Tonight ` One, two, three... SPRAYS HISS CHUCKLES: I think we missed. (LAUGHS) struggling to turn your house into a no-fly zone? Man down. Down but not out. Some of them may lie there on backs, buzzing, and then eventually they'll stand up and they may well fly or walk away again. It's turning into a major bugbear for some. There's no one-shot kill, there's no fast kill, and in this case, there is no kill at all. Plus, the pitfalls of internet banking. It's the sorta mistake anyone can make. But we thought it would be easy fixed. How do you get your money back when you accidently put it in the wrong account? The banks won't help you. The police won't help you. No one can investigate it. And immortal burgers. Is the burger that lasts forever just an urban myth? So, if I bought four burgers from fast food joints, plus a home-made burger, popped them in a camping pantry and left them, what would you expect to see over a passage of time? Its appearance will stay the same. Welcome to the first Fair Go of 2016. Finally. It's been a while, and we are very pleased to be back. First up this year, flies. When you kill one, hundreds more seem to turn up for the funeral. Little bit of an exaggeration, but this summer has been a shocker, and if you're like me, you've probably been reaching for the fly spray to blow the pesky buggers away. But how effective is it, really? Brodie's met a bloke who insists household fly spray just doesn't work, and he reckons he can prove it. A warning ` if you're a frog or happen to like flies, then you might not want to watch. One, two, three... SPRAYS HISS CHUCKLES: I think we missed. BOTH LAUGH Ah, the joy of hunting flies... (LAUGHS EVILLY) There's just something about killing them. Man down. We'll get back to this murderous rampage soon, but first, meet Paul. These guys were just smart as. I mean, they'd sense you coming. He caught all these flies. Why, you might ask? Well, it started five years ago. My wife and I felt the flies just weren't dying if we sprayed them, so we'd get an adult house fly into a small room, give it a blast, a direct blast and close the door, come back an hour later and see if it was dead or not. Alas, the flies weren't dying. We've just gone through all of these products, from Raid to Black Flag to Mortein, and every one of them, same result. Now, the flies Paul is talking about are known as the common house fly. Come summer, these are the ones you will see all over your house, and they are so not cool. Just ask our super fly expert, Dr Allen Heath, what they get up to. They do have this tendency to spread diseases. They come land on nasty stuff, suck it up, then go to our food, regurgitate what they've sucked up on to our food, and then we eat it. Ugh! See why people like Paul want to kill them? Anyway, despite wanting to kill them, Paul says his fly sprays just don't seem to work. So every summer for the past five years, he's gone to the manufacturers. They would say, 'Well, it's obviously a dodgy batch. 'Take it back to the shop you've bought it from, and they'll give you a replacement.' Or in Raid's case, they'll take the batch number down, and they'll say, 'Look, we'll send you out a voucher and you can go and get a replacement.' Fed up with the same response, Paul got creative and started carrying out some home tests. I sprayed the adult house fly, caught it in a container and just observed it from there to see what would happen. But generally within about 20 to 120 minutes, these guys would be back up flying around. Here at Fair Go, we were like, 'Whaaat?! We gotta see this.' So we released 15 house flies into Paul's living area. He's using Raid One Shot Flying Insect Killer, and I'm using Black Flag Rapid Kill. Cos it's black, so it looks mean and like a killing machine. We'll give them a good dose,... (CHUCKLES) Missed. I did miss! ...then try catch them again and see what happens. Whoo-hoo! (LAUGHS) I think you got it. Gotcha! Heh. Double-banger. (GIGGLES) DUBSTEP MUSIC While we're doing that, let's go back to Dr Heath, who's studied flies for half a century. He says house flies have been following humans around for thousands of years. That's why they are so widespread and successful ` because they'll feed on a wide range of rotting materials. House flies like grass clippings, household rubbish, cat and dog droppings, that sort of stuff. And because they've been around for so long, Dr Heath says it is possible some flies have developed a resistance to fly spray. Some of them are going to be less susceptible to the insecticides than the others, so the susceptible ones die, and the less susceptible ones survive to produce offspring, and that sort of natural selection works over various generations. So the flies could've developed a Knockdown resistance gene. It means it takes a bigger dose to knock those things down, and some of them may lie there on their backs buzzing, and then eventually the enzymes within them that the gene is promoting will break the insecticide down and the will stand up and they may well fly or walk away again. So could that have been what happened with our mates at Paul's house? We managed to catch nine of our spray victims. As you can see, they weren't in great shape when they were caught. But an hour and a half later and... So we got one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Seven out of nine of these flies are alive, and we hit them all. And we