Tonight ` Hi, I'm Anna from Fair Go. it's the freight fiasco. Where's all the money gone? More than 50 families have been separated from their worldly goods. Our love, our thoughts for our family is in that box. So where's the freight? The money? The apology? You don't wanna tell anybody where any of their stuff is. You're just gonna drive off; that's it. Bye. Plus ` the great family getaway goes bad. What were you imagining your Christmas to be like? Oh God, like, pitching a tent with 3 kids and drinking warm beer. They booked a Wanaka bach online and fell victim to the hottest internet scam,... Did your heart sink? Yeah, (CHUCKLES DRILY) yeah. ...and... I've got six true/false questions here, and if you get them all right, you win $20. Will anyone take out the true-false challenge? Mm, that's hard. < Mm. Copyright Able 2016 Welcome to the show. Damage, delays, loss ` they're all part and parcel of shipping stuff overseas. Yeah, we're used to hearing horror stories but not on the scale that Lita Lee has been delivering. Lita Lee runs a freight-forwarding company that's left the Filipino community devastated. Here's Anna. ANNA BURNS-FRANCIS: When you're sending parcels to friends and family overseas,... Hi, can I talk to you about where the money's gone? Sorry? ...you want to know that the person you pay to send those goods delivers on their promise,... C'mon, you haven't answered the phone to me to or anybody else who wants their money or their parcel. Where is it, Lita? ...but there's one woman who's made dozens of Kiwi Filipinos very very unhappy. Where are the boxes, Lita? You owe people thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars' worth of goods. Where is it? Where's it gone? We'd come to talk to Lita Lee about her freight-forwarding company. You don't wanna tell anybody where any of their stuff is. You're just gonna drive off; that's it. Goodbye. She sells her service to the Filipino community and promises to ship anything you want, safe and sound, across the world. One Kiwi family trusted Lita Lee to ship everything that they own to here, Brisbane, but Lita never delivered. Lilina and Wilfredo Lopez lived in NZ for more than 20 years,... I love living in NZ ` very very kind people, very understanding. ...but they're in their late 70s and getting on a bit so decided to shift closer to family on the Gold Coast. We enjoy, really, our life, but because we are just alone with my husband and all my family here in Australia, we prepared to transfer here just to be with them, and this is what happened to us. What happened? Well, they've been forced to shift into their daughter's house after hiring Lita Lee to move their stuff over from NZ ` one container, packed full of their household belongings, and they paid her generously for the service ` more than $6000 in cash to ship it all to Brisbane. This is all what we got in there. The only problem is ` Lita Lee took their money but she never paid the shipping company. All those things, the memory of our old days, (SOBS) it's all gone. They will not return it to us. That's what I'm crying always, because all my things that is there. (SOBS) You see, Lita doesn't run a shipping service; she's just a broker. Her company, L & L, hired another company, Jacanna Customs & Freight, to send the Lopezes' container to Australia. WHIRRING When the container arrived, the bill hadn't been paid. Jacanna rang Lita, and she eventually made a part payment of $2000 but refused to cough up the rest. I'd finally got a hold of LL Global, which they, um` after about two weeks, said, 'Yep, we'll pay, but it will be drip-fed,' and then nothing ever began, and then she actually told me that she had been paid and used the money for something else. With storage costs racking up $400 a day, the company finally managed to track down the Lopez family on Facebook. The Lopezes could have their container, but there was an $11,000 bill to pay. They were given essential documents and medicine from the shipment, but they wouldn't get the rest of their goods until they came up with more money. They'd already paid Lita. The Lopezes just didn't have the means to pay again,... 