhaps it's more explicit
about asking you to register your purchase and your details.
But you might not have realised how crucial that could turn out to be.
So chances are, assuming it's just some marketing bumph,
you've probably just put it to the one side or even thrown it away.
I'm sure they are important, but in my case,
and maybe for a lot of other people, you'll just put them in the drawer,
completely forget about them.
I think the manufacturers need to
make it simpler for us to fill out the forms.
Sometimes I don't think they're worth the paper they're printed on,
because I haven't been in a position
where I've had to complain about something.
I've been fortunate that when I have bought a product,
it hasn't broken down on me.
But these product registration forms
can be far more important than we give them credit for,
as Lorraine Ward from Tamworth knows all too well.
Rewind to October 2012,
and following the birth of Lorraine's second daughter, Lacey, she decided
to treat herself to a brand-new tumble dryer in her rented house
to help with washing up all those baby clothes.
She came across one by the well-known brand Beko,
who, over the last 25 years,
have sold more than 20 million appliances in the UK.
I'd heard of them before,
but we'd never had any of their products before.
But everything seemed to get really good feedback on various websites,
so I felt trusting enough to buy it.
Once the tumble dryer arrived,
Lorraine is quite sure that, as she normally would,
she did register her purchase with the manufacturer.
I've always registered products before.
The actual paperwork to sell it was just like a little card,
and it was just a case of just fill your details on the back.
You could do it online, but at the time it was easier for me
to stick it in the post.
A lot of the times, these things have competitions on
or anything like that, so I quite like doing that,
just to send them off.
I just thought it was just a thing for them to send,
like, extra guarantees and things through,
and that was the only reason, really, why I sent it off.
After she thought she put the form into the post,
Lorraine forgot about it and settled into the luxury
of having the new tumble dryer.
When the baby was born, it was so much easier.
The amount of clothes babies go through, anyway!
To actually get them washed and then to be able to put them
straight into a tumble dryer and back in a drawer
within a matter of hours was just fantastic.
It made our lives so much easier.
But after barely two and a half months' use,
Lorraine's dream appliance suddenly turned into a nightmare.
Her husband was using the dryer one Sunday morning
when there was a sudden and dramatic problem.
Initially, the electric went off,
and then he could start smelling sort of burning.
As Lorraine's husband entered the utility room,
he was shocked to see flames shooting out of the tumble dryer
into the rest of the room and straight through into the kitchen.
He was screaming for me to wake up, and he was passing me the baby
and trying to get the car seat and my car keys, saying,
"Get out, get out, the house is on fire".
The family scrambled to get out,
as the fire tore through the utility room and kitchen,
and waited for the fire brigade to arrive.
When they came, they all sort of jumped out of their van
and started getting the hoses and everything ready,
and my husband said to them, "It's the tumble dryer.
"There's two-foot flames coming out of it."
The fire completely destroyed the utility room and kitchen,
and the rest of the house had been filled with smoke
that destroyed most of the family's belongings.
Going in after, it just looked like something out of a horror movie,
with completely black walls, ceilings.
It was really horrible to see after.
Lorraine had no idea that shortly after she'd bought her dryer,
that particular model had been recalled
due to concerns over product safety.
Although she remains convinced she had sent off the form to register
her product with the manufacturer,
she hadn't received any recall notice,
as is supposed to happen if the company has received your details.
And although a recall notice was published in the national press,
Lorraine hadn't seen it, so she simply hadn't known
that the dryer was potentially dangerous
and should have been returned.
We believe it had been recalled
only a few weeks after we purchased it,
but we knew absolutely nothing about it at all.
The impact of the fire was huge.
With no home insurance for their rented property,
they were left with nowhere to live.
But family and friends rallied round to help.
People were brilliant. They were bringing us bags of clothes.
Someone brought us a Moses basket for the baby!
Sorry...
People were bringing bottles, everything,
cos we'd lost everything.
After two weeks, the manufacturers, Beko,
paid for the family's temporary accommodation.
The company has since paid out around £20,000
to cover the uninsured house contents,
plus a further sum for stress and inconvenience.
But for Lorraine, none of that
lessens the impact all of this has had on the family.
I don't think any amount of money, really, would... replace the fear.
You know, it doesn't pay for that, it doesn't pay for the effects
that you're left with after the event.
Lorraine says her nine-year-old daughter was particularly affected
by what happened.
My eldest was really in a lot of shock.
