Tonight ` Some products that I had sold had returned as blacklisted. I take full responsibility for that. the second-hand phone dealer and the customers put on hold. I just want my money back. No imaginary phone and no bomb and no money. Nothing. (LAUGHS) Plus,... There was a massive puddle of water all over the floor. ...your options when the repairer causes more damage than good. Then... NZ, you're not allowed to take this on the plane. OK, so what can you take on as carry-on luggage? BOTH: Marmite. You know, the classic. We seize a lot of this. And we're at the halfway point in the countdown to the dumbest fee. ...which seems incredibly high, uh, so I think this is a pretty dumb charge. Welcome to Fair Go. A flash smartphone ` almost compulsory these days, isn't it? And with two new iPhones out this month, there'll be plenty of old ones for sale. Great prices on slick-looking websites, or maybe via Facebook. Here's Garth with a compelling case to be very wary about where you buy. You can follow me if you like. This is Tobias Lawrence Kake. Do you have a minute to stop, or are you...? Oh, OK. He's a man in a hurry with all of the apparent trappings of success. Can you see it? It's the 7 Series BMW. Check out eBirth Electronics, his business. I saw this Facebook page. The website just looked really legit. The website seemed so legitimate. At first, all those women wanted were iPhones, the reasonably priced refurbished Apple devices that Tobias advertises on Facebook, YouTube and other sites. Products get fixed here. See all of this? There's about 200 or 300 iPhone screens alone in here. But now... No money, nothing. I just want my money back. Can you please pay me the money that you owe me? All up he owes them just over $2000. Looks like he can afford it. My name is Tobias. This is where I live. Tobias seems to be living a pretty lush life,... Watch me go for a swim, y'all. ...sharing videos and pictures of an Auckland apartment and a very nice ride. So there you have it. He claims he refurbishes Apple products, saving waste and cost. Cheaper for you, better for the planet. He claims he's sold over 5000 phones in the past four years. Success. So why does Tobias sound so defensive in this selfie monologue he put on YouTube under #tobiaskardashian? Just making this video to address a few things today. Tania doesn't want a Ferrari, just the cash she paid him. 1500, and that's including court costs. Yep, this has gone as far as the Disputes Tribunal. WHISTLE BLOWS And this is clearly a summer touch tournament, so you know we've been chasing this story for months. As for Tania, her dispute goes back nearly two years. I've got four girls, and three of them are teenagers, and they wanted iPhones for Christmas, so I was like, 'Oh, I can't afford that,' so I thought` I saw this Facebook page ` eBirth Electronics. I bought three originally and had problems with two of them. She sent them back to Tobias for repair and waited. He failed to deliver. In the end, they struck a deal ` don't bother replacing the phones; Tania would take an iMac computer instead. 'Because it was a little bit more expensive, can you just, um, deposit another $400?' which I did, stupidly. (LAUGHS) She says stupid; we say honest and trusting. So Tania phoned, emailed, pleaded, visited Tobias, took him to the Disputes Tribunal, won. Still nothing. (PLAYS SLOW MELODY) Toni has only been hanging on the phone for most of this year. Between study and multiple part-time jobs, she found time to chase up Tobias for her sister after she found faults with her phone. That is very frustrating, isn't it, I mean, if you try to do something. I mean, it's a refurbished phone, right, but you'd expect it to work properly, and that is clearly pretty hard to use. Actually, this was the second phone from eBirth. The first was faulty too. Her sister tried to return it to the business address Tobias had given. Same day she said, 'OK, I sent it,' he goes, um, 'I didn't get any of your emails.' He's said like, 'We've moved addresses. It's not my problem. 