5 months now, all the goods has not been delivered to us. (SNIFFLES) It's really very sad to think about that one, because that's all our memories. All the precious ones was in that box. ...and they're not the only ones left in the lurch by Lita Lee, which leads us to Christchurch. We're here to meet a group of people that also left their precious belongings with Lita. We've learned of dozens of Kiwi Filipinos missing their parcels and left out of pocket. Lita, where is my boxes? Your business is to deliver our boxes. Our love, our thoughts for our family is in that box. I work hard for the boxes. I really disappointed and hurt. I'm angry. These guys gave Lita their parcels to post home to the Philippines. They paid cash for shipping, and the contents ranged in value from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars. All up ` $13,500. All of it has disappeared into thin air. Can they deliver my box? You just want the box delivered. Yeah. Why do you ignore people's phone calls? At a Disputes Tribunal hearing two weeks, Lita Lee claimed all their parcels had arrived in the Philippines and were simply waiting to be delivered. It will be delivered. When? Soon. Soon. But these customers have been waiting since last year for their boxes to arrive. We're really into gifts and all those things in the Philippines, so they'll really be` be very happy if they receive something for Christmas, for birthday and all those stuff. These guys are a long way from home and their families. Sending gifts to their children helps make up the distance between them. You know, that simple box and the simple things that you put inside, and then... it's gone, and it's like a` you know, very disappointing. All told, we know of 13 L & L customers in Christchurch alone, the Lopez family in Brisbane, but there's more. Auckland customers have also lost out ` another $11,500. 90 people up and down the country are out of pocket, and more than $90,000 worth of goods has gone missing. Police are now looking into their complaints. We couldn't find any registered companies under any of Lita Lee's four aliases. She takes cash payments for the boxes, and she doesn't always issue a receipt. Phone calls and emails go unanswered, and the only time we managed to find her was when we stopped her outside court, where she appeared at a dispute about missing parcels. No one's paid the Lopezes' shipping. It has been delivered already. No, it's in` it's in Australia, but you haven't paid for the shipping to be sent, and there's fees. It has been delivered. 'That is just not true.' We were unable to get an explanation; we were unable to get a refund; we were unable to get an apology, which leaves Lita Lee's customers in a bit of a bind. We cannot even ring her. She's not answering anything any more from us. No` Gone, everything is gone. We` We cannot contact at all. Massive number of complainants. Uh-huh. Really phenomenal. Now, the police have launched an investigation into Lita Lee and the missing parcels. Yeah, they're going to meet with a group spokesperson this weekend and decide what action to take. In the meantime, we were able to deliver some good news to the Lopezes in Brisbane. ANNA: Lilina and Wilfredo Lopez packed up their lives in Auckland and shifted to the Gold Coast in May, but they were left with an $11,000 bill after Lita Lee failed to pay for shipping their container. We're back at the Lopez family home this morning. We've told them we need to do some extra filming. What they don't know is that we've actually got a big surprise for them. We told them we wanted some shots walking up and down the footpath, and Wilfredo was taking a while to put his shoes on. Hey, do you want to tell him he can come out in jandals? This won't take long. Daddy, faster! While we wait, we'll let Blair Cosford from Jacanna Customs & Freight fill you in. I've spoken with our director, Ken, and he` and we've both come to the decision that we will release, um, the cargo on good faith. That's right, Jacanna, the company hired by L & L to send the Lopezes' container, has paid the whole bill ` all $11,000. They'll try to claim that from Lita Lee. For now they've wiped the debt. Of course, the Lopezes were just about to find that out. There's a, um, truck just coming down the road here. Can you see that one there? Which one, sweetheart? This one here. I think this truck might be for you. Which one? Now, they were a bit confused. This is all your stuff. Oh my God. Thank you so much, love. I'm can` I'm about to cry for` Thank you. (CHUCKLES) So it's the first time you've seen all your stuff. Are you happy? Yeah. (CHUCKLES) I` I am, darling. I am. I'm very much happy for what... (CHUCKLES) Can`? I can hug you (SPEAKS INDISTINCTLY). (CHUCKLES) Finally after five months, Lilina and Wilfredo were reunited with their precious possessions ` SOFT CLANG literally everything, right down to the Christmas tree and Lilina's beloved sewing machine,... I'm very very much happy that` very very happy. I cannot express in word how happy I am to have all those things that precious to me inside. ...and with one last thank you... Thank you, love. Thank you. That's all right. That's fine. ...the Lopez family can finally say farewell to this moving mess and hello to their new life in Australia. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. God bless you for helping us. Aw, that is just great. We love delivering news like that, and a special thanks to the guys at Jacanna Customs & Freight for all their help and the staff at Black Betty Cafe for letting us film on their premises. The Lopezes, now, they are stoked to get the stuff back, but the news for everyone else isn't so good. No, we've been told that three containers full of boxes have arrived in the Philippines. But they've incurred storage costs of around $30,000. They won't be delivered until the bill's paid. No, and that is just really really frustrating. Right, coming up after the break ` we reveal why the net has become a dangerous place for Kiwi holidaymakers. The ultimate family getaway goes bad. What were you imagining your Christmas to be like? Oh God, like, pitching a tent with 3 kids and drinking warm beer. They booked the perfect house in the perfect location, but it was all a scam,... Did your heart sink? Yeah, (CHUCKLES DRILY) yeah. ...and... False. WOMAN: I would say true. Yep, opinion is divided for the final round of True or False. False? No, true. Wait, w` No, false. PIPPA CHUCKLES Welcome back. Time for our true-or-false trivia challenge. Will anyone pocket the $20 prize? Let's hit the streets of Napier. TINKLING ELECTRONIC MUSIC The sun's shining in Hawke's Bay, and it's the final week of our true-false quiz. We still have a couple in the running for our $20 big cash prize. Today's question is one we get asked a bit here at Fair Go. (READS CUE CARD) True or false? False. Mm, that's hard. < Mm, that is a tricky one. I would say true. False. True. False? True or false? We'll tell you after the break. I have to say, I've been pretty impressed with the people of Napier over the past six weeks with the true-false Trivia. Are you trying to say we've got a winner? Oh, well, you'll find out shortly. Now, The internet has given rise to heaps of scams. We've covered Nigerian, phishing, uh, 'You've won the sweepstake' and romance scams. Tonight we add a new one to the list, and it is catching Kiwi holidaymakers off guard. Here's Hannah. CHEERFUL GUITAR MUSIC HANNAH WALLIS: The Thomsons really enjoy life here on their North Canterbury lifestyle block. They're busy people. Come on, Fudge. They work hard, and this year, Mum and Dad plan to take the kids to Wanaka for a Christmas treat. They knew we were going and that Santa was to be told that we will be in Wanaka this year. So we had to go see him to tell him that. (CHUCKLES) So, yup, they were excited. It's good to get a few days clear where the phone's not ringing and you can enjoy a bit of time together, and, yeah, no, I was definitely looking forward to it. Hannah, who's a wedding photographer, also had a friend's Christmas nuptials to shoot in Wanaka. So, it was your job, Hannah, to do the looking? Yes, it was, but it was really hard to find, um, anything that was available and that slept enough people, because we were taking Mum and Dad with us, the three kids. So to find something that wasn't, like, $1000 a night was proving quite difficult. Then on holidayhouses.co.nz, Hannah found this house ` big enough for seven people, and at around $500 a night, it was within their budget. This was Christmastime, remember. And I said to Jon, 'This is almost too good to be true.' It's still available, and its perfect for what we need, so, um, quickly booked it, sort of, straight away just booked it, cos I didn't want to miss out. So it looked sorted for the Thomson family. They'd found the perfect house ` perfect size, perfect location. One perfect Christmas coming up. It was amazing ` spa pool, huge lawn for the kids, just heaps of room, heaps of room for all of us. Did you see yourself in the spa pool all evening? (LAUGHS) Glass of beer in one hand? Yeah, you're onto it. Yeah, yeah, maybe a few of those, definitely. (CHUCKLES) > Hannah then got payment instructions from Caroline, the property manager. She said that if I would like to go ahead with the booking, to let her know and I would get a link sent from Holiday Houses' website so that I would pay the money securely with no risk. The payment would be made to a Spanish bank account. So, old Javier. Javier in Spain. But sending money offshore didn't throw up a red flag, because... I didn't think that it would be unusual for a house in Wanaka to be owned by someone overseas, and last time I booked with Holiday Houses, I vaguely remembered the format of the emails, and they looked the same. You