Anything that sounded like an alarm or an unusual noise after that,
she would panic, she would freeze on the spot,
she would start shaking,
and I'd be, like, it's the new cooker timer or the microwave.
I'd always have to kind of explain a new noise,
because it would genuinely frighten her.
When we contacted Beko, the company told us
it deeply regrets any incident caused by its appliances,
all of which meet or exceed UK and European standards
and that its highest priority is the safety of customers.
It sincerely apologised to Lorraine,
saying what happened was down to a third-party component
used in a small batch of dryers made between May and October 2012.
Beko explained that when it became aware of the issue,
it launched swift action, including taking out newspaper adverts
and contacting consumers who had registered their appliance.
But it said it has no record of Lorraine registering hers.
The company stress that no products currently on the market are affected,
advising that information on product recalls is available on its website.
It also pointed out that
while many manufacturers have launched product recalls
in recent years, its success rate in finding affected models
is significantly greater than the industry average of 10% to 20%.
In this case, for example,
it says almost 90% of the affected dryers were traced.
Across the industry over the last four years,
more than four million appliances from a broad range of manufacturers
have been recalled for defects that could cause a fire.
But it's clear the message
doesn't always reach those who need to hear it most,
and it's estimated that as many as 80% of all recalled appliances
could still be sitting in people's homes,
despite the fact that they are potentially unsafe.
I am angry there's not better procedures in place
for items that are recalled,
again, because our story could have been so much different.
But not only that, we did lose absolutely everything.
It's been such trauma for us and the children,
and although, yes, we survived, thankfully...
.. it could have been so different.
So what more could be done to let people know
when a product has been recalled?
Well, Beko, in common with other big names,
has helped establish an industry-led initiative called
Register My Appliance which enables manufacturers to quickly trace
recalled products through a central database of customers' details.
But that still puts the main responsibility onto us as consumers
to register the details of what we've bought,
and as we'll see later in the programme,
there are those who say that's simply not enough.
The current recall system in the UK is failing consumers.
We'll also find out what else can be done to reduce the risk
of a disaster like the one that happened to Lorraine
as firefighters once again visit her home,
but this time to advise on things we could all do
to better protect ourselves.
- How's it going, Drew? - Yeah, I think this one would be better
- the other side of the partition. - That would be better.
Next, a Rip-Off Britain viewer who's not at all happy
with the situation they've ended up in.
And when you hear what happened, I think you'll understand why.
Starting up a new business can be tough,
so Mohammed Adbin and his family
had worked hard to make sure everything would be ready
for the opening of their new Sutton Coldfield restaurant.
- Boiled rice for you. - Thank you.
Opening a new restaurant and a new business, it's very exciting,
because you can meet lots of new people.
I couldn't wait to open it, to be honest!
Although Mohammed's family have been in the restaurant trade for years,
this was to be their first venture all together,
and they'd spent a lot of time
thinking about how they wanted the place to look.
For the finishing touches, they went to their local branch
of Floors-2-Go, hoping to find the perfect carpet.
We did try the different carpet shops,
but due to distance, it was kind of waiting a week or a few more days,
so we went to Floors-2-Go and we just had to choose carpets from there
so it would be easier for us and for them.
The family chose carpets
and other flooring which came to a total of £2,779 including fitting,
and Mohammed's mum paid for it using her personal credit card
as normal, or so it seemed, on the store's chip and Pin machine.
A delivery date was agreed
two weeks before the opening of the restaurant.
The carpets were due to be delivered for end of February
but start of March, so at least we'd have it before opening
the restaurant so we could be ready with fresh carpets.
But the date and time of delivery came and went,
with no sign of a carpet.
Starting to worry, Mohammed popped back to the Floors-2-Go store
to find out what was going on.
As soon as it hit one o'clock,
we thought, "OK, it's getting a bit late,"
so we went to the shop,
and we went there and just asked the manager, "Where are our carpets?"
He said, "They're just here,"
but he was waiting for their personal delivery man to come and take them.
The Floors-2-Go store told Mohammed
that the carpet would be delivered the next day instead.
But the following day, despite the store's assurances,
there was still no sign of the carpet.
At that point, it was coming close to us opening the restaurant.
It was quite frustrating, as well, to be honest,
because they did say they were going to again deliver the following day,
which obviously did not happen.
With no sign of the carpet arriving and the opening date looming,
the family felt they had no choice but to fork out more money
for replacement floorings from a completely different store.
