BBC Watchdog: Our friends British Electric

Tony

What Consumer Founder
Apr 7, 2008
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Bolton
This week the Rogue Traders team are back checking up on an old friend, Buckinghamshire-based electrician Derek Wilson.



We first met Derek in 2003, when he went by the name of The Electric Man. Derek's speciality was selling brand new fuse-boxes or consumer units to people who didn't need them. To make matters worse, Derek overcharged too.

We filmed Electric Man Derek giving a quote. He then dispatched his son Dan, or as we like to call him, fuse boy, to come and do the work.

So seven years on, Matt and Dan have certainly grown up a bit but has the Electric Man changed his ways?

Well, the company has changed name. The father and son team now work as British Electric. But even that's causing problems. Calling a business 'British' inspires confidence, so the law says you have to have the government's permission to do it.

Derek Wilson doesn't have that permission. Instead, he's got a conviction for breaking that law.

We met 87-year old Joan Anderson, one of Derek's customers. She was attracted to the company by its name. She believed she'd be a getting good quality British service but instead, got a pair of Rogues.

Derek visited Joan in March when her electricity went off after she switched on her central heating.

In fact, Joan's central heating pump had broken and that had knocked out her electricity. After inspecting the problem, Derek charged Joan a whopping £955 to get her central heating working again.

Joan's family were appalled and decided to get in touch with Trading Standards. So Trading Standards sent round another local electrician to have a look at what Derek had done. He quoted £295 - around a third of the price charged by Derek Wilson.

Joan and her family are not alone in finding they've had problems with Derek Wilson. We've spoken to a dozen customers of Derek's who've all got a similar story.

So Matt and Dan decided to pay the pair a visit once again.

We called British Electric round twice, to two separate houses to fix two separate faults. In the first one, Dan - aka Fuse Boy - appeared and fixed our wonky light switch for a reasonable sum. But he also tried to sell us a brand new consumer unit at an inflated price. At the second property, Derek came round to see to our dodgy socket. Instead of dealing with it, he tried to sell us a new consumer unit at an eye-wateringly high price. He gave us two price options for the work but recommended a new box at nearly £1700. Once we'd recovered from the shock we got our expert to give an assessment of what this should have cost - £500. If it needed doing, which it didn't.

We decided to go with the recommended option and a week later, were hidden away to watch British Electric do the work. But this time things didn't exactly go to plan. It seems The Wilsons spotted one of our cameras and nipped into the garage for a whispered chat. And all of a sudden, Derek revised our quote to a much lower sum.

As the Wilsons got on with upgrading our perfectly good consumer unit, Matt decided it was time for a reunion.

The pair weren't exactly pleased to see him.

As Matt tried to quiz them, Dan insisted on calling the police. Neither of them were thrilled at being filmed and as they tried to force us to stop, our security man had to step in.

After a while, Dan began to calm down and became quite confessional, saying that sometimes, you've got to "do that little bit extra" to make sure you've got money in your pocket for your family.

Derek still claimed that the consumer box needed replacing to comply with regulations, but Matt quickly set him straight.

Since we finished filming, Dan Wilson has got in touch with us. He denies doing anything wrong.

How do I check an electrician's credentials?

"If you've been given a recommendation you must check they are Part P registered before proceeding, then you can be assured they will carry out the work properly," advises Ian Marsh, Technical Manager for ELESCA - part of the ECA (Electrical Contractor's Association).

You can check the contractor is Part P registered on the LABC (Local Authority Building Control) website

You can also find your local authority by postcode using the search box on the LABC homepage

More useful sites:

Trustmark


Jargon Buster

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Our friends British Electric