'You're gonna have to go and find that phone.' This is where the phone went, his former home and business headquarters. Um, so as you can see, this property is real. Um, it's not images I've taken off the internet. I live here. I've been here for over a year. I also work from home too. Toni drove from one side of Auckland to the other to reclaim her sister's phone. She found it with this man, Tobias' former landlord. The tale he told her didn't fill Toni with confidence. Unpaid rent ` by Tenancy Tribunal order, Tobias still owes him $1800, and that's after he counter-sued the landlord for alleged losses. And here he comes now. You can follow me if you like. We'd like to know why he won't pay his debts, especially the ones tribunals have ruled on. Tobias says further counter-claims are pending. You seem like a guy that doesn't just take a decision like a court order lying down. You're happy to fight your corner. Well, of course. I know the law, and I know my rights, and I exercise those rights pretty diligently when it comes to these sort of situations. He has an answer for everything, but solutions are scant. Take Tania, for example. You said you'd put it right; you didn't. > Oh yeah. Tania. Tania Mansell. That's her. > Um, I don't think I looked into her... I don't think I actually looked into her file. He sure did right after we spoke. Pity it changed nothing. He said that he would like to rectify the situation. I told him how much he owed, and he said that that wasn't possible, so... (LAUGHS) so, yeah, we're back to square one. Toni tried twice to return her sister's dud phone to Tobias. He just said, 'No, I'm not dealing with you guys again. He said, 'Take me to the Disputes Tribunal,' and he said, um, 'I'm gonna drag it out as long as I can out of spite.' Tobias claims he hasn't been given a chance to evaluate the fault as the Consumer Guarantees Act allows. The Consumer Guarantees Act is in place to protect the interests of both the person in trade and the consumer. So she was being unfair? Yes, she was, and my approach to her was I told her, 'I'm not going to deal with you.' But he did have to deal with this. Unfortunately, some products that I had sold, um, had returned as, uh, blacklisted. I take full responsibility for that. I don't deny it. Blacklisting is when an iPhone is locked remotely by your telco, usually when it's been stolen. No, I don't sell stolen and locked Apple products. If you have got a product that you purchased from me and it's 'locked or stolen', call me. I'm more than happy to talk to you, discuss a remedy to the solution, and we can go from there. Have we just struck on the only three people that you've ever done business with and it's gone wrong? Or are there more? Possibly. We didn't catch up with Tobias again on camera, but we did find other upset customers, like Leeane just the other week. I posted a lot of feedback on his page, and he deleted it straight away, and he blocked me from commenting on his Facebook page. Same story ` ordered a phone, was sent an invoice, paid by bank transfer just like all the others, received no phone but a lot of excuses. I said to him, 'I want a full refund now.' He said, 'No, sorry, we can't do that because the phone is being redirected as we speak.' I said, 'When should I expect this imaginary phone?' and he said, 'You will get your imaginary phone by Friday. 'And you know what, Leeane, just for your trouble, I'm gonna send you out a free gift,' and I said, 'What is it? Is it a bomb?' (LAUGHS) He wasn't too impressed about that, but then that was the end of the phone call and nothing since then. No imaginary phone and no bomb and no money. Nothing. Tobias Kake claims Leeane did get the phone. She denies that emphatically. Tobias also says he has plenty of happy customers, so why do we keep hearing from people who've had unsatisfying exchanges with eBirth, like this one from a friend of a customer who tried to help? The person who received that childish response was chasing up an iPad bought from eBirth for 9-year-old Chloe in Akaroa. And here is Chloe with the very grown-up letter she wrote to Tobias Kake. READS: 'To Tobias, my name is Chloe, and I've just turned 9, and I have been saving up for an iPad for ages 'because I want to be the best at maths at school. 'I can use an iPad to do mathletics at home and practise maths. 'My mum and dad have sent you some of my money and some of their money to buy an iPad for my birthday. 'I didn't get a present on my birthday because` 'because the iPad they ordered never came from the postman. 'I still have` It still hasn't come, and Mum's told me it probably won't come, 'because you have taken our money. Our money. 'I wish you could` I wish you could give my money back 'so I can get an i` so I can get a birthday present and get better at maths. From Chloe.' Smart little 9-year-old. Yeah. Chloe's mum emailed that letter to Kake on Monday. No word yet on his reply. So, you send a faulty appliance off to be fixed. Simple enough. Problem is that appliance is about to get a whole lot worse. What happens when the repairer causes more damage than good? 