At that point, we had to get some carpets from somewhere,
and it was very stressful, as we were short of time.
Basically, we had to get the carpets and everything all done in one day,
and that day, we didn't have much time.
Chicken tikka chat, sir? Yes, of course.
Despite the last-minute rush, the Ramadan's opening was a success.
And once things had settled,
Mohammed was determined to get back the money
that his mum had paid Floors-2-Go
for an order that they never received.
But there was a problem.
The parent company of Floors-2-Go at the time, Nixon & Hope Ltd,
had gone into administration,
which meant the chances of a refund were looking rather slim.
We would have thought that after administration
we could have still got our money back, but...
still there was no answer.
With Floors-2-Go now under new ownership,
the best way for the family to get their money back
was through the credit card provider, Barclaycard.
They'd assumed they'd be covered
under Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act,
which, as we've said before, would normally split liability
for a loss such as this
between the retailer and the credit card company.
But, in this case,
it soon became clear that there was an unexpected complication
thanks to a big name that they'd never even known was involved.
This is a letter that we got from Barclaycard through the post
regarding our claim.
The reply they have given us is,
"I have fully reviewed your claim and since agreement was with PayPal,
"there is no 'debtor-creditor supplier agreement'
"and therefore no protection under Section 75."
PayPal? The family had no idea what any of this had to do with PayPal.
As far as they were concerned, they'd paid by credit card.
But little did they know that while that was the case
and they'd paid via what seemed to be a typical chip and Pin machine,
Floors-2-Go had taken the payment via a device called PayPal Here.
Now, you may not have heard of it before, either,
but it is a chip and Pin card reader that was introduced
to make payments easier for small businesses in February of 2013.
And whilst it's extremely convenient for the business,
it means the money is now sent via a middleman, PayPal,
and not directly between the credit card and the seller,
which Barclaycard said stripped them of their usual protection
under Section 75.
Confused, Mohammed contacted PayPal to see if they could help.
It was like Barclaycard were leaving it
for PayPal to deal with the situation rather than themselves,
even though the money went from our bank card, from Barclaycard,
and it was just no help at all.
After the bank, we did contact PayPal.
We sent letters, e-mails, and it was no help at all.
It was like we're not getting our money back,
we're just not getting it back.
What Mohammed finds especially frustrating
is that he and his family
had no idea that the payment they'd made
was any different from a typical credit card transaction
or that it might scupper their chances of getting a refund.
We were basically paying money that we were just giving away,
because we hadn't had the carpets.
Convinced they should be covered because they paid by credit card,
it was at that point that the family came to us to see if we could help.
And we were intrigued.
Were they or were they not entitled to their money back?
Because if that's a point
Barclaycard and PayPal couldn't agree on,
it's no wonder there was confusion.
PayPal, who processed the transaction
through their payment platform PayPal Here,
told us in no uncertain terms:
So, in their view, Barclaycard should pay out.
So we put that to the credit card company.
And after looking into the case again,
Barclaycard admitted that it had made a mistake.
It told us that:
So it's apologised to the family
and has refunded the money they paid.
Barclaycard also said it's taken steps to:
Richard Koch from the UK Cards Association
says that as new payment technologies develop,
it's perhaps understandable that there may be confusion
over how that affects your rights.
Section 75 was created over 40 years ago,
when payments were much simpler.
What's happened is that payments have become more complex
and these new parties have entered into the chain.
So I would say that where you're making a purchase,
ask the retailer what protection you get.
If you're at all unsure, walk away, talk to your card provider
and ask their advice.
Mohammed and his family are delighted
that this situation has finally been cleared up
so they can concentrate on making sure
that their restaurant is a success.
The business is going very well, so we're very happy,
but I would not really like to see another consumer
deal with a situation like I have.
Still to come on Rip-off Britain,
with many of us relying on them more than ever,
how can you tell which of those online reviews can truly be trusted?
Ill-formed retailers think that,
actually, if they go on and write a review about their own product,
that would help drive sales.
Rip-off Britain is back on the road again.
This time, opening a pop-up shop in the heart of the East Midlands.
- Hiya! - Hello. - Can I have your autograph, please? - Of course.
It's a fabulous opportunity to meet so many of you face-to-face,
which we absolutely love.
And Angela just couldn't resist putting on her dancing shoes.
- Very nice. - There you go!
