Watchdog has had another busy year battling on your behalf.
In February we told you how we had been able to buy dangerous, illegal weapons through one of the biggest names in online retail, eBay. Nicky Campbell looked at flick knives, a knife disguised as a pen and a dagger made of plastic which is as strong as steel. However, as a result of our report, eBay banned the sale of all knives except cutlery from its UK website and they've now closed the loophole which allowed British buyers to get them through their international site, eBay.com. Read the report on eBay.
Among the other big names we've looked at are Sky. Two weeks ago, we tested how long some big companies took to answer their phones and Sky came out worst. It once left us hanging on the phone for over two hours. Sky said they were just having a bad day. It explained that it had had an issue with its telephony system which meant that it went down on one of the days we carried out the test so it couldn't answer calls. It went on to explain that this left the company with a hangover effect for the next few days. We had to check whether things had improved so last week we did another test. Again, we rang Sky 100 times. This time they did much better, answering, on average, a minute quicker than last time. However, it's not all good news. On one call we were still kept waiting for 54 minutes! Sky has said it recognises the importance of answering calls quickly and reckons at the time of our test the average wait was 54 seconds. Read the phone test report here.
Sky also said over the two days of Watchdog's random sample it handled 300,000 calls with an average wait time of 54 seconds. It said it "always want to do better" and will "continue to work hard to deliver great customer service."
In March, we asked if Goldtrail Holidays was the worst holiday company we'd ever come across. Some of the people we spoke to had rooms that were so small you could not stand up to go to the toilet. Others found mouse droppings in the restaurant but that wasn't the worst - one woman got E.coli at one of their hotels. Goldtrail told us it would have everything right when it re-opened this summer. We promised to check if it really had upped its game so we flew out to Turkey earlier this month to have a look. We visited four Goldtrail hotels that we'd had complaints about but from what we saw things seemed to have improved. We found no major hygiene issues and there was certainly no shortage of cleaning going on. Read the Goldtrail holidays report.
There was plenty of cleaning required at two other places we visited. Alison and Alistair Lawson found their land near Glasgow two feet deep in sewage after Scottish Water's pipes overflowed last December. They were left to pick up the £52,000 bill to put it right, because, incredibly the law says it isn't the water company's responsibility. However, after our report, Scottish Water finally agreed to pay two-thirds of the cost of cleaning-up the mess. Read the report on rules that favour water companies here.
Gill Ward in Dorset had a similar problem. When the local prison's drains got blocked they would overflow into her garden. For three years the Ministry of Justice had failed to sort the problem, leaving Gill's garden smelling of human excrement and completely unusable. But after we kicked up a stink, they finally took action, diverting the drain and building a brand new patio and decking. Read the report on the prison sewage leak.
There's also more good news for ten-year-old Esther Martin. Disney told her she'd won a trip to the Jonas Brothers movie premiere. It then rang back to say she hadn't won afterall, leaving Esther sobbing in her bedroom. But after a nudge from us, Disney made Esther's dreams come true and last Wednesday (13 May 2009) she not only went to the premiere, she met her favourite Jonas Brother too. Read the Disney mix-up report here.
Watchdog highlights
In February we told you how we had been able to buy dangerous, illegal weapons through one of the biggest names in online retail, eBay. Nicky Campbell looked at flick knives, a knife disguised as a pen and a dagger made of plastic which is as strong as steel. However, as a result of our report, eBay banned the sale of all knives except cutlery from its UK website and they've now closed the loophole which allowed British buyers to get them through their international site, eBay.com. Read the report on eBay.
Among the other big names we've looked at are Sky. Two weeks ago, we tested how long some big companies took to answer their phones and Sky came out worst. It once left us hanging on the phone for over two hours. Sky said they were just having a bad day. It explained that it had had an issue with its telephony system which meant that it went down on one of the days we carried out the test so it couldn't answer calls. It went on to explain that this left the company with a hangover effect for the next few days. We had to check whether things had improved so last week we did another test. Again, we rang Sky 100 times. This time they did much better, answering, on average, a minute quicker than last time. However, it's not all good news. On one call we were still kept waiting for 54 minutes! Sky has said it recognises the importance of answering calls quickly and reckons at the time of our test the average wait was 54 seconds. Read the phone test report here.
Sky also said over the two days of Watchdog's random sample it handled 300,000 calls with an average wait time of 54 seconds. It said it "always want to do better" and will "continue to work hard to deliver great customer service."
In March, we asked if Goldtrail Holidays was the worst holiday company we'd ever come across. Some of the people we spoke to had rooms that were so small you could not stand up to go to the toilet. Others found mouse droppings in the restaurant but that wasn't the worst - one woman got E.coli at one of their hotels. Goldtrail told us it would have everything right when it re-opened this summer. We promised to check if it really had upped its game so we flew out to Turkey earlier this month to have a look. We visited four Goldtrail hotels that we'd had complaints about but from what we saw things seemed to have improved. We found no major hygiene issues and there was certainly no shortage of cleaning going on. Read the Goldtrail holidays report.
There was plenty of cleaning required at two other places we visited. Alison and Alistair Lawson found their land near Glasgow two feet deep in sewage after Scottish Water's pipes overflowed last December. They were left to pick up the £52,000 bill to put it right, because, incredibly the law says it isn't the water company's responsibility. However, after our report, Scottish Water finally agreed to pay two-thirds of the cost of cleaning-up the mess. Read the report on rules that favour water companies here.
Gill Ward in Dorset had a similar problem. When the local prison's drains got blocked they would overflow into her garden. For three years the Ministry of Justice had failed to sort the problem, leaving Gill's garden smelling of human excrement and completely unusable. But after we kicked up a stink, they finally took action, diverting the drain and building a brand new patio and decking. Read the report on the prison sewage leak.
There's also more good news for ten-year-old Esther Martin. Disney told her she'd won a trip to the Jonas Brothers movie premiere. It then rang back to say she hadn't won afterall, leaving Esther sobbing in her bedroom. But after a nudge from us, Disney made Esther's dreams come true and last Wednesday (13 May 2009) she not only went to the premiere, she met her favourite Jonas Brother too. Read the Disney mix-up report here.
Watchdog highlights