Tonight ` This is Rod. He's got a problem with his HOP card. It is a damn nuisance. A brain injury has made Rod pretty forgetful,... What's that for? To make sure I don't leave it behind. ....but he can remember he's pretty angry with Auckland Transport. Stop cancelling my card. Plus ` The goal is to get this puppy out the driveway? Yes. at an age when most are winding down,... Good girl. (LAUGHS) ...this supergran is itching to get on the road. I've got a caravan, and I've got a car and a dog and got retirement years, but I'm stuck at home. And inventors love thinking outside the box. You can lift of the seat, simple as, and a woman can go to the toilet if she wants to. Creativity is good, but creative pricing is another matter. I kind of felt... maybe a bit bullied. Copyright Able 2016 Welcome to the show. Living with a traumatic brain injury can be though ` real tough. For some, headaches, fatigue and memory loss are part of everyday life. So what do you do when something that is supposed to make life easier makes it harder? Here's Garth. This is a gold HOP card. If you're in Auckland and it's gone 9, you won't be paying to catch the bus. Damn nuisance. Or will you? This is Rod. He's got a problem with the HOP card. And this? It's just a piece of string. What's that for? To make sure I don't leave it behind. Rod's forgetful. With my memory thing, I often think, 'Oh, I'll just hang on to it.' Then half an hour later, 'Oh shit, where's it gone?' and I've dropped it without even realising that I've dropped it. Rod is 69, but it's not age that's frayed his memory. Rod had a serious crash in 1973; he doesn't really drive any more. I was in a coma for many months. Very lucky to be alive, and I'm now epileptic with short-term memory problems. So he needs the nylon, but the card has other strings attached. Every time you hop on you tag on, and every time you hop off, you tag off. Simple? Not for Rod. Trouble is, I can even talk about the difficulty of remembering to tag off and then get off the bus, and I've forgotten. Tagging off tells the system Rod has finished his free bus trip. Forgetting to tag off leads to the system blacklisting the account and deactivating the card. Bang, bang, bang, on the bus. Sometimes` I did that the other day, and he said 'No, you just tagged off,' and I've forgotten that I haven't forgotten. You've forgotten that you haven't forgotten? Mm. Is this really Rod's fault? You see, we haven't forgotten either. The HOP card has featured on Fair Go before ` misplaced commuters, cancelled cards, confusing refunds. The over-65's were added to that mix in July; the Government wants to track what it's costing. Want to use your free bus privileges? First you have to pay for a gold HOP card. Oh, it's just the principle of the thing. It just annoys me, you know. First of all, that they're forcing you to get a card; secondly that they're forcing you to tag off; thirdly that they don't make allowances for the fact that some people, particularly old people, often have... airy-fairy memory. Rod has already paid for his free bus pass twice. He reckons the transport staff haven't been much help. I said, 'Well, I got good medical reasons for having a bad memory.' They said, 'It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter about that. Doesn't matter.' Are you sure. Do you remember that clearly? I do remember that clearly. That sounds a bit harsh. Auckland Transport hasn't confirmed what was said over the counter, but after we got in touch... Because has, uh, a senior, uh, Super Gold Card. ...it turns out there might be another list beyond the blacklist ` a list of people not to blacklist. Auckland Transport says it just needs to see some medical evidence, and Rod can put this hassle in his long-term memory and move on. Yeah, stop cancelling my card. That's all there is to it. Yeah, that's all. OK, so that blacklisting policy is proving to be a tidy little earner for Auckland Transport. Yes, since the HOP card was rolled out in June 2013, more than 21,000 cards have been blocked or blacklisted. credit worth $412,000 has been seized under the HOP cards terms and conditions. Of that, nearly $80,000 has come from people who failed or forgot to tag on and off correctly. Auckland Transport says people with medical issues should get in touch. They say SuperGold card users already get two written warnings before they're blacklisted. Right, moving on to roadies. For years, Lois, a keen caravaner, has dreamed of hitting the road,... ...but her plans have come unhitched thanks to a car salesman. These are a few of Lois O'Donoghue's favourite things. Her gardening is on point, and her ballroom dancing ain't so bad either. And now around we go. One, two. She's even for one of those Dirty Dancing mirrors in her garage! You're going anti-clockwise. (LAUGHS) Now you're onto it. That's the spirit. But thing that excites Lois the most is the great NZ roadie, so a while back, she bought Mildred with the plan to go travelling. She's pretty cool, eh? Where would you like to go in her? Ooh, I'd like to trip around the South Island and go to the different towns that have ballroom dancing nights and just enjoy my senior years. Sounds like a grand idea to me. Now, Lois is a bit of a Hyundai fan and used to have their 2010 i30, which she loved. It got Car of the Year, and it was turbo and towed this like a dream. You'd never even know it was behind. But a couple of years ago, a car salesman from Mayfield Motors in Blenheim lured her into buying another car ` this car, a