Give him a round of applause!
The mall here in Nottingham is really busy --
the shops are absolutely packed and, as it turned out,
so too is our pop-up shop.
Alison Kiddier came to see Trading Standards expert
Sylvia Rook for advice,
after experiencing numerous problems with a furniture order.
The furniture was originally ordered in November
to be delivered in March. The delivery arrived.
Two chairs faulty, cabinet faulty, wrong table.
Finally got another delivery, faulty again.
I'm now on my third delivery -- once again all faulty.
You're sitting there waiting for it, it arrives, it goes back again.
So I presume this was quite expensive, was it?
It was about £2,000, just over, in total.
And you paid for it how?
Four years' interest-free credit,
- which I haven't started paying for yet. I have asked them... - OK.
.. not to take anything until I'm happy with the furniture.
And what are you looking for?
Well, I would like the furniture and I'd like it in one piece, correct.
We have decorated around it, so...
So you don't want to cancel the contract.
.. I don't want to start again.
But I would like some compensation. Obviously, I've had time off.
So what's the retailer said when you've spoken to them?
I've had a lot of trouble getting through to customer services
to start with. Nobody called me back.
Very, very unhelpful. Until I've posted on social media
and then, suddenly, I got some action.
Mainly apologies.
"We'll sort it out, we'll sort it out."
- So have they offered you anything? - Nothing, at the moment, no.
They did ask would I be prepared to accept a repair.
- Well, I think... - At which point, I said,
- "No, this is new furniture, not old furniture." - Yeah.
Because Alison's contract is also with a finance company,
Sylvia drafted in Martin James
from the Financial Ombudsman Service to help.
Martin, this is Alison.
- Hello, nice to meet you, Alison. Hello. - Nice to meet you.
So, basically, sometimes, when things like this go wrong,
we say to the company, "Just go back to the beginning,
"imagine this never happened and start over."
Lots of ways we can do that. We can ask them to reduce the payments,
we can ask them to start the contract again.
It might mean a new contract, so what we need to find out
is whether they've started that interest-free period already.
We can do a few checks and see what we can do
- to come up with a solution for you. - OK, lovely.
- OK? - Thank you, yeah.
Following our filming, Martin's team ensured that the finance company
froze Alison's account, so no payments will be taken
until her situation is finally resolved.
Meanwhile, out in the shopping centre,
finance expert Sarah Pennells was making sure the people she met
were up to speed with changes to the state pension for women.
Have you any idea at all
when you'll be able to draw your state pension?
I thought it was 60, but I could be wrong.
- You will get your state pension... - Mm-hm?
- .. in May 2036. - I say!
You'll be 67 years old.
- Oh, gosh! So, that's seven years. - Not what you were expecting, was it?
- No, not at all. - But the women's state pension age
- has already been increasing from 60 to 65. - Right.
- Now, that started five years ago, in April 2010. - Right.
But, on top of that, they're also increasing the state pension age
- for men AND women... - Oh.
- So, firstly to 66... - Right.
.. then a few years later to 67.
- Gosh. - And for people who are much younger,
- it could be even later. - Yes, yeah. Ooh, that's worrying.
This is the Rip-off Britain gripe box.
Now, it's an area that we provide
every time we do one of our pop-up shops,
and it's an opportunity for people to come and let off steam
and get things off their chest, and generally have a good old rant
about those things which, as a consumer, really make them mad.
Train tickets. They're so expensive and they go up every year.
I don't know why because it's not like the service gets any better.
What really irritates me are the nuisance calls that you get.
Doesn't matter what they're selling,
why do they always ring at six o'clock at night
or nine o'clock in the morning?
So, yeah, really pretty irritated.
I really hate how much young people get charged
for car insurance these days.
You know, we try and be as safe and as careful as we can
and the insurance companies still think that charging us
that amount of money is OK and it's not.
Earlier in the programme, we heard about Lorraine Ward,
whose home was destroyed in a fire caused by a faulty appliance.
He was screaming for me to wake up,
and he was passing me the baby and trying to get the car seat
and my car keys, saying, "Get out! Get out! The house is on fire!"
It turned out that the tumble dryer to blame had actually been recalled
by the manufacturer several weeks before
because of safety concerns, but Lorraine had known nothing about it.
So, if it becomes clear that a product has potential risks
and needs to be recalled, is enough always being done to inform
customers who already have got one in their homes?