know, nothing caused me concern. Until they got an email saying they were the victims of a scam. The owner of the house had had the booking emails intercepted by the person calling themselves Caroline, who'd then arranged for the money to go into the scammer's bank account. Did your heart sink? > Yeah. (CHUCKLES DRILY) Yeah. Oh, I was fairly angry. Yeah, um, I s'pose I would've liked to have gone to Spain caught up with Caroline and had a sort-out, but, um, yeah, nah, just angry, really. I sorta had to block it out a wee bit, I s'pose, just to stay calm. Hannah set about trying to get their money back. Holiday Houses said it wasn't their problem, because it was the homeowner's email that was hacked. The homeowner said he'd also been scammed. He knew his emails had been tampered with and that there'd possibly been 80 people affected. He said that he'd had to email everybody that he could see that may have been intercepted by these people. Pretty successful scam, by the sound of it. > Well, yeah, yeah. They could've done quite well out of it, especially that it was a five-night minimum stay. Yes. > So everyone's gonna be paying at least what we paid. So if 80 people had paid $3000 each, that could be 250,000. The chances of this family getting their Christmas holiday money back ` zilch. The Spanish bank said their money was in and out, gone the same day. Hannah said the Fraud Office told her this simply wasn't a big enough case for them. So who should be sorting this out? I booked under Holiday Houses' website, and I booked under their website because I trusted them. It was a reputable site, I believed. Well, you wouldn't hand money to Spain otherwise, would ya? If it hadn't been done through Holiday Houses, we wouldn't... No. ...wilfully pay Spain, would ya? Well, there's definitely some failures here or some openings for these things to happen, so you'd hope it wouldn't be happening again. Despite losing $3000, these two say it could have been worse. So, I s'pose the silver lining is that we've found out before Christmas Eve. If we'd turned up at this house in Wanaka and there were (CHUCKLES GENTLY) a whole lot of other families there too, yeah, it would have been awful. And there's another silver lining, so we're having scones, cream and jam to celebrate. Double cream, I think it's called. Shortly after finding out about the scam, Hannah went on social media desperately asking if anyone ` anyone ` in Wanaka might not be using their house at Christmas,... It's quite quiet without the kids here, isn't it? It's good. ...and this being New Zild, there was a friend of a friend who just happened to have a free house. They live in Wanaka, and they're gonna be away over Christmas and they'd like to offer us their home, so` yeah, so that was really nice. Really nice. > Yeah. And so much better, says Jon, than the Christmas holiday he thought he was going to have. Pitching a tent with three kids and drinking warm beer, yeah. (CHUCKLES) > Having a ham sandwich for lunch, yeah. I wasn't that excited about it, to be honest. (CHUCKLES) Oh, you have to feel for families caught out on this one. Yeah, imagine arriving at that dream holiday house and discovering the owner's has never heard of you. You'd be gutted. So how do you avoid your money falling into the pocket of a conman? HANNAH: The internet watchdog Netsafe says new businesses particularly need to understand how vulnerable they and their customers are. So we can become Uber drivers, and we can Airbnb our house and all those sort of things. Um, it's important for us to remember that we are therefore becoming businesses, and that means we've gotta, um, lift our game in terms of managing customers and security and those aspects of a business. And Martin says these phishing scams are coming in thick and fast. Literally 10, 20 times a day, your email box might get a request like this, and most of the time you don't see them, because they get diverted off by the spam filters. The Holiday Houses website is owned by Trade Me. They say because this scam attack wasn't on their system, they can't tell us much about who's doing it, but they do know how it's being done ` through an email host like Yahoo or Google. This particular property owner has responded to an email he received pretending to be from Google; he's clicked on a link and gone off to a website that looks like his Gmail login page, and he's provided his login details to that site. Now, that site was being run by scammers; it's commonly referred to as a phishing site, and as soon as those scammers had his login details, effectively, they had access to his email account. Our understanding is that