The UK digital switchover is underway. It started earlier this year and finishes with the London region in 2012. But just what does it mean? If you're unclear, you're not alone. Many viewers are confused about what technology they need to receive a digital signal. Sadly, some rogue aerial installers are cashing in on this confusion to make a fast buck.
This week Rogue Traders headed to the West Country to investigate complaints we received about two such unscrupulous individuals: Dave Woodyatt and his boss Mitchell Elliott. We've been told that Dave has been installing TV aerials when they aren't needed, misdiagnosing faults and misleading customers about the works required.
But complaining to the company doesn't get the problem solved. The big boss, Mitchell Elliott, uses threats and abusive language to customers when they call to complain.
The company concerned is called 'Aerial Problems Solved Ltd' and is based in Gloucester. The same few people also run 'Perfect Pictures UK Ltd' registered in Bristol. We've found many other trading names and phone numbers they use, but whichever number you call, the same receptionist answers, and the same people do the work.
With many complaints about these companies including nasty threats made to customers, we thought it was about time we sent Aerial Problems Solved a clear signal of our own. So, Matt and Dan hopped on their bike and headed west to meet up with complainants Lynda Brown and her elderly father George.
George had been experiencing problems with his TV signal and so reached for the Yellow pages. He found Aerial Problems Solved's large advert, called them on a local number, and asked them to solve his problem.
Two engineers turned up, one was our rogue David Woodyatt. He told George his booster (an amplifier) had blown and he would need a new, bigger one to replace it. George paid £201 for the work, but when daughter Lynda switched on the TV there was no improvement to the fuzzy picture. David recommended that leaving the TV for 24 hours might improve the picture, as he headed out the door £201 richer.
The puzzling thing is that David asked George for a power lead to plug the new booster in to. This begs the question, if there was a booster there already, how was it being powered? In any case, whether there really was a booster that had 'blown' or not, a booster was not the root of George's problem.
After writing to the company for a refund he received no reply, and desperate to watch his favourite TV show 'Eggheads' without the fuzz, George paid another local company to fix it, which they easily did. They simply lowered George's aerial to avoid a tree whose leaves were blocking the signal. At a cost of only £40, the aerial problem was solved.
Matt and Dan decided it was time to see the full picture for themselves, so called on aerial expert 'Lee Mercer' to set a simple fault in our own 'Rogue Traders' house. The aerial was around 15 years old, but of good quality, and was capable of receiving a digital signal. The fault that Lee set was to simply unplug a cable in the attic.
We hired an elderly actor to pose as homeowner 'Martin' and placed a call with Aerial Problems Solved on a Cheltenham number. Then all that was left to do was for Matt and Dan to sit back and watch the team arrive to see if they were as perfect as their name suggests or, if as with complainant George, they started telling tall tales to add to their pot of gold.
David Woodyatt arrived and after only a few minutes in the loft spotted that the aerial cable was disconnected. But when he climbed back down to tell our homeowner the problem, his imagination kicked in, and he created a fairytale scenario in which Martin's non-existent signal booster had broken, needing to be replaced with another booster.
David pushed his luck further by removing the 18-element aerial and replacing it with an inferior 10-element aerial. David justified the works by telling our homeowner that the aerial he originally had was not capable of receiving a digital signal, which was not true.
The fairytale continues with David telling our homeowner that the business was a member of a trade organisation called the 'FDI'. In fact, it turns out the FDI doesn't exist.
The final bill, for works which should have been covered by the £65 call out charge, was a whopping £276.
It seems that Dave Woodyatt and Mitchell Elliott are laughing all the way to the bank while their customers are being left with depleted bank accounts and often with their problems remaining unsolved.
So what happens when unlucky customers try to complain? Many customers told us that when they complained to Perfect Pictures UK and Aerial Problems Solved, they met with abuse and very serious threats.
Chris Wakefield was one such unhappy customer. He was charged £192 for an aerial installation that he had been told would cost just £99 on offer. Chris paid the engineer, but rang their office to complain. He spoke to a very unpleasant man, who told Chris in extremely abusive language that he had Chris's money, and that he wouldn't be getting it back, before slamming the phone down.
Chris took Perfect pictures UK to court under consumer legislation and won, but he had to call in the bailiffs to recover the money and they were unable to gain anything from the address they were given. So no joy for Chris who despite all his efforts is now £250 out of pocket.
After hearing about the strength of the abuse that some customers received on the phone when they complained, Matt and Dan turned their attention to the big boss responsible; Mitchell Elliott. Mr Elliott has made extremely threatening remarks to customers insinuating they may come to some harm.
But at Rogue Traders we are not easily perturbed by a bit of colourful hot air, so Matt gave Mitchell a call, posing as the son of Martin our actor whose aerial was replaced unnecessarily.