Well, the first problem is that manufacturers simply may not know
who their customers are.
When you buy a big appliance, it's down to you to register it
with the company that's made it.
And industry research suggests
that only just over a third of us bother to do it.
That leaves the majority of people who've bought any particular model
untraceable if a safety repair is needed
and the manufacturer tries to contact them.
But even if you do send off your details,
as things currently stand, the manufacturer is not obliged
to contact you directly if something is recalled,
which is why some of them may be more likely to publish the recall notice
in a national newspaper rather than send an e-mail to your inbox.
The current recall system in the UK is failing consumers.
Typically, when a manufacturer needs to recall a product,
they often get about 10% to 20% of those products back,
which means there are hundreds of thousands of those affected products
still in people's homes, but they simply don't know where they are.
Martin Allen works for Electrical Safety First,
a campaigning group that believes
that manufacturers could be doing more
when it comes to collecting customers' details.
Not least by improving the wording on the registration form
that you're asked to fill in.
If you take a typical registration card
that is provided with many electrical products,
it's asking for lots of information about marketing
and keeping you up-to-date with new products,
extended warranties and the like.
They have no mention of safety at all.
It doesn't cover an essential part, which is registering your details
to keep you up-to-date with safety information
so that manufacturers can contact you in the unlikely event
that something has gone wrong with that product.
That system simply needs to change.
But until it does, there is a way to quickly and easily check
which major safety recalls might apply to you,
because on its website, Electrical Safety First has put
a handy database of every electrical product
that's been recalled since 2007.
All you have to do is type in a product name or details
and it will instantly tell you if it's one that has been recalled.
We, as consumers, all have a responsibility to take action
amongst ourselves, which is why we've got a recall checker,
where people can go to our website
and simply put a few details in to see if any of the products
that they have in their home are subject to a recall
and then that will also tell them what they need to do about that.
We're also encouraging consumers to register their appliance
at the point of sale or immediately after,
using the Register My Appliance website
that the manufacturers have set up, just to protect themselves.
The Chief Fire Officers Association says that 12,000 fires a year
can be attributed to dodgy appliances,
but that many of these would be avoided
if the recall system was more effective.
Peter Dartford has been a firefighter for 34 years.
We've said for a long time now that we don't think that
the current arrangements for recall
relating to electrical appliances are satisfactory.
Response rates are at between 10% and 20%,
and when you appreciate that these recalls
are on appliances with faults
that could result in a fire,
having 80% of those appliances,
which could mean thousands if not tens of thousands
of appliances in people's homes,
with a potential fire risk, is just not something that we can support.
But in the absence of a foolproof way of keeping everyone informed
about products that might have particular risk,
there are at least more general things we could all be doing
to minimise the risks of a fire.
So Peter sent some of his team around to Lorraine's house
to run through some of the key ways to make sure your house is safer.
We particularly focus on night-times,
because we're all at our most vulnerable of a night time.
So we need to try and make the home as safe as possible.
We need to turn off electrical appliances.
There's still an electrical circuit going through when it's on standby,
so if it's turned off at the set, then it reduces any risk at all.
The absolute best advice is to make sure you take the trouble
to unplug any devices that you might normally have left on standby.
And it's really worth investing in a smoke alarm,
and thinking very carefully about the best place to put it.
- How's it going, Drew? - Yeah, I just think this one would be better
the other side of partition. That'll be better.
With plug points OK'd and the smoke alarms
now in the optimal position for safety, the checks are done.
In the nicest possible way, we hope not to see you again.
- OK, That's brilliant. - OK, thank you very much.
But for Peter back at base, it's knowing which appliances
may present the greatest risks that's the key message.
The appliances that cause most significant risks from fire
are those that you can't switch off, particularly when you're asleep.
Things like fridges, freezers.
They have been the ones that fire and rescue services
have identified as being the cause of the more significant,
perhaps life-threatening, incidents
that we've attended over recent years.
We would urge people to check that their appliances
are not subject to these recalls,
because those recalls do indicate that there is a fault
that could cause a problem such as an electrocution risk,
or even a fire.
After the fire that caused such damage to her home,
Lorraine has become extra vigilant in following all that advice.
Myself and my husband, we're just a lot more wary now.
Turning things off, never putting anything on at night.
We go almost overboard, really -- at least I do --
with switching things off. It's frightening.
You don't buy these things ever expecting something like this
to happen, and nobody should expect it to happen
but, unfortunately, I guess in the rarer case it does.