Hyundai Accent. I said, well, I'll need a tow bar if it's going to tow my Mildred ` 'We'll organise that.' She was also assured the car had the strength needed for such a task. I was under the impression the car would pull the caravan because the size of the motor was 1800cc. Now, like I said, this was around two years ago. Time has passed, Lois has been keeping busy doing all the things, and due to some personal reasons has not been able to hit the road with Mildred until recently. But now, she's good to go. Oh, what a lovely day to be sitting here by the beach having a glass of wine, looking at the seagulls and the boats going by. It doesn't get any better than this. Now, you might be thinking, is this lady nuts?! She's sitting in her driveway! I've got a caravan and I've got a car and a dog. Got all the retirement years, and I'm stuck at home. In the driveway? > In the driveway. You heard her. Mildred can't go anywhere. I can have a picnic in the driveway. I can open the door, sit there, read a book. I can even sit and have a cup of tea or a glass of savvy at the end of the day ` all in my driveway. Now, there's obviously a reason for this. A quick-thinking and moving Lois remembered a conversation she'd had with that Mayfield Motors salesman. He said to me that when you're towing a caravan, you should keep it in third gear. She thought this was kind of weird, so before planning her trip, she thought she'd check in with Hyundai to see what the deal was. They said under no circumstances could I pull wonderful little Mildred, not even out the driveway. But why, Lois? Why? Because it's not an 1800cc. But if you look here on the sales agreement, it clearly states the car is an 1800cc. But then, if you look on the car, you can see a very different picture. Lois also checked her rego, and low and behold, that also didn't say 1800cc. The little Tonka Toy that they sold me wouldn't pull the skin off a rice pudding. That's one way to describe it. To reiterate, the car is 1600cc and not strong enough to tow Mildred. Lois went into the car yard, which had actually changed hands. It was no longer Mayfield Motors but Mayfield Motorworld. I said, 'What are we gonna do?' Oh, they've recently taken over the franchise of Hyundai, and this was with the previous owner, so it's not really their problem. Lois was left pretty gutted and fobbed off. She'd been told that the other owner of Mayfield Motorworld would be in touch with her, but when she hadn't heard anything, she got in touch with Hyundai again. Then, Wayne Young from Mayfield Motorworld emailed Lois, keen to sort this out. Why didn't you go in? Just felt with the two owners, I a little old senior citizen of 70 years-plus, I was going to be the meat in the sandwich, and I didn't want to go along that track. Lois says she felt vulnerable because a) she'd been sold the wrong car in the first place, and b) thought she'd been fobbed off when she went back to try sort it out. She wasn't keen to go back a third time. Well, I feel totally let down. They've got a customer that they have not made a very happy customer. When we got touch with Wayne Young, he was gutted that Lois hadn't come in and assured me that he would have sorted it without Fair Go being involved. Despite not owning the car yard at the time of sale, the man that sold Lois the car still works there. So, Mayfield Motorworld, previously Mayfield Motors, didn't want to appear on camera, but the good news is, they've made Lois and offer, and she has accepted, so they're going to give her a refund of the money she paid for that car two years ago. Yep, Mayfield Motorworld refunded $22,500 in return for the car. That's quite good, because, um, that's the value of what it was two years ago when you bought it. Yes, and that will enable me to find a car that will be able to tow Mildred. I'm very happy for you. Thank you. And thank you very much. Can I give you a hug? Yes, you can! Of course you can. You'll have to send us some holiday snaps when you take her on the road. Oh, I will. I will. Just hopefully not from the driveway, right? Cheers. Cheers. CUPS CLINK Hey, good on you, Mayfield Motorworld. We think that they've been super generous. Yes, indeed. After the break, how to avoid a run-in with your insurance company over an 'agreed' value. Are you on a crash course with your insurer? I'd just ask everybody to go and check their insurance cover now before it's too late. And ` You can lift off the seat, simple as, and a woman can go to the toilet if she wants to. He loves inventing, but he's not fond of creative pricing. I kind of felt maybe a bit bullied. f Welcome back, and it's time to test your consumer knowledge. If you are a Fair Go True-or-False fan, you'll know... You can choose to take a faulty product back to the retailer or manufacturer, and a landlord can't make a tenant leave a property while they show it to prospective purchasers or renters. So, what's week four got in store for us? We're back in Napier, and I'm expecting good things this week. Today's question ` You were adamant about that one. < Ooh, OK. So, a lot of people are running with true for this one. Find out if they're right shortly. I've got that one this week. I think you might do. In order for something to be agreed, it must be discussed, negotiated and accepted by all parties. But if you think 'agreed value' means just that, you could be on a crash course with your insurance company. Here's Hannah. Last year, Kiwis made almost 600,000 claims on their motor vehicle insurance, and insurance