'We do not cover defective or faulty workmanship.' They've said that they're not gonna cover it. And carry-on baggage ` you'll be amazed at what some people think you can take on a plane. Why anybody would think they can take fireworks on to a plane. And a stack of you agreed this is a dumb charge. But I know what I'll be doing. I won't be buying them online; I'll be queuing. Dumb charge. Welcome back. We're at the halfway point in our countdown to the dumbest charge, as voted by you. Here's Brodie. Number five on our top 10 list of dumb charges is pretty ridiculous. It's from Emma Wilson of Auckland. When you book online with hoyts.co.nz, with the adult tickets, they charge you $1.20 per ticket as a booking fee. I also had a look at their Lux tickets, and they charge you $3.00 per ticket for a booking fee, which seems incredibly high, so I think this is a pretty dumb charge. Mm. Crikey, the movies are expensive enough as it is, so we wanted to ask Hoyts about their online pricing. They didn't even return my calls, but we did get sent this from another Fair Go viewer. 'We introduced online ticket purchasing to ensure our guests 'were able to guarantee a seat to a session of their choice and to avoid disappointment of missing out. 'Our online booking fee is competitively priced within the entertainment industry. 'We consistently review our prices and have found they are on the same level.' So their prices are the same as everybody else's, they say, but does that make it OK? Well, you be the judge. But I know what I'll be doing. I won't be buying them online; I'll be queuing. Dumb charge. So no word at all from Hoyts to us. That explanation was sent to one of their customers, who sent it to us. A question now ` what happens when your appliance goes kaput and then the repair people make it worse? Here's Hannah. For young mum Natalie Harfoot, the washing machine was a star appliance. It was pretty fast. It had a timer on it, so we could sort of set it overnight and it would be finished in the morning. And, yeah, so it had lots of functions on it as well. With a baby and a 3-year-old, washing is a daily, sometimes twice-daily affair. It was a good little workhorse for us. We're talking in the past tense because Natalie's original machine is sadly no longer with us. Replaced temporarily with this loan machine, Natalie's good little workhorse was an Italian-made Indesit, and it was only six years old when this happened. We put on a load of washing. It started and came back to the machine and found that it had stopped, and it had tripped our RCD, um, at home. So an electrical fault or disturbance will trip the RCD, the residual current device, to protect you and your electrics. We started up the machine again and it tripped again, so we kind of narrowed it down to the machine. This family can't really do without a machine, so lucky it was a quick fix with a company they'd used before. They'd found that the heating element in the washing machine had, um` had blown and that it was a part that they could replace for us. Um, they quoted us a price of $285 to get it repaired. That didn't seem too bad. First couple of loads were fine ` no issues ` um, and then when we got to the third load of washing, there was a massive puddle of water all over the floor, right out the front of the garage door. Whoopsy-daisy. The service man who had installed the new heating element had dislodged an internal clip and... The clip actually ended up working its way through to the front of the machine near the drum, and then it ripped the seal on our` on our front-loader door, and that's where the leak was coming from. These ones definitely need doing. The repair company said, 'It's our fault. We'll fix it at no cost,' and gave them a loan machine. But then they said... 'Sorry, we tried to find a part for that machine, um, but they're no longer available. 'Um, we still want to see you right for this.' So they said the family could either not pay the first bill but be left with no washing machine ` well, that's no good ` or they could pay the bill and be given a replacement machine. They offered a 2005 model, already 10 years old. And, really most machines only last about 10 years before you have to replace them anyway. So, can you tell me the model of the machine? The replacement machine didn't have as many functions as our original machine. The company then said they'd look for a better replacement, and Natalie checked her insurance policy. Her machine was accidently damaged and wasn't fixable. Could she claim for a new one? 