were good. So I'm very impressed with your test. Yes, seven out of the nine flies we caught were very much alive. He was dead on the kitchen! He sure was. And what about this guy? He's happy as Larry. Yeah, he is happy as Larry. And happy as Larry they were the next day. In fact, another fly came back from the brink, meaning eight of the nine flies survived our killing spree. RIP to this little fella, though. Now, Paul says he's tried and tried to alert Raid, Mortein and Black Flag of his findings, but he's sick of getting fobbed off. Enough's enough. I'm not wandering round the house spraying flies three or four times, wasting my time and money ` even though it's not a lot ` trying to fix a problem that they should've sorted out. He just wants them to at least look at his concerns and take them seriously. We think they should too. Other than the fact that these products are marketed and advertised as 'Fast Knockdown', 'One Shot Kill', etc, etc, etc. But we've proven that that advertising's quite clearly misleading. There's no one-shot kill. And in this case, there's no kill at all. Fly spray that doesn't kill flies ` unbelievable! Scientists have a saying ` without experimentation, there is no science; no science, no proof; no proof, no truth. We don't pretend to be scientists, but in the interest of fairness, we were keen to double-check Paul's test results. So we got Brodie to release 15 flies in the TVNZ boardroom and armed her with a can of Mortein Fast Knockdown to see if it could kill, as claimed, in one spray. And we chose Mortein because it was the only spray we didn't test at Paul's house. Free yourselves! (LAUGHS) Well, for now, anyway. So, my job today is to chase these little mates around, much like we did at Paul's house. Kills in one spray, they say. So... Sorry, fellas. SPRAY HISSES Argh! I spend the next 20-odd minutes blasting these flies with a can of Mortein,... I will clean these windows. Given it's the TVNZ boardroom. Surely they're in a bad state now. ...and I manage to catch 11 flies. Agh! See? He was playing tricks on us. He was playing dead. I leave them for an hour and a half, then go back and check on their dead or alive status. So, nine of the 11 flies we caught are still alive, and this guy is just` he's loving life. And a lot of them are loving life. Unfortunately, two flies died after filming, but the remaining seven were good to go. Now, we find this quite remarkable and were eager to see what the fly spray companies thought about all of this. Now, Reckitt Benckiser, which owns Mortein and Black Flag said ` They are unable to explain Fair Go's results, and it doesn't reflect their experience with their products. They say the experimental conditions are quite different to those they'd normally utilise. And test on flies are always variable ` the type, age of flies, room size, amount of dosed product, time of spray, usage instructions, like 'shake before use', are all key factors of a valid scientific study. Reckitt Benckiser is aware of Paul Snell's complaint but says there is no trend of these types of complaints. They says there's no published data to demonstrate a resistance to fly spray and that its products are fit for purpose, safe for consumers, scientifically proven and approved by regulatory authorities globally. So pretty full response, but, hey, we are struggling to believe we're the first to complain about fly spray not working as it should. And this is interesting ` the Mortein and Black Flag people, Reckitt Benckiser, admit they've done no testing on flies in NZ, because there are no purpose-built facilities. We also heard from the American makers of Raid, SC Johnson, who said ` Well, that's that, then. So if you've complained about your fly spray not working, we want to hear from you. Next up, a perplexing question ` are fast food burgers immortal? One woman kept a happy meal for six years to see how it would change. The result? Not much change at all, apparently. Now, most of you are thinking 'yuck', which is a perfectly reasonable reaction to what seems like a totally disgusting perversion of nature. But what is really going on between those buns? Is the never-rotting burger an urban myth or not? In the first of an occasional series, we put it to the test. Most of us know fresh food's best ` lots of veggies. You know the drill. But sometimes life gets busy, and takeaways are a perfect fix. So it's pretty alarming when you hear stories about fast food burgers that look the same after years and years. How concerned should we be? Or is the burger that lasts forever just an urban myth? Urban myths ` you know, those little stories that people tell you that may or may not be true. So I went in search of an answer, which led me to Sarah. Hi, Pippa. How are you? So if I put four fast food joints, plus a home-made burger, pop them in a camping pantry and left them, what would you expect to see over a passage of time? It will dehydrate to a point, and its appearance will stay the same. And Sarah should know ` food science is her passion. And in a nutshell, that's not because of the preservatives; < it's because of the dehydration? Totally. We wanted to put it to rest once and for all, so I bought four burgers from leading fast food outlets, and we'll check in regularly to see how they're holding up. It's not exactly scientific, but let's see if our experiment has the same results as the ones we've all heard about over the years. So, there. You got it. We've got our little camping pantry here, and we've got all our burgers ` from McDonald's, Burger King, from Wendy's and from Carl's Jr. And for good measure we thought we might throw in one of our home-made burgers as well. We're all set up. Let our experiment begin. Your burger was pretty good, actually, Pippa. (LAUGHS) You got the bonus burger, actually, with veggies in it. Those burgers were actually bought over a fortnight ago. What sort of shape are they in now? We'll have a look later in the show. Also, an expensive fat-finger mistake which got nasty. 