companies paid out just over $1 billion, which should make us all think really hard about whether we've got the right insurance. Roger Larkin was very careful with the insurance cover he took out when he bought this Hyundai Sonata last year. I've only had lot of older cars. It's a bigger car; it's a lot more roomier, more safety features and things like this. Roger took out an agreed value insurance policy with Tower for $12,000. He was happy with that until a year later, he got his next Tower bill. I thought, 'Wait a minute, something's wrong here.' Roger was shocked to see the agreed value had dropped from $12,000 to $9500 in just a year. Sorry, but I haven't agreed to anything cos I've had no communication with them. Roger didn't think his car had dropped that much value in a year. He says he does low mileage. It's well looked after. He told Tower he couldn't replace this car for anything like $9500 ` more like $11,000, $11,500 ` but... They would not budge on it. No, he said he'd spoken to the supervisor, and that was the final answer. So, agreed value insurance like Roger's is based on the annual devaluation of the average car. If your car's in above-average condition, doing low mileage, or you got a bargain price in the first place, that annual agreed figure may be way too low. I understand that vehicles will depreciate. I can understand that part of it, but not $2500. Then it will be another $2500 ` it'll be worth nothing. If, like Roger, you don't agree with the sum that your insurance company comes up with year on year ` and you can bet that figure just goes down and down ` then you have to come up with your own valuation and hope that your insurer accepts that. There can also be a problem with the other type of vehicle insurance, which is market value insurance. Gareth Whittington's market value insurance kicked in after his bike accident a month ago. This is probably the closest thing to my bike, unmodified. We were 10-pin bowling, and I left and got about 300m down the road. Tyres were cold, and they just slid out on me. His first thought was for his bike. It's certainly a special thing to me. It's got some grouse pipes on it. Sounds the part. There's certainly a lot of faster bikes out there, but to me, it's a rocket ship. Gareth's bike was a write-off. His insurers arranged the tow truck on the night, and once his bike was safe, Gareth got himself to hospital. I thought I'd sprained my ankle, until I got to A & E later that night, and it turns out I'd cracked or shattered my heel. Gareth's market value insurance has a sum insured of $10,000, including modifications on the bike. He'd provided photos of those to the insurance company but got a shock when he called his insurers to talk about his claim. They've offered me $6500. They said they might push to $7000. The market's sitting around $8500 for the same bike, so I'd be out of pocket by quite a bit. Gareth says that $8500 doesn't cover any of the modifications he'd had done to the bike. His reaction to that low offer? Well, pretty pissed off. As you could be, like, why would I have insurance? Why even bother if that was the low rate, or why am I paying the premium for such a high amount when that's clearly not the case? Gareth's insurance ` Star Insurance ` also asked him to come up with his own valuation. The problem for Gareth is he's got market value insurance. The sum insured ` in his case, $10,000 ` is based on what the vehicle's worth on the open market. But the sum insured is a maximum amount, and the insurer may pay out a lot less if they think the vehicle has depreciated or lost market value. I jumped online there and found every single R1 I could find around the same model and mileage and sent them to the insurance company said I proved what the market is for a standard vehicle, and I haven't heard back. Which is what brought him to us. He's got the use of this modified car, thanks to ACC, but as soon as he's off crutches, he wants to be back on his bike. I should be able to go and buy a bike the same as mine, tomorrow, you know. That's the whole idea of insurance, I thought. Is Gareth going to get his new bike? Well, we've been talking to his insurance company. They're still looking into his claim, so we're still hoping for a good result. As to Roger, his insurance company say they simply don't accept Roger's valuation of what his car is worth, which leaves Roger... ...not happy. Not when you've been with an insurance company for that long. I was quite disappointed, to be honest with you. I'm not prepared to put up with things like this. If you disagree with your agreed value, you must dispute it before you pay your premium. Once you pay, you are locked into that sum for another year. Sadly, Gareth's insurers say their independent valuations on his bike come in just under $7000. He now plans to get his own independent valuation and contest that. After the break, we drill down on cut-price deals. The wonders of creative thinking. A woman can go to the toilet if she wants to, and it has a privacy screen. But a spot of retail therapy has got this inventor really upset. As I said, I felt totally bullied. And ` Today's question ` we'll have the answer to our True-or`False challenge. Ooh, OK! With a St John Medical Alarm, you have the confidence to enjoy living at home. If there's an emergency, you can press the button and it connects directly with St John, who'll know exactly what's needed, from reassuring advice... to dispatching the right help for your situation. It feels like having