Mitchell Elliott wasn't very willing to help Matt. In fact, at the start of the conversation he told Matt that 'Mitchell Elliott' was killed two years ago, and that his name was Mark Jones, secretary of a new company that has taken over the dissolved Aerial Problems Solved.
He then went on to make veiled threats to Matt, suggesting that he should hang up "for his own sake".
But Mitchell Elliott is alive and well, he hasn't cheated death, just his customers. So having established the full picture for ourselves we decided it was time to confront our two rogues.
The FDI is the fictional trade federation invented by Mitchell Elliott and referred to in his publicity, so it seemed only fair that it was the FDI that we brought to life to reveal our investigation to Aerial Problems Solved.
We invitee David to come to a house to look at an aerial problem, but in fact, Matt was waiting on the other side of the front door to greet him, dressed as an FDI inspector.
Matt quizzed David about the work he did when we filmed him at our 'rogue house'. David said he was no longer with the company and had little else to say on the matter.
Matt then tried to put our allegations to Mitchell Elliott, the big boss, but before Matt could reveal his true identity on the phone Mitchell dismissed Matt with his trademark foul language and hung up.
Mitchell Elliott is the big cheese behind the business, with the fast cars and the charming telephone manner. He's a slippery character to find and meet, but we decided to give it one last go and Matt headed to Mitchell's home address to pay him a visit in person.
Unsurprisingly no-one answered the door and Matt was only able to speak to Mitchell's receptionist and wife, 'Danielle' on the phone. Matt was told that Mitchell was away until the end of October. Even his wife claimed to have no idea where he was, despite the fact that she had passed the phone to him just hours earlier when Matt had phoned and received the verbal abuse.
Mitchell's absence was unfortunate, but it gave Matt the chance to admire one of Mitchell's expensive sports cars sat on the driveway, presumably funded by customers, who have paid over the odds for unnecessary works.
Since filming, David Woodyatt has provided Rogue Traders with the following statement
"I apologise to any third party who I may have encountered and unrightfully supplied unnecessary equipment to. We were encouraged on many occasions to make the most out of every job even if something wasn't necessary. I was never made aware of any complaints that were made; the office never forwarded information, and so was never able to assist with any problems people have incurred after the installation.
"I have since left the company as was unhappy with the way it was run but this does not excuse what happened at certain jobs and I apologise sincerely and honestly."
Are you worried about digital switchover? Remember if you have any new stories you want to investigate please send us your story as we can not publish any new allegations. You can also find out more about digital switchover and what you need to do to receive a digital signal.
Diddled over digital switchover?
This week Rogue Traders headed to the West Country to investigate complaints we received about two such unscrupulous individuals: Dave Woodyatt and his boss Mitchell Elliott. We've been told that Dave has been installing TV aerials when they aren't needed, misdiagnosing faults and misleading customers about the works required.
But complaining to the company doesn't get the problem solved. The big boss, Mitchell Elliott, uses threats and abusive language to customers when they call to complain.
The company concerned is called 'Aerial Problems Solved Ltd' and is based in Gloucester. The same few people also run 'Perfect Pictures UK Ltd' registered in Bristol. We've found many other trading names and phone numbers they use, but whichever number you call, the same receptionist answers, and the same people do the work.
With many complaints about these companies including nasty threats made to customers, we thought it was about time we sent Aerial Problems Solved a clear signal of our own. So, Matt and Dan hopped on their bike and headed west to meet up with complainants Lynda Brown and her elderly father George.
George had been experiencing problems with his TV signal and so reached for the Yellow pages. He found Aerial Problems Solved's large advert, called them on a local number, and asked them to solve his problem.
Two engineers turned up, one was our rogue David Woodyatt. He told George his booster (an amplifier) had blown and he would need a new, bigger one to replace it. George paid £201 for the work, but when daughter Lynda switched on the TV there was no improvement to the fuzzy picture. David recommended that leaving the TV for 24 hours might improve the picture, as he headed out the door £201 richer.
The puzzling thing is that David asked George for a power lead to plug the new booster in to. This begs the question, if there was a booster there already, how was it being powered? In any case, whether there really was a booster that had 'blown' or not, a booster was not the root of George's problem.
After writing to the company for a refund he received no reply, and desperate to watch his favourite TV show 'Eggheads' without the fuzz, George paid another local company to fix it, which they easily did. They simply lowered George's aerial to avoid a tree whose leaves were blocking the signal. At a cost of only £40, the aerial problem was solved.
Matt and Dan decided it was time to see the full picture for themselves, so called on aerial expert 'Lee Mercer' to set a simple fault in our own 'Rogue Traders' house. The aerial was around 15 years old, but of good quality, and was capable of receiving a digital signal. The fault that Lee set was to simply unplug a cable in the attic.