It is really, really scary.
You can find more information about how to check
whether your appliances are safe on our website.
Now, I know you've heard this advice many times before
on Rip-off Britain.
Do your research before you buy a product
or agree to the services of any particular company.
One simple way of doing that, of course,
is to take a look at the reviews you'll find about them online.
But can you actually trust what they say?
Because I'm sorry to say there are some companies out there
that are actually paid to write fake good reviews for businesses,
pulling the wool over your eyes in the process.
Online reviews can play a crucial role in almost everything we buy.
So much so that it's reckoned 54% of UK adults now read
what previous customers have had to say
before deciding whether to hand over their cash,
and as much as £23 billion a year of our consumer spending
is thought to be influenced by the opinions we've seen online.
An online review can make or break a product for me, as simple as that.
It's a yes or no. If it's good, I'll go for it.
If it's not, forget about it -- I'm done.
I think reviews are important and it does help you to make a decision.
It really does.
If they seem to be genuine, unprompted, unmanipulated
online reviews, then I take them seriously, so I read through lots.
If the reviews are around 65, 70% good,
yeah, I'd go for it.
I do feel sorry for the odd bed-and-breakfasts
who get somebody grumpy who's just had their egg boiled too hard
and then writes some big rant about it because, you know,
there are crazy people out there, too,
that will get very, very annoyed at very, very little.
But it's been estimated that as many as one in five online reviews
are fake and that businesses have been either writing glowing reviews
about themselves or getting someone else to do it for them.
So would knowing that dampen any of the enthusiasm we just heard?
That's... disturbing.
I would say that I'm only partially surprised.
I know that there's been a lot of talk in the media about people
who are paid to go and write positive reviews of things
but I didn't realise it was quite that widespread.
Ah, see, I didn't know that.
Now, that... Is that true?
Knowing that fact has definitely shaped my opinion
on how I look at reviews.
From now on, I would definitely look at them in more depth
than I would have done before.
So, when you say fake, you mean the companies probably themselves
are putting the good reviews on there?
Yeah, I could believe that, I guess. I mean one in five?
That's quite a lot, that.
In fact, generating fake reviews is now a business in its own right.
After a quick search online,
we even found companies advertising jobs for people to do it.
For example, take this ad which we spotted on a website,
offering opportunities for freelance work.
Though it's not asking you to write the reviews,
it's clearly seeking someone willing to post a stash of them
as if from genuine UK accounts.
The website where the ad went up
told us this was a clear violation of its terms of use.
But, clearly, there's quite a slick operation
behind some of the reviews we might assume are from real customers.
So, if it's true that such a big chunk of the reviews
we come across are fake, how are you supposed to tell
which ones are genuine and which you should take
with more than a pinch of salt?
Well, on some of the most familiar sites, you can't.
It's usually the case that anyone can post a review
regardless of whether or not they've actually bought the product
or stayed at the hotel in question.
So it's here that the fakes tend to be hidden
amongst the genuine reviews.
Any member of the public can just go onto that review website
and write a review, and what happens is really ill informed retailers
and brands then think that, actually, if they go on
and write a review about their own products,
a positive review about their own products, then that's a fake review
but that would help drive sales, and on some occasions,
they'll even go in and write fake reviews and negative reviews
about competitors' products which will negatively impact their sales.
Richard Anson is the founder of a company called Reevoo,
which works with big-name companies to gather real reviews
about their products -- direct from customers.
Richard says that means all you'll get is genuine feedback,
whether it's the good, the bad or the ugly.
As a consumer, when you see that Reevoo sign,
you know that that content can be trusted. That's the key thing.
Why do you know you can trust it?
Because that content is from a confirmed purchaser
and it hasn't been manipulated, so it's impartial.
Reevoo was conceived as a business idea
when Richard was doing a bit of online shopping.
I was looking for a digital camera on the web.
This was ten years ago, so the world was very different,
but I found it very difficult to know which reviews to trust.
You didn't really know whether the content had been written
by a genuine consumer or been written by the brand itself
in terms of promoting it.
And so out of that came Reevoo, really.
We're an independent business,
so our content is served up separately
to the brand or retailers' websites
so they can't manipulate that content.
Over 100 companies, such as Virgin media, British Gas
and Toshiba, have signed up to Reevoo,
and the journey to publishing genuine reviews
starts when a consumer buys a product from one of them.
