* (FUNKY MUSIC) Tonight we meet the chain gang. Nice to see you again. Yeah, good to see you. These earthquake victims have been battling their insurers for years. Meticulous is a polite word. It is not a word I would use to describe Vero's behaviour. Finally perseverance pays off. But why have they been silenced? Someone's got to stand up and say, 'This is bull!' And, she fell victim to a whale of scam. Oh God! Could you be the next victim? I mean, it was terrible. Just terrible. (SIGHS) Plus, they're as Kiwi as fish and chips. That is supposed to be two scoops of ice cream. But is it time to standardise the scoop? (LAUGHS) They're dreaming! Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2018 Welcome to the show. It's seven years since the Christchurch earthquake struck. And despite billions of dollars of claims being paid out, thousands of families are still fighting for their settlement. Tonight we're pleased to say one family's fight is over. But it amazes us how much noise they and others have had to make to get things settled. Here's Garth. If you're selling insurance, this looks like bad PR. (PROTESTERS CHANT) If you ask Vero about this flash mob in a Christchurch mall, they only talk about one guy ` Jerry Larason. This might strike people as a bit crazy, though, that you are doing this. It is. But someone's gotta be crazy, cos they're acting crazy, if you will, and someone's gotta counter that. Someone's gotta stand up and say, 'This is bull!' Jerry Larason was involved in buying a house in Christchurch three years after the quakes struck. He's been painting himself as a prisoner of Vero Insurance. The company says he just didn't wish to settle. (TOOT! TOOT! TOOT!) But this campaign is more than a lone crusade. Hey, Jerry. How are you doing? I'm doing well. Nice to see you again. Yeah, good to see you. He's also a big supporter of this couple featured on Fair Go last year. Thank you for your support. They've been fighting for seven years to get what they think it will cost to fix their home. Because the retaining wall along here is completely, to use a Christchurch expression, munted. Roger Dennis and Tara Wingfield have had a hell of a time. There's gaps in the cladding, where rats and mice get into. Even if we kill one load of rats, the next come in. They fight in the walls; they scream; they rattle; you can hear them urinating down the walls. We went back before Christmas, just after Vero had insisted it would need another in-depth inspection. Moving house is one of the most stressful things you can do in your life, and essentially we've moved house for no reason at all. So the stress on the family over the last two weeks has been extraordinary, and this time of the year, it's a horrible thing to go through. Vero said it had needed a week to re-examine the house and at the time told us it was hopeful of reaching a settlement. Our engineer knew straight away, but for some reason, Vero decided they need to take the place apart. They're being very meticulous. Meticulous is a polite word. It's not the word that I would use to describe Vero's behaviour. And challenging a big company on your own coin costs a lot. So far roughly $77,000. Roger's experts say it's nearly 900 grand to fix. Vero had offered just 270. Quite a gap. So Roger joined the chain gang. When Jerry came to me and said, 'Do you want to collaborate on this,' we said yes. It's one of the few courses of action left. ALL CHANT: Don't insure with Vero. So the Vero prison protest kicked up a gear. Jerry Larason warned the company directors in charge of Vero the prison protests might just show up outside their homes. Then the chief executive's right-hand man got talking with Roger and Tara, and soon... it looked like we'd have good news to report. Roger. How are you? There was just one problem ` READS: Roger Dennis and Tara Wingfield have settled their claim with Vero regarding earthquake damage to their property on terms which are confidential but mutually acceptable to both parties. I had so many questions here. Was there nothing you can tell me about this battle that you've had? Roger Dennis and Tara Wingfield have settled their claim with Vero regarding earthquake damage to their property on terms which are confidential but mutually acceptable to both parties. How much did they give you? Roger Dennis and Tara Wingfield have settled... You get the picture. Is that what they call 'hush money'? Roger Dennis and Tara Wingfield have settled... For him, it's great; for the rest of us, this is incredibly frustrating. Why all the secrecy when the details were on Fair Go? Vero is owned by the Aussie insurance giant Suncorp. Suncorp issued this statement. You guessed it. Roger wasn't the only guy getting an offer. But when Jerry Larason read the fine print, he sent it straight to Fair Go, outraged Vero was trying to gag him for good. The offer talked about 'the disparagement of Vero' and how Jerry Larason would have to promise to never again say a bad word about the company or encourage anyone else to speak poorly either. For $275 grand, he'd have to shut up and shut down ` forever. Jerry Larason said 'no