'We do not cover defective or faulty workmanship.' They've said that they're not gonna cover for what's happened during the repair. What about the repair company's insurance? I said, 'Do you have any insurance cover for such an event happening?' and he said, 'We have no insurance.' I said, you know, 'If the accidental damage had happened on our part, 'we would be getting a completely new machine from our insurance,' and I said we were entitled to more from the Consumer Guarantees Act. Should we go hang out the washing? The act says that any service you receive should be carried out with reasonable care and skill. If it isn't and the problem's serious, you can cancel the contract and refuse to pay for the work done. If the work already done for you has caused damage to your property, you can claim compensation for that damage. So we believe Natalie should get a replacement washing machine of the same or better standard and shouldn't have to pay the bill. We just wanted a resolution, and, um, it wasn't fair that, you know, we've lost our washing machine because of poor workmanship on their part. Yeah, fair enough, so we've been talking to the repair company. They say 99% of the time they get it right; this time they got it wrong. Good on them for owning up. They agree Natalie shouldn't have to pay any bill, and Natalie tells us that just yesterday her upgraded replacement washing machine arrived. Sorted. Airport security ` yeah, it causes long delays, frustrations, but it is about keeping us all safe in the air. And we were fairly astonished to discover the stuff people try and take on planes. Weapons or things that could easily be used as weapons. Uh, replica weapons, which, of course, on an aircraft are just as big a problem as the real one. Yeah. Welcome back. Here is s my Swiss knife, the current one. I've lost several of these at overseas airports, and I regularly forget to leave this at home. Now, Gordon's knife is small enough to be OK on domestic travel. The stuff we're about to show you is not OK ` really really not OK. Here's Brodie. Hi. My name's Caroline. My husband and I took a hundred pieces of KFC chicken on a plane to Rarotonga. I'm Anne. I took my husband's ashes as hand luggage from Auckland to London. Hi, I'm Emma, and I brought two dead tarantula spiders into NZ in my carry-on baggage. Ugh! What do you reckon was allowed on the plane out of those three? I'll tell you very soon. But first... So, travelling can be very exciting at times. You know, you pack your bags, you've got your book and all your lovely things, but it is important to know what you can and cannot take. Because there are so many rules, it's easy to get a bit confused. You know, what's allowed, what's not allowed, what's OK as checked-in baggage but not as carry-on and what is just simply no, not ever. Let's start with the noes. Weapons or things that could easily be used as weapons. Uh, replica weapons, which, of course, on an aircraft are just as big a problem as the real one. Yep. Yeah, as you can see, some of them are pretty dramatic. You know, the old flip knife. We've got things like this, which is` Don't move, cos I don't want to actually damage you. Oh! The old asp, which is a baton. Yeah. Um, we took this off a man who said he needed it for protection in Australia. Right. These things have been confiscated off passengers at Auckland International Airport over the past two weeks. Two weeks! We've got things like knuckledusters here. We've got the old martial arts weapons. Uh, we've got bullets. The, um` The one that is really quite staggering is why anybody would think they can take fireworks on to a plane. So to be very clear, absolutely no weapons or replica weapons as carry-on luggage, absolutely no fireworks or explosives, gases, flammables in any of your baggage. Obviously, illegal weapons like flip knives are just not even negotiable in any orifice of the plane. Following? Good. Now, there are plenty of things you are allowed as checked-in baggage but not in your carry-on. Some people might go, 'What's wrong with that?' That's right. We actually have rules about boomerangs, believe it or not, because they can actually be used to, sort of, knock somebody out. So the rule is 40cm from tip to tip. A lot of sporting equipment and big items are also not allowed as carry-on. If you feel the weight of it, it's quite sizeable. If you put this in your bag to check into the hold, that would be fine, but you can't have