Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. www.able.co.nz Copyright Able 2023 - Tonight, it's all about the cost of stuff ` starting with the cost of someone stealing your identity. - They've applied for... tens of thousands of dollars. - The effects are wide-reaching. - Me and my partner are trying to buy a house, so, obviously, with all this going on, we can't get one. - Plus, an outcry over spiking water bills. - That's like 1170 bathloads of water in a month. I mean, that's just not possible. - And $340 in charges after dashing in for a fizzy drink ` we ask a parking company to justify the fees. - There's a lot of costs in signage. There's also a lot of other costs that we have to endure. - Tena koutou katoa ` welcome to the show. Now, they say imitation's the sincerest form of flattery, but not when someone is actually pretending to be you. - Mm. We're talking about identity theft. Sarah got in touch with us because someone was applying for loans in her name, and as a result, her credit rating was shot. - Mm. Try as she might, she just couldn't seem to stop it. And that's when Gill stepped in. - GILL: How do you spot a cybercriminal? Not easily. They hide their own identity while stealing that of others. (FUNKY DISCO MUSIC) Time to turn detective ` so we've borrowed the identity of a crime-fighting trio to fire things up. It's Fair Go's Angels, and to help, we have an online safety expert on his way. ('CHARLIE'S ANGELS' THEME) - Pippa's off to her real job... - That was great. Thanks, girls, I gotta go. Good luck. - So it's up to Daisy and I and our specialist to get serious. Morning. - Good morning. This is what I've got for you today. - OK. - Thank you. How common is identity fraud now? - Unfortunately, increasingly common. More and more people are finding themselves the target. The result is generally the same ` significant harm to the individual. - In this case, to hairdresser Sarah White. She came to Fair Go after identity theft turned her life upside down. So, a lucky first stop for me ` the salon, where Sarah has some of the most interesting customer chat going. - Someone has stolen my identity. - It was used to pay off old loans and take out new ones. - They've applied for... tens of thousands of dollars. - A mistake? After all, her name was popular for 16 years running. - Definitely, while growing up, there was a lot of Sarahs. - And what about White as a surname? - Definitely up there. - But it takes more than a name to cause financial harm ` though not much more. Time for action, which in real life looks more like this. What we want to find out is what was required to actually get the loan ` just how easy it is, really. Too easy. - Driver's licence ` absolutely enough. - These are some of the loan providers and debt collectors on Sarah's credit report. Each application brings her credit rating down. Because, yeah, Zip was three applications. Even if lots are rejected, that's still a red flag. The activity began three years ago, but Sarah only recently found out. - So I got my payslip through my work, and there was a StudyLink loan on there. - It was about $200 a week. - And I thought, 'That's strange. I don't have a StudyLink loan.' - That's what prompted her to do a credit check. To her horror, her rating was 75 out of 1000. - I'm kind of gobsmacked. - To be clear, Sarah has been a student, but says she paid off her loan ages ago, and she does shop, but... - I don't have any kind of loan. - For a young couple, it's a real problem. - Me and my partner are trying to buy a house, so, obviously, with all this going on, we can't get one. - The fraudulent loans explain why she's been hounded by calls out of the blue... - Random calls from them ` like, I'm not with you guys. Like, I don't have a home` I don't have a house. - ...and why debt collectors were turning up. So how could this have happened? - I think the likelihood is that Sarah's been caught in some kind of data breach, and that her driver's licence number has been made available. Somebody has then used that to tie it together with some publicly discoverable information. - That's those common bits of data we share ` date of birth, address. From there, it's not hard. - They'll try one, maybe something small, try it again and again and again ` for as long as that data is useful to them, they'll keep using it, which, obviously, is absolutely the worst result possible for Sarah. - What can we do to help Sarah? - We're going to need to get Sarah to contact all of these companies, get these accounts cancelled, look at whether her driving licence needs to be cancelled and replaced and get to the bottom of what's been going on with StudyLink. - Let's tackle StudyLink first, because Sarah called IRD, who said call StudyLink, who said call the police. She made all the calls. - I've given them everything they need to stop it. - But the payments continued. Armed with a privacy waiver, we were able to keep Sarah's case front of mind. Do you know if that payment back to Sarah's been made yet? And with her persistence, too, the payments stopped. And... - They said that they are able to refund the money. - That's really good. That's much better. - Finally. - So what about her credit rating? Let's go back to basics. - New Zealand has three credit reporting agencies ` Centrix, Equifax and Illion. They all do the same thing. I've got Centrix to explain. - So we collect payment information on how you pay your credit card or your power bill as well as if you've missed some payments and you end up being chased by a debt collection agency. - So, say you want to buy a car or a house and you need a mortgage ` what then? - All of these businesses will typically go to a credit reporting agency and do a credit check on you. They want to be sure that they're going to get paid back in time. - But guess what? Tell them about the changes that you're seeing. - We are unfortunately seeing more fraudulent activity coming through. - So it's good to know first steps. - You can go to any of the credit reporting agencies and suppress your credit file. What