deal' to that offer. Roger ` well, he's been fighting a lot longer, with a young family to think about. ...on terms which are confidential... Gagged now, but when we'd visited before Christmas, you couldn't shut Roger up. For us, it's a stretch. But for people who are elderly or vulnerable or just take what the insurance company gives them, they don't have any recourse to this; they will just roll over, and that's what Vero relies on ` people just rolling over and saying, 'I've given up. I've got no energy, got no money; 'I can't fight you any more.' He reckoned it's time the government put some penalties in place for drawn-out insurance claims so people don't have to go to court or Fair Go. One more time, together. BOTH: Roger Dennis and Tara Wingfield have settled their claim with Vero regarding earthquake damage to their property, on terms which are confidential but mutually acceptable to both parties. I get the feeling we'll never know the full story. So many questions I've got for you. Roger Dennis and Tara Wingfield have settled their claim... I know. I know, Roger. Now, Vero tells us it has done thousands of these confidential settlements, and not just for Canterbury earthquake claims. It says they are standard practice. In Jerry Larason's case, they first told us... But then late last week, we got a revised statement. It seems progress has been made. Now, have we heard that somewhere before? Mm. Mm! Is there a bit of an echo in here? There might be. Right, moving on. Is it time to pull the plug on legalised ticket scalping? When it comes to buying reasonably-priced concert tickets, we all know Viagogo can be a bit of a no-no. But what about 'Ticketmaster Resale'? Here's Anna. It makes my blood bubble with temper. I think something suspect is going on. I want to know how Ticketmaster can allow this to happen. It's been less than 24 hours since Celine Dion tickets went on sale, and we have been inundated with complaints from people who couldn't find a single ticket to buy. Tickets were sold out as soon as the site opened. It is total crap and completely unreasonable to allow this. But they're all there for sale on resale websites, at huge mark-ups. What's going on? # Every night in my dreams... I've waited 20 years to see my idol, only to be highly devastated. Is there some skulduggery happening behind the scenes at Ticketmaster? Time to go straight to the source ` Ticketmaster. OK, yeah, sure. I can stick that in an email. Celine fans across the country want to know how they've missed out. Every single Celine Dion listing on there at the moment that we checked last night was by an in-trade seller. That's not you or I; that's somebody else. That's a big organisation selling a lot of tickets. See, that's really interesting to me. Let's show you what we mean. This is your stadium. Let's say it's got a hundred seats. Now, on average, 25 of those go to pre-allocation. That means the tickets go to the event promoter, an event sponsor or someone else associated with the concert. Another 25% goes to pre-sales, and that leaves you and I, the general public, competing for just 50% of the seats that are actually available. The most popular concerts are even worse. Sometimes only a quarter of the seats go on public sale. Which means if you want access to the other three-quarters of the arena, you have to buy from the secondary market. And that includes Ticketmaster, which sells more than a billion dollars worth of secondary tickets every year. # ...go on and on! # WOMAN ON PHONE: We're just gonna have the opportunity to put a statement in at the end. Is that right? Well, if you've got someone we can talk to on camera, we'd love to talk to them. How can this happen? This should be illegal in New Zealand. Well, ticket scalping is illegal, but only for major events, and, sorry, Celine fans, your idol is not considered a once-in-a-lifetime. What a rip-off. We've heard back from Ticketmaster. We asked who was selling Celine Dion tickets on the resale website. Ticketmaster says it can't disclose information about particular sellers. We also asked how many tickets are pre-sold or pre-allocated at New Zealand concerts, but Ticketmaster says it can't comment on 'client-ticketing strategies'. Ticketmaster did give us this, though ` an official statement. There's no easy answer to all of this, because it's the law that needs to change to stop these massive mark-ups. But there's one thing you can do ` you can choose to not pay these prices to not get caught in the ticket-resale trap. Oh, I am not surprised that people were outraged about this. And to be honest, I don't think that Ticketmaster's are gonna make those people any happier. Yeah, I'm quite confused that they can be a seller and a reseller, so we're gonna do more on this. Stay tuned. Mm-hm. Coming up after the break ` how safe is internet banking? Oh God. She fell victim to a whale of a scam. Could you be the next victim? Just terrible. (SIGHS) Plus, they're as Kiwi as fish and chips. Have you ever bought a two-scoop ice cream and looked at it and gone, 'That looks more like one'? Yep. Mm-hm. But is it time to standardise