'What is going on please.' The two-digit blunder that cost a couple thousands. My trust was completely gone, and I was like, 'Oh heck, I can't believe this has happened.' And ` So, up close, the smell, it's not great, but it's certainly not unbearable. What's really going on between the buns? 1 Welcome back. Internet banking's mostly a brilliant idea ` no more paperwork, no more posting stuff off. But Hannah's been talking to a couple who got their numbers wrong and discovered that it may be called the net, but it doesn't catch you if you fall. Well, it's the sorta mistake anyone can make. But we thought it would be easy fixed. Cos most people, well, they do the right thing. What happened to Jody and Paul can happen to anyone with just a slip of the fingers. But putting it right, well, that's a whole different saga. Well, it was one of those things ` a busy day; we had to pay for a deposit for a van that we'd bought. Had the bank number on the bottom, typed it in, sent it off, didn't think any more of it, until the next morning, when we got a phone call from a lady, saying, 'Did you realise you put the money in the wrong account?' How much money? Yeah, we didn't know we'd made a mistake until she rung, yeah. From there she just told me her name and details and that she'd put it back for us. When you got that call, you must have thought, 'Oh, whew!' Yeah, yeah ` lucky break. Good honest person. She actually went to the trouble of looking our business up on the internet to find out who we were. Big relief, yeah. Paul texted the woman. She texted back that she needed her husband to co-sign the transfer, and he was overseas, but... And more reassurance ` So she sounded believable? I just thought, 'Oh, no, she's got hold of us, and if she hadn't done that, 'we wouldn't have known who she was anyway.' You're a good boy. Blissfully unaware that getting their money back was about as likely as Wilbur the kunekune taking to the skies, Jody and Paul let the weeks slip by. Then the woman said she had to join her husband overseas because his family was sick. Only now did the couple think it was time to get their bank involved. We were still kind of thinking this could turn bad, it might turn bad, so we put an official request in at that stage. Our bank put in a request to her bank, and they said, 'We can't contact her. 'We believe she's not in the country.' That's virtually all they said. We say, 'Well, can we get some details to be able to follow it up?' 'No, we can't give you any details.' With no help from the banks, all Jody and Paul could do was to phone her, which they did again and again and again. Finally she answered, and I was, 'Oh, great!' And she said, 'Oh, I'm just waiting for my husband to wake up, and we're going straight down to the bank.' Ha! Didn't happen. Another text from Paul ` A text back in mid-January seemed reassuring ` By now four months had passed, Jody too was texting, but no reversal, no money, nothing. 'What is going on please.' And then the woman's phone was disconnected. I just couldn't believe it. I thought, 'Oh!' My trust was completely gone. I was like, 'Oh heck. I can't believe this has happened.' So we thought, 'Oh, we've been done.' Yeah. Jody hit the phones, ringing about 100 people with the woman's surname. No joy. She tried the police. They said because they'd willingly put the money in, it can't be called theft. The banks won't help you. The police won't help you. No one can investigate it. And unless they have the good will to give you the money back, that money's gone forever. And Paul reckons that there's a double standard. If the bank makes a mistake and puts money into the wrong account, they've got a way that they can get it back. But when it comes to the customer, if you make a mistake, they can't get it back. And so to me there seems to be` there's something not quite right there that they need to address. The Banking Association says, yes, banks can reverse a payment they got wrong. It's important to remember that when you are making payments, you are authorising that, and you must` your responsibility is to ensure that you are getting the details correct. However, if the bank makes the error, it will rectify that with you. Wilbur. So if the bank gets it wrong, it's their problem; if you get it wrong, it's yours. In Aussie, if you make an honest mistake and notify the bank in 10 days, they'll get your money back straight away. after 10 days, you have a further seven months to raise the alarm. Beyond that, you only get it back if the recipient agrees. Good boy! Sadly, NZ banks have no plans to follow suit. The bank association's advice to you ` Be incredibly careful when entering those details into your system to make that payment, because once that payment has been authorised by you, it can't be reversed or