St John right here in your own home. Call 0800 50 23 23 and find out about a free trial. f Welcome back. Now, we are all partial to a bit of retail therapy,... ...and any self-respecting handyman will tell you there's a world of therapy in a hardware store. I love a hardware store, and I do understand the need to get the best price and stretch the dollar further. So, it's time to drill down on cut-price deals. Here's Anna Burns-Francis. This is Dave. A bit bright. He's a plumber and an inventor. I've invented this organic gorse remover, whereby you just wrap the chain around the gorse like this, lean back and pull it out. And if that's not your thing ` I've invented this ladder storage system whereby you just open the door, lean in and grab the ladder out of here. And then there's this ` OK, I've invented this pissoit designed for boats, runabouts, whereby you just lift off the seat, and it's` it's simple as. A woman can go to the toilet if she wants to without` and it has a privacy screen. All this hard word requires some hard-working tools, and Dave recently decided to buy a new drill. So he did what most of us do these days and went browsing online. He found this Makita drill, $299 at Trade Tested. At Bunnings, the same drill was $315. Knowing that Bunnings would match the price and knock another 15% off, Dave and his mate hit the road to their local store. And you thought good chance to get a bargain? > Well, yeah, exactly. I thought it was a great one. I'll get it for 15% off that $299. The shelf price also said $315, but when he got to the counter... The guy from Bunnings said, 'Well, we'll have to beat it by 15%, but first of all, 'we'll have to ring someone at the office and get them to ring Trade Tested and find out.' And that's when things started to go south. He went to scan it, and lo and behold, the price was cheaper now at Bunnings. It was $291.40, and he said to me, 'Well, our price now cheaper, 'so we don't have to beat that other price by 15% anymore.' Remember, the shelf price said $315; the website had said $315. But the computer system was a completely different ` lower ` price after Dave asked for a discount. Dave didn't really like the sound of that. I kinda felt shafted. I felt maybe a bit bullied. I don't know. Not very happy, anyway. So he left the store without the drill. So, you weren't gonna kick up that much of a fuss? > Uh, no. I wasn't. I wasn't going to make a fool of myself in store, no. Dave checked the Bunnings website after walking out, and sure enough, the price had dropped ` $291.40. But not for long. A few days later, it went back up to $315. It doesn't seem fair. I just` As I say, I felt totally bullied. Now, Bunnings says it was just bad timing that Dave saw the wrong price online. Spokeswoman Jacqui says the price dropped online just hours after Dave checked it, but, unfortunately, the ticket in store wasn't changed. I mean, it just sounds like a catalogue of errors. There's three errors that have taken place one after the other. Nothing sinister in there; it's just incorrect policy and following policy. Bunnings says those 'policy errors' are also to blame for the price going back up again, and for Dave not being offered the discount anyway. If a customer brings it to our attention, of course we want to make sure that we're the lowest, and we match that. But we're not perfect ` but we try to be. After we rang Bunnings to talk about Dave's drill discount drama, the price dropped again. It's only temporary, but Jacqui's pledging extra vigilance to the low-price promise. We want customers to trust us, and we do everything we can in our power to make sure that we are priced lowest in the market, because that's where we want to be. < So, this drop in drills is gonna be a permanent price at this stage? As long as we don't see movement in the market, definitely. All this has made Dave a little wary about going back to Bunnings, discount or not. In the end, Dave went to a competitor, where they gave him the discount, no questions asked. And he's donated the difference to charity. Tell you what, you gotta keep an eye on those price-beat guarantees. You do, don't you? Right, time to see how well you know your consumer rights. And the answer to this True-or-False challenge is a real life-saver. Landlords must have working smoke alarms in their rental properties. But let's not much around with this one, because you guys nailed it. Yeah, brilliant. > You sound confident about that one. > It's that new law that just came in. It sure is ` 100% hit rate on that one, so that was cool. Everyone had taken that information on board. Even me. Even you. (LAUGHS) That's the show, but we'll be on Facebook for the next half-hour to answer your questions. Our programme, of course, is all about your problems, your thoughts, so please do get in touch. We're on Facebook. Email us at FairGo@tvnz.co.nz. Write to us, Private Bag 92038 Auckland 1142. Next week, we ask the question ` is the roadside lemonade stand about to be a thing of the past? And I'm off to the West Coast. I love working with NZ jade. Creating masterpieces takes patience. You've gotta have really good jade to make really good pieces. But this guy's patience is wearing thin with NZ Post. This has cost $30 to send to Australia? To Australia. So much packaging for something so small. 30 bucks. 30 bucks. 4g. That is crazy. But that's the price you pay when your creations are classified as jewellery. If I put jewellery on it for Customs, I'm actually lying. That's next week. Good night.