We hired an elderly actor to pose as homeowner 'Martin' and placed a call with Aerial Problems Solved on a Cheltenham number. Then all that was left to do was for Matt and Dan to sit back and watch the team arrive to see if they were as perfect as their name suggests or, if as with complainant George, they started telling tall tales to add to their pot of gold.
David Woodyatt arrived and after only a few minutes in the loft spotted that the aerial cable was disconnected. But when he climbed back down to tell our homeowner the problem, his imagination kicked in, and he created a fairytale scenario in which Martin's non-existent signal booster had broken, needing to be replaced with another booster.
David pushed his luck further by removing the 18-element aerial and replacing it with an inferior 10-element aerial. David justified the works by telling our homeowner that the aerial he originally had was not capable of receiving a digital signal, which was not true.
The fairytale continues with David telling our homeowner that the business was a member of a trade organisation called the 'FDI'. In fact, it turns out the FDI doesn't exist.
The final bill, for works which should have been covered by the £65 call out charge, was a whopping £276.
It seems that Dave Woodyatt and Mitchell Elliott are laughing all the way to the bank while their customers are being left with depleted bank accounts and often with their problems remaining unsolved.
So what happens when unlucky customers try to complain? Many customers told us that when they complained to Perfect Pictures UK and Aerial Problems Solved, they met with abuse and very serious threats.
Chris Wakefield was one such unhappy customer. He was charged £192 for an aerial installation that he had been told would cost just £99 on offer. Chris paid the engineer, but rang their office to complain. He spoke to a very unpleasant man, who told Chris in extremely abusive language that he had Chris's money, and that he wouldn't be getting it back, before slamming the phone down.
Chris took Perfect pictures UK to court under consumer legislation and won, but he had to call in the bailiffs to recover the money and they were unable to gain anything from the address they were given. So no joy for Chris who despite all his efforts is now £250 out of pocket.
After hearing about the strength of the abuse that some customers received on the phone when they complained, Matt and Dan turned their attention to the big boss responsible; Mitchell Elliott. Mr Elliott has made extremely threatening remarks to customers insinuating they may come to some harm.
But at Rogue Traders we are not easily perturbed by a bit of colourful hot air, so Matt gave Mitchell a call, posing as the son of Martin our actor whose aerial was replaced unnecessarily.
Mitchell Elliott wasn't very willing to help Matt. In fact, at the start of the conversation he told Matt that 'Mitchell Elliott' was killed two years ago, and that his name was Mark Jones, secretary of a new company that has taken over the dissolved Aerial Problems Solved.
He then went on to make veiled threats to Matt, suggesting that he should hang up "for his own sake".
But Mitchell Elliott is alive and well, he hasn't cheated death, just his customers. So having established the full picture for ourselves we decided it was time to confront our two rogues.
The FDI is the fictional trade federation invented by Mitchell Elliott and referred to in his publicity, so it seemed only fair that it was the FDI that we brought to life to reveal our investigation to Aerial Problems Solved.
We invitee David to come to a house to look at an aerial problem, but in fact, Matt was waiting on the other side of the front door to greet him, dressed as an FDI inspector.
Matt quizzed David about the work he did when we filmed him at our 'rogue house'. David said he was no longer with the company and had little else to say on the matter.
Matt then tried to put our allegations to Mitchell Elliott, the big boss, but before Matt could reveal his true identity on the phone Mitchell dismissed Matt with his trademark foul language and hung up.
Mitchell Elliott is the big cheese behind the business, with the fast cars and the charming telephone manner. He's a slippery character to find and meet, but we decided to give it one last go and Matt headed to Mitchell's home address to pay him a visit in person.
Unsurprisingly no-one answered the door and Matt was only able to speak to Mitchell's receptionist and wife, 'Danielle' on the phone. Matt was told that Mitchell was away until the end of October. Even his wife claimed to have no idea where he was, despite the fact that she had passed the phone to him just hours earlier when Matt had phoned and received the verbal abuse.
Mitchell's absence was unfortunate, but it gave Matt the chance to admire one of Mitchell's expensive sports cars sat on the driveway, presumably funded by customers, who have paid over the odds for unnecessary works.
Since filming, David Woodyatt has provided Rogue Traders with the following statement
"I apologise to any third party who I may have encountered and unrightfully supplied unnecessary equipment to. We were encouraged on many occasions to make the most out of every job even if something wasn't necessary. I was never made aware of any complaints that were made; the office never forwarded information, and so was never able to assist with any problems people have incurred after the installation.
"I have since left the company as was unhappy with the way it was run but this does not excuse what happened at certain jobs and I apologise sincerely and honestly."
Are you worried about digital switchover? Remember if you have any new stories you want to investigate please send us your story as we can not publish any new allegations. You can also find out more about digital switchover and what you need to do to receive a digital signal.
Diddled over digital switchover?