stopped. What would you guys wanna say to this woman now? If she genuinely did fall on hard times and she couldn't afford to pay the money back, well, at least tell us that. No problem. I would've been happy with that. Paul and Jody have paid a hefty price for an innocent typo, but it won't be happening again. What do you do now, Paul? BOTH CHUCKLE He gets me to do it. Get Jody to do it, yeah. Or I call her into the room and say, 'Jody, come and check this before`' Read over these numbers. They can have a laugh now, but this was not a nice situation. Happily, we got some pretty good news. Yes, Kiwibank stayed on the case, and they managed to track down the recipients of Paul and Jody's money. Remember, the wife who got the money spent months texting them, promising to pay it back, but didn't. She's now agreed to reimburse them in full. An amicable settlement is being arranged. So that is great news, but we really are amazed this sort of thing isn't sorted out with the push of a button. I mean, these are honest mistakes. Yeah, and we think the Aussie banks have a way better system for this sort of thing. Most of our banks are owned by the Aussies. How hard would it really be to adopt the same approach here? Exactly. Now, we can't quite smell them from here, but how are my burgers looking? Is the burger that lasts forever just an urban myth? We take a peek into Pippa's pantry. Will the reaction be 'yuck!' or 'yum!'? So, it's day 10. I'd expect these to be looking a little bit off now. And a moment of compassion from Brodie. Yay! Freedom! Go free! (LAUGHS) 1 Welcome back. Now, this year we'll be making occasional attempts to test urban myths. Yes, like the claim that some fast food burgers are immortal. Time to take a sneak peek into my pantry. So, it's day 10, and I'd expect these to be looking a little bit off now. So, up close, the smell ` it's not great, but it's certainly not unbearable. The bun ` it's pretty hard. But, you know, other than that, these burgers look very similar to the way they looked on the day that we bought them. Let's take a closer look. So, on the left-hand side there, that's our first day, and on the right side, that's day 10. As you can see, they look pretty much identical. No huge change there with our home-made burger or the McDonald's one. In fact, five of five all looking very much the same. So no major changes on the outside, but let's take a look on the inside. That one's a little tricky to get off, but no signs of mould on the McDonald's burger. That's the home-made one, and as you can see, there's definitely mould growing there. The Burger King patty, well, it looks likes it's shrunk, but other than that, no major difference. Let's take a look. Carl's Jr. That was the biggest of the fast food burgers. There's definitely mould on the patty and the bun. And Wendy's looks a little bit suss, but that's actually the bun stuck to the patty, much the same as day one. So no significant differences on the outside; mould on two of the burgers ` the two bigger ones. We'll pop them back and update you on this urban myth again soon. Mm, so they're not looking very appetising now. On day one, I was worried that people might steal them and eat them, but I'm less concerned about that now. I actually had to warn a hungry colleague away from them yesterday. The burgers are staying in our office, colleagues allowing. We'll be checking them during the year. And we'll also ask the burger chains for their thoughts. As we mentioned, this'll be an occasional series. If you've got an urban myth you want tested, then tell us. Yes, and we'll do our best. And you flooded us with dumb charges last year. They will be back too. So do tell us if you've had to pay something you think is stupid. Now, some of you might've been a wee bit upset at our ruthless attempts to slaughter flies earlier in the show. If you're worried about the survivors, here's what happened to them. OK, so, because there were a few flies harmed in the making of this story, I kinda felt like we should give some a second opportunity at life, especially since they've been hammered by fly spray. So we'll start with this wee mate. Go free! (GIGGLES) Yay! (LAUGHS) Ready, little mate? Freedom! Here's another one. Off to a better life. Oh. Come on. Go. It's time to go. Go and be with your friends. Yee! Ah. I` I would not have let them go, myself. No, they're probably on their way to my house now. Thanks, Brodie. That's great. That is the show, but we will be on Facebook for the next half hour to answer your questions. Our programme is all about your problems, your thoughts. Please do contact us. We're on Facebook. Email us. Write to us ` Private Bag 92038 Auckland 1142 And next week ` the art of forgery. People would talk to me in my shop and they would say, 'Oh, I've seen your stuff on Trade Me,' and I'd say, 'No, I haven't got any of my paintings on Trade Me.' Is imitation really the sincerest for of flattery? This is Melissa's painting. Renaissance Art's. Melissa. Renaissance. Melissa. Renaissance. You get the picture. Straight away when I saw them, 'Who's painted my paintings?' Mark goes in search of those forging a fake art. But no signs of life. Time to dig a bit deeper. And Brodie discovers a burning loathing of DIY. Holy <BLEEP>. We launch the flat-pack challenge. Get in. That can't work. Tell you what, she ain't gonna be pretty. That's next week. Goodnight. Copyright Able 2016