The scams and bad customer service that Streetwise tackled this year

Every month we received complaints with requests for help and advice from stressed-out readers about companies leading them up a blind alley or failing to treat them fairly. Others wrote in for help to expose and warn people about being ripped off by rogue builders and fraudsters.

Although not all of them made it into print, here we look back on some of the occasions we stepped in to take on companies, traders, and rogues.

Portsmouth pensioner Arthur Brameld, 68, celebrated the new year handsomely when we intervened with his bank to reimburse £8,000 stolen from his savings account by a fraudster impersonating the bank’s fraud team.

Lucky for him his daughter called in on her weekly visit. When he told her what had happened she contacted Streetwise for help and advice.

We immediately contacted the bank’s fraud team who intercepted the fraudulent transfer in the nick of time, and ringfenced the money so Arthur wasn’t left out of pocket.

‘I really can’t thank you enough for bringing a timely closure to this embarrassing stressful situation,’ he said.

Simultaneously, Streetwise intervened with electrical giant Currys when reader Sally Osgood from Horndean discovered she was the victim of a sophisticated impersonation scam which came to light after she ordered a £2,159 top of the range Apple laptop computer.

The delivery was intercepted and stolen by a fraudster who posed as her husband, but after we asked the retailer’s online customer relations team to investigate they commendably refunded her in full.

In June car buyer Tom Mallen from Baffins was left fuming after being taken for a ride by Facebook fraudsters. He got in touch to expose the folly of splashing the cash for bargain used cars from slick-looking online marketplace websites.

Despite asking to view the car and checking whether it had been stolen or subject of any outstanding finance deal, he agreed an upfront payment of £7,350 after he was told Covid restrictions prevented the phantom dealership from arranging viewings.

When a delivery promise turned out to be false an enraged Tom admitted with the benefit of hindsight how easily he’d been taken in.

He said: ‘I’m still feeling more than a little bit stupid about these low-life fraudsters who got away with playing on my credulity. By going public I just hope other people can benefit from my experience.’

In February we helped reader Soros Pepper sort a year-long wrangle with Sharp over a new dodgy microwave he bought from online electrical retailer AO.

The drive shaft refused to fully engage with the turntable, but the exasperated 90-year-old found himself at the centre of a protracted struggle with Sharp to get it replaced under guarantee.

He wrongly assumed the manufacturer was obliged to replace the defective microwave but after we stepped in to explain his statutory right to a refund was the sole responsibility of the retailer, AO immediately replaced the dodgy appliance and refunded him the £130 he’d paid for it.

A behind the scenes holiday cruise crisis in May also brought financial relief for Fareham couple Sheila and husband Ken Watson.

They splashed out £4,730 for a Mediterranean cruise to celebrate Ken’s retirement the previous May, but the operator Cruise and Maritime Voyages went bust.

With no chance of getting any of their money back from the company liquidator we brought closure to their 12-month stressful refund battle by alerting The Association of British Travel Agents (ABTA) to their plight who promptly paid their cash back.

In July, Frances and John Hayes were left in limbo by British Gas’s Homecare Parts and Labour guarantee after a two-month drip drip battle over the energy giant’s failure to fix their leaking kitchen tap.

The Fareham pensioners rightly rejected a proposal not to provide a like-for-like replacement for their £200 original tap but fob them off with cheap a £40 look alike from B&Q.

When British Gas was contacted by Streetwise they replaced it with a current original substitute and apologised for the delay and lack of service. The grateful couple accepted an offer of £90 off their monthly plan payments and £30 compensation for all the hassle.

‘Without you we’d still be fighting them and getting nowhere,’ grateful Frances said.

In September we took on the might of Vauxhall motors and their Fareham Eden Vauxhall dealership when they disputed a mandatory £5,000 refund for a dodgy used car.

Amy Thornhill from Gosport was left battling to assert her statutory right of rejection after her low mileage used Astra developed a faulty clutch within a few weeks of buying it and the engine needed replacing.

‘I was devastated. Vauxhall customer care refused to accept they had to refund me and insisted I’d have to pay out to get it repaired,’ she said.

When we got onto Vauxhall’s UK top boss Paul Wilcox, he moved quickly to authorise the dealership to refund Amy in full.

‘I just can’t thank you enough for all your help in getting my money back,’ she said.

In November we took to task Ovo Energy’s Southern Electric customer service team after bemused Waterlooville couple Jane and Dave Lawty were unaccountably accused of being repeatedly in arrears with their energy bills.

They’d been with Southern Electric for more than 20 years without problems never owing a penny, but out of the blue Ovo’s threatening default letters unexpectedly started landing on their doormat despite promptly settling payment invoices by return cheque.

An angry stressed-out Jane called us in after three months of her protests being dismissed, countless sleepless nights, and abortive wrangling to sort the alleged debt matter out.

The good news was within hours of our intervention Ovo’s specialist resolution team finally stepped in to explain the letters threatening to trash their unblemished credit rating and legal action had been triggered by postal delays and late clearance of their cheques.

Ovo immediately apologised and arranged to switch them to online payments plus a £100 goodwill gesture for the inconvenience.

The year also ended well for reader Sandra Coussens of Gosport after a six-month shambolic battle with Morrison’s to acknowledge an online gift card technology glitch.

At the beginning of June, she bought two online £50 gift cards to thank neighbours for being helpful but one of the cards failed to activate on redemption.

Despite being able to provide a bank statement to prove she’d paid for two cards, there was no pretence of customer service when the firm’s gift card service and the Gosport store resorted to batting her from pillar to post by refusing to accept responsibility to get the problem sorted. When Streetwise contacted the company there was a commendable admission that Sandra hadn’t received the service they strive for and they promptly sent her a £50 refund voucher.