the scoop? That is supposed to be two scoops of ice cream. (LAUGHS) They're dreaming! * Welcome back. Trust can be a wonderful thing, but it can also make us very vulnerable to con artists. Internet scams are getting more and more sophisticated, and it is getting harder and harder to do everyday business online. Here's Hannah with a story that raises serious questions about the checks and balances in place with internet banking. (WHALES SING) Whales. We are sort of obsessed with them. Her name is Wiki, and she's talking killer whale. An 18m sperm whale washed up after a stormy night. Two massive orca whales cruised by two children. Barely a week goes by without whale sightings... ALL: Whoa! ...or whale strandings. (EXHALES STRONGLY) And there's one woman who's turned her whale obsession into a business. I just feel so privileged to be in their environment. Rae Gill runs Whale Adventure Tours. Takes a while sometimes to find your passion. But that passion took a massive hit late last year when Rae's whale-encounter business was targeted by internet hackers who tricked her into diverting funds into their bank account. They stole... ...about NZ$42,000. A very large sum of money. Well, you know, I'm a little company. I have an income for three months of the year. And so to me, that was like a million dollars. I mean, it was terrible. It was just terrible. (SIGHS HEAVILY) The story of how Rae was stung by the scammers starts with a new venture she took on last year, working with a Norwegian company running 'swimming with orca' tours in Norway. You're in the fjords, and the backdrop are these beautiful, snowy mountains. (WHALES SING) It's just amazing. Last September, Rae organised a tour for a group of 13 and used a wire transfer company to put their deposit in her Norwegian partner's account. A bit later she emailed the Norwegians to say, 'We're ready to pay the balance for the tour. How much is it?' I get then an email back saying to me, 'Could you please put the money in our account in London?' There was nothing in the email that would've alerted you to something being different? I remember thinking, 'Oh, she must be busy, cos normally she's a bit more chatty.' Rae emailed back to double-check ` 'London account?' 'Yes, London.' So she paid, and three weeks later, she was in Tahiti running a whale tour when she heard from her wire transfer agent. 'Is the London account above board,' he asked. With a sinking heart, Rae rang the Norwegians. And I said, 'This is really important. Have you received my money?' And she said, 'No. No, I haven't.' Oh God. I knew then. And I said, 'The money's been hacked. I sent it three weeks ago.' Scammers had hacked the emails between Rae and the Norwegian company, then they'd emailed Rae, pretending to be the Norwegians, and diverted Rae's money into their own bank account. Such scams are costing Kiwis millions. It's really hard to know what the total losses are in New Zealand. It's significantly more than $10million, that's for sure. And the chances of Rae getting any money back are slim to zilch. It's likely the money would have been moved quickly from the London account and probably laundered through several other accounts, on its way to the actual scammers, making tracing the culprit very difficult indeed. Sad, actually, that people have to lower themselves to stealing, you know, to make a living. The Bankers Association says your bank will reimburse you if your account's been accessed without your authority ` which doesn't apply in this case. You know, banks will protect you against people, you know, taking money out of your bank account by tricking their systems, but they can't protect you against you taking your money out and putting it somewhere else. So the onus really is on you. Rae believes the bank could have stopped the transaction. She understands the client's name on the London account didn't match the client's name on the wire transfer documents. Netsafe agrees. If they just want a bank account number and that's all they're gonna check, that's all they should ask us for. Then at least we know that that was all that they were doing. And we wouldn't have a false sense of security about it? Absolutely. Absolutely. Rae hasn't told her clients what's happened, and they're all overseas, so they probably won't see this programme. She's covered the loss herself, with the help of the Norwegian company. Am I allowed to swear? Of course you are. Swear away. You know, shit happens, and so you just get on with it, basically, and that's what I do with everything. But Rae says if anything like this happens again, she'll be on the phone, pronto, calling the other party to double-check any account changes. Her advice... If someone asks you to pay into another account at another bank, (RUBS HANDS TOGETHER) don't do it. (LAUGHS) So the message is you can't just double-check; you need to triple-check or quadruple-check. Especially that amount of money. Now, coming up after the break, Matt has a meltdown over ice cream. Have you ever bought a two-scoop ice cream and looked at it and gone, 'That looks more like one'? Yep. Mm-hm. Buying an ice cream can be a bit like going fishing ` Got ourselves another tiddler. Is it time to standardise the scoop? Two scoops of ice cream?! (LAUGHS) They're dreaming! Every five years, we all do the census, and... Just grab the access code you received in your letterbox, and use it to complete your census online on or before 6 March at census.govt.nz. * Welcome back. It's time to talk about something Kiwis really, really love ` ice cream. Yeah. So look, raspberry on top and then chocolate on top so you get the two mixed in as you lick them. Did you know every litre of ice cream contains approximately 20 scoops of the creamy stuff? And it takes, get this, on average, 50 licks to consume one scoop. 