they were, um, syphoning Holiday Houses' emails out into a separate folder so that the business owner wasn't seeing the Holiday Houses emails in the inbox. The scam was only discovered when potential renters of the home, having got no reply at all from their enquiries, alerted Holiday Houses, who then told the homeowner. Holiday houses website had a list of 80 potential victims. Ashley's confirmed that 11 have definitely been scammed. Ashley's now beefed up his email security, but we asked why we couldn't see anything on the Holiday Houses website itself, warning about the scam. They said ` On our home page, there's a help section. If you click in there, there's a section, um, giving you advice for staying safe online. Good tips, yes, but we thought not prominent enough, not red-flagged on the sight. And let's keep it in perspective ` we get 2000 inquiries a day through Holiday Houses for rental properties, and this is the first instance of, uh, this that we've seen. We need to remember that the people who are ultimately responsible are the scammers who have perpetrated this fraud. Netsafe says while few people actually check out website safety tips, we all need to savvy up about scams. Consumers have to accept that, if they're gonna send their money away, they need to be responsible for ensuring they're sending their money to the right place. That is very good advice, and actually, a couple of years ago I came very very close to falling for one of those Holiday Homes scams. They're really clever, so you gotta be careful. Yes. Now, coming up ` we head back to Napier to see if anyone claims our $20 true-or-false prize. Do you know your warranty rights? (READS CUE CARD) True or false? That's the question. Mm, that's hard. < That is a tricky one. So what's the answer? True. False? True or false? We'll tell you after the break. Welcome back. We received an unbelievable response to the crackdown on cake stalls. The food police have declared sausage sizzles, homebaked scones and cakes a public menace. And unless homebakers are prepared to pay hundreds in inspection fees, they could soon be a thing of the past. MALE REPORTER: It's fair to say the thought of government red tape choking out Kiwi cake stalls didn't go down well. There was a sprinkling of bureaucratic admiration... and some real sizzlers from Hawke's Bay. It has to be said ` despite our best efforts, we could find no record of mass deaths due to sausage sizzles and cake stalls. The big question on charitable lips was ` I really hope that doesn't kill the homebaking that comes in here. Ooh, no, I reckon. The charities, though, watch out; remember, more than 20 a year and you have to register as well. OK, we know you lot are a smart bunch when it comes to your consumer rights. Yes, if you've been following the true-or-false challenge, you'll know you can't cancel a contract if you lose your job and struggle to make repayments, but... It's illegal to advertise a pint of beer in NZ. You can choose to take a faulty product back to the retailer or the manufacturer, and a landlord can't make a tenant leave a property while they show it to prospective purchasers or renters. Right, time to find the answer to the final question. The final question in our six-week Fair Go true-false challenge. Neil and Glenys here have got five from five so far. K, here we go. Can they take out the $20 prize by answering the question correctly? True or false? No, false. And that's right, the warranty doesn't start again, but it still needs to last for a reason period under the Consumer Guarantees Act. If you're claiming under an extended warranty, then it will depend on the terms and conditions of the extended warranty, and, Neil and Glenys, well, they're $20 richer now. You want your money now? Did we get the`? Congratulations. (CHUCKLES) There you are, you see? Congratulations. (LAUGHS) (LAUGHS) Well done. CHUCKLES: Thank you. So good on Neil and Glenys. They did really well. They answered almost straight away with all of those questions. Yeah, Hawke's Bay represent. Well done. Mm, exactly. Now, listen up, there will be no Fair Go next week. Yeah, we'll be off the screen but not off the job. We're moving to Monday nights, so we'll be back on September 19th; that's 12 days away. We will, of course, be on Facebook for the next half hour to answer your questions. Our programme ` all about your problems, your thoughts. We do love to hear from you. You can get a hold of us on Facebook, or you can email us ` You can write to us, even ` Well, that's our show. We will see you on Monday the 19th. Until then, goodnight. Captions were made possible with funding from NZ On Air.