this in the cabin, because it can be used as a weapon. Karen says if you can't use something safely on a plane, it's probably not OK. So cordless drill, rechargeable batteries, you know, inflatable airbed pumps ` you know, these are the kind of things that we take off people. You are not gonna inflate a mattress in the cabin. You're not gonna get your drill out and start doing a bit of DIY. So if you're not gonna use it in the cabin, put it in your bag. Now, the one that trips most people up is liquids, aerosols and gels, known as LAGs. That means anything that you can smear, so hence the butter and the jam and stuff. It's gotta be in a container of less than 100ml, and it's gotta fit into one of these sort of bags and just your, you know, Glad sandwich bag is fine, so that's what it's got to fit in. Because this kind of stuff gets thrown into landfill all the time. BOTH: Marmite. You know, the classic. We seize a lot of this. Um... Oh no! Yes, yeah. No! Beautiful gift boxes of the beautiful Kaitaia fire sauce. This is a tragedy. Now, this isn't a rule for the sake of it. The 100ml limit was brought in following a failed bomb plot in 2006 where terrorists planned to use liquid bombs to blow up planes. But don't forget it's a bit different when travelling domestically. For domestic, uh, there's no liquid restriction. So your shampoo and conditioner is over 100ml? Sweet as. But the same rules apply with dangerous items or things that could be used as weapons. We've had a customer come on board, uh, with a skateboard but actually taken the wheels off to try and get it on board, and he goes, 'Well it's not a skateboard cos it doesn't have wheels.' But there are some downright bizarre things that if they can fit within the 7kg cabin-bag limit, then good luck to you, like a five-tiered wedding cake. It was all packaged. So, you know, as long as they're within the weight restrictions and the size and it fits in our overhead locker, you know, the crew are accommodating. So what about the KFC, the ashes and the dead tarantulas? Well, the KFC is allowed out of NZ. You just have to check the country you're going to. The ashes are allowed. There's just a couple of forms to fill out. And the dead tarantulas? Emma didn't have any problem bringing them on the plane. But do remember just cos you can take it on a plane doesn't mean the country at the other end will let it in. So the moral of the story is please, please, please check your weight allowances, your baggage restrictions and airline websites for what you're allowed to take on board. We're not out to make people's lives a misery and ruin their holidays and take really expensive things off them. But, you know, you just to think about what it is you're bringing into the cabin. Finally, I give you my favourite confiscated item. Yes, that's exactly what you think it is. NZ, you're not allowed to take this on the plane, all right, so whoever you were, not really! LAUGHTER And again, that stuff Brodie saw was seized in just two weeks at Auckland Airport. In the past 12 months, they've seized more than 20,000 sharp objects at Auckland International. In the same time, 101 guns were confiscated at Christchurch Airport, so maybe have a wee check before you fly. We've put some links on the info section of our website. That is almost the show, but before we go, remember to keep sending us your picks for the best and worst ads of 2015. We've got a special email address for this... Please use that address only, or your votes will not be counted. The winners and losers on our second to last show of the year in November. And, sorry, school Ad Awards entries have now closed, but thank you so much to everyone who entered. We viewed all 400-odd ads on Monday. Some pretty amazing stuff in there. You'll have to wait a wee a bit longer to see if your school has made the final 10. All revealed on our special show on the 4th of November. Yes, we're very excited about that. And that is the show, but we will be on Facebook for the next half hour to answer your questions. Our programme ` all about your problems, your thoughts, and we do love to hear from you. We're on Facebook. Email us - fairgo@tvnz.co.nz Write to us ` Private Bag 92038, Auckland 1142. And next week ` how not to water-blast a house. Who left this mess on this house? I am horrified with the state of the building. It looks awful. Why was it done? Why did you water-blast the weatherboards on his house? You can see the damage done. Why didn't he stop? And why hasn't it been fixed? That's next week. Goodnight.