Edwin Bos from Reevoo explains how it works.
Let's say if somebody buys a laptop from a shop,
then we get alerted by that,
and then we wait a bit to give the person time to use the product,
and then we e-mail them,
so they can write a questionnaire like this.
So that is a customer review that somebody has written
who's bought that specific product. We never touch it.
There's nothing in here that allows me to edit the review.
Then we check it for things like bad language,
and if there's everything OK, then it gets published.
Though it's come through Reevoo,
the review is published directly on the relevant company's own website,
and the company itself isn't able to interfere with it in any way.
We can guarantee that companies cannot manipulate the bad ones
because we control this part of their website.
There is nothing that they can do to prevent the bad ones to show up,
and we have the whole control over it.
So I think companies are brave to signup with Reevoo
because it does mean everything is there -- and that is quite good,
because they see transparency is key.
They need to know that their readers of the reviews
can really trust what they're reading and there's no manipulation.
If it's all tens, then it's good to good to be true,
and, in reality, nothing is perfect.
One of the companies that uses this system to manage its reviews
is American Golf, Europe's largest golf retailer.
Customer reviews are really important to us
because customers listen to what other customers say
and that helps inform their buying decision.
A genuine customer review is, in effect, another silent salesperson,
and it helps you make that transaction with your customer.
American Golf signed up with Reevoo specifically to ensure
its customers get to see genuine reviews, whatever they say.
I think it's absolutely important that we publish all reviews,
good and bad. They must be honest, they must be impartial.
We only want to present legitimate feedback from our customers.
And although, as with any company,
this one doesn't like getting bad reviews,
if there is negative feedback, it sees it as an opportunity
to engage with customers and resolve any issues.
When we get a bad review, obviously, you're disappointed,
but also you've got to acknowledge that not everything is perfect.
While you strive to do the best job, things go wrong
and it's important to acknowledge that
and to use that as a means to identify what has gone wrong
so you can improve things for your future customers
and that customer that had a poor experience.
I can genuinely say we would never write, or never have written,
a fake review on our website for our customers or anywhere else.
There are other sites that, like Reevoo,
will only let you post a review
if you can prove you've bought the product you're hoping to comment on.
But Richard has some advice to help you suss out
which of the reviews elsewhere may not be so genuine.
The first thing is if you're on an open review website,
so it's the websites out there where anybody can write a review,
so if you see an indicator on a website saying "write a review",
then you should be "Buyer Beware"
because that content may be fake or may be manipulated.
A second tip would be -- if the English is too perfect,
it may be written by the marketing department,
so most genuine views have grammatical errors.
You and I, consumers will write them quite quickly.
The third thing is if they're too positive -- so they're all good --
it's too good to be true.
And the last thing is, if you see in the list of reviews the same name
appearing too often, maybe it's the surname or the first name,
sometimes fake reviews can be a bit sloppy in that.
That said, the caveat overall is, I think, these days,
it's much harder to spot fake reviews.
The people who write fake reviews have got much better at writing them
and so, really, if you're using an open review website,
you need to be very cautious, I think, as a consumer,
when you're reading that content.
Here at Rip-off Britain,
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.
It's done on purpose so that you can't actually read it.
People look at it and they'll say, "I can be bothered reading that."
Are you unsure what to do when you discover you've lost out
and that so-called 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 your story with us
so that other people don't do the same thing.
Just fobbed off completely and very disappointed.
Well, you can write to us at...
Or you can send us an e-mail.
The Rip-Off team is ready and waiting to investigate your stories.
Well, you know the saying,
"buyer beware" could really be the motto of this programme
because, in the end, so many of the stories we investigate
on your behalf boil down to a purchase
that hasn't turned out the way you wanted.
And whether that's because you were sold a pup in the first place,
or what you bought turned out to be faulty, or just not fit for purpose,
well, you can end up feeling thoroughly cheesed off.
And, of course, out of pocket.
I think we all recognise that scenario.
And while it's very clear that registering your products
is one really good way to make sure that you're absolutely in the loop
if it has to be recalled, let's hope that the manufacturers
can come up with a much better way
of getting the message out there to everybody.
Well, at that stage, that's where we have to leave it for this programme,
but many thanks for being with us,
and we'll be back to investigate more of your stories really soon.
So, until then, from the entire Rip-Off Britain team,
- bye-bye. - Goodbye. - Goodbye.