50 licks! Wow. Did not know that. But what exactly is a scoop? And when is a scoop not a scoop? Here's Matt. (FUNKY MUSIC) I scream, you scream,... Oh, so good! ...we all scream for ice cream. The cold, sweet treat in a cone,... Ooh-wee-jubey! ...a summer classic. Like, the best. The bomb. What's your favourite flavour? Oh, I'm going to have to go cookies 'n' cream. Oh, yeah. We love our ice cream more than most, consuming 23 litres of the milky, sweet stuff per person, each year. How many scoops do you normally go in for? Hmm. Two. Two. I'm a one. I'm a single-scoop girl, yeah. And how do you attack it? Are you a licker or a biter? Licker. Definitely. Oh, yeah, lick, definitely. Yeah. I like to alternate. (LAUGHTER) But before all of that, buying ice cream in a cone can be a lot like fishing. Can I please have two scoops of the rainbow ice cream, please? Depending on that scoop size, you never really know what you're going to get until it's in your hot little hand. Have you ever bought, say, a two-scoop ice cream and looked at it and gone, 'That looks more like one'? Yep. Mm-hm. Yes. You too? Yeah. I think it's the kids that get let down, yeah. We decided to test the cone ice cream market to see whether dairies were dishing up a delight... or a fright. Two scoops of the passionfruit, please. 10 dairies, 10 two-scoop ice creams, setting us back somewhere between $3 and $4.50 each. Got ourselves another tiddler. The difference in size ` huge. It's a beauty. While the biggest weighed in at a whopping 258grams,... That is supposed to be two scoops of ice cream. Two scoops of ice cream?! (LAUGHS) They're dreaming! ...the smallest, and most expensive, was just 106g. Here's our wooden spoon winner right here. Perhaps a leading question here, but is it time, do you think, to introduce minimum scoop standards? Yes. Yes, I do. I think that's the only fair way. Now, we're not trying to kill big scoops; we're simply trying to avoid the tiddlers. I've actually come prepared here, girls. How do you feel about signing a Fair Go petition to meet a minimum scoop standard? Definitely sign that, yep. Get my name on there. Everyone was into it. So who do we take our petition, our 25 signatures to? Is that Fonterra? We thought our biggest ice cream producer, Tip Top,... Can I speak to someone in Comms, please? ...and/or the New Zealand Ice Cream Manufacturers Association ` yes, we have one ` could put some pressure on their clients. You're quite sure you don't want to be a part of this? But, no. So it was off to Retail New Zealand, who represent 300 dairy owners. So, Greg, 25 signatures, 100% of the people we spoke to, calling for a minimum-sized scoop standard what do you make of that? Well, ice cream is a really important issue, and I understand that it generates a lot of passion in the community. I guess the point to note is that there's potentially a whole variability associated with price and serving size and it's not necessarily an easy equation. Sounds like it's not happening, Greg. Oh, look, it sounds easy to say, 'Bring in a minimum scoop size for an ice cream,' but there's a whole range of issues associated with that. How will you measure it from store to store? Are we going to have ice cream police wandering the country? Greg, we've come a long way. I organised the petition and everything. Surely you can do some more lobbying or something? I think, ultimately, retailers and dairy owners want their customers to be happy, and the best way to make sure that their customers are happy is to have a generous-size ice cream. That was a roundabout way of saying, 'Make 'em big, guys. Make 'em big.' (BOTH CHUCKLE) We tried our best, New Zealand. We tried our best. But for now... You find the places that are good and you keep going back, and if you try somewhere different and it's not good, I just never go back. Or to ensure you do get enough of the good stuff, you need to buy more scoops from the start. I don't think I've... got it in me... to finish it Though that doesn't always work out either. (SPLAT!) (GROANS) Matt with 'the scoop' there. Waka-waka-waka! Well, that's the show. But we're always here to help. So if you've got a wrong you want made right or feel like you're not getting a fair go, please take the plunge; get in touch with us. Yes. We're on Facebook. Or you can email us ` or write to us ` We're off for an ice cream. Thanks for watching. Until next week,... BOTH: ...po marie. Copyright Able 2018