that means is that your credit report will actually be blocked and no one else will be able to access it. - The freeze lasts 20 days and can be extended. The idea is it's long enough for Sarah to contact the loan providers, explain that it's a fraud and have those applications removed. - Simple, but exhausting. - There's still that layby. That's still on there. - Sarah's put hours into this. - That one's actually come off, but that one's still on there. - She's also asked the police for a review. - Nothing back? - Nah. I think they just put it on the pile. - We checked to see if it's any better with the loan providers. - How many of them have you managed to get a response from? - Off the top of my head, I want to say maybe four. It's a very slow process. - Still, she got her credit rating up from 75 to 407. But then ` another blow. - It dropped from 407 to 339. - There's a support helpline, MoneyTalks, but I want you to talk to ID Care, an Australian organisation that's working over here. Your contact there is Mark. - Mark's taken a look at Sarah's drop in credit rating. - So it's calculated on a` you know, a daily basis. So the older those debts are, then it could lead to, obviously, a decrease in the score. - But Sarah is trying to get them removed. It does seem unfair for all that responsibility to be on the victim of fraud. - Yeah, it doesn't have to be, though. The credit bureau can investigate, and they've got obligations to investigate on the individual's behalf. - Fair Go thinks this should happen more often, as right now, you might have to push for it, which is why there's a need for ID Care with its free advice and support. And it's busy. - In the last two years, I think we've had a 350% increase in identity-theft calls to ID Care. - Which is a reminder we still have work to do ` tracking down the mystery loan-taker. We've got an email address and a phone number. - And we found out that the loans were linked to three addresses. - Except the email pings back, the phone line's dead, and we get nowhere with the addresses. It's not a huge surprise. - They're probably pretty good at covering their tracks. I think you're probably maybe now to some degree chasing a ghost. - But this loan-taking ghost may have helpful bank details. We can't access them. The police, though... We send more emails, and Sarah finally gets a call. - Hey, Angels, how's it going? - Shh. We're just listening to Sarah tell us about the police. - That's what we wanted. Do you have anything to say to the people at home? - Great job, Angels. - A lot of multitasking involved in this job, you know, Haydo. - How did you end up as one of the Angels? I'm a bit confused. Right, now, data breaches are increasingly common, so please check out your credit rating. It is well worth your while. - It is. E haere ake nei ` coming up ` water woes. We investigate a tsunami of complaints about price spikes in one neighbourhood. - Residents are screaming that they've got high water bills. 500, 600, 900 ` I don't think that's normal. - Plus ` the parking charges that keep on growing. Are they justified? Kia ora, nau mai, hoki mai ` welcome back. Now, we are all aware of the cost-of-living hikes ` it's everywhere, but when the family of four in our next story got a $900 water bill ` $900?! - Wow. ...they knew something was very wrong. - Mm. And they were just one of more than 100 people who got in touch with Fair Go about unusually high bills. So, what's going on? Alistar's on the job. - ALISTAR: It's our most valuable resource that comes with a price tag ` just ask the residents of New Zealand's biggest city. Household water charges rose almost 10% this year in Auckland and could rise further in 2024. But for customers of one water company, increases haven't just risen ` they've spiked off the charts. - To go from $70 to almost $1000 for one month ` I mean, it's so outrageous. - Especially because it's only Miriama and her three young kids in the house ` but not all day. - I leave quite early and get the kids out the door before 8am. We don't have a pool. We don't have any gardens to water. We usually just have our showers in the evening and our showers in the morning, whatever we need for the dishes or the washing machine, but nothing` nothing out of the ordinary. - They moved to this rental last November. Since then, she's been a customer of water company Veolia. Veolia used to issue bills every three months, costing her on average about $220 a cycle. - So it was always about $70 a month. - In May, Veolia's billing switched to monthly, but it was her next bill in June that left her completely stunned. - So I received a bill just under 950, and that was only for one month's usage. It was so shocking, and it` it was really upsetting. - $947.79 in just one month. Before this bill, they were estimated to be using around 12kl of water. And then in June, Veolia charged them with using 164kl. Can you even use that much in a month? - That's like 1000... 1170 bathloads of water in a month. I mean, that's just not possible. - Carla Gee from Environment Trust EcoMatters helps families on a daily basis to understand their bills and make choices to cut down on costs. In this case, she says something's not right. - There's something wrong going on with the way that that bill has actually been charged, and I would most certainly be going back and trying to find out what that error or issue is. - So I received a bill for 947... - Because Miriama's renting, she got in touch with her property managers, who contacted Veolia on her behalf. Miriama's property managers didn't want to go on camera, but we've seen correspondence from July that shows Veolia's initial answer that there was no proper meter reading done at the property since Miriama moved in, which means all the bills she's received since then are just estimates and that $900 bill is a catch-up bill. - I was actually looking at it and thinking, 'How am I going to pay this high amount?' - But how were the estimates so wrong that there's more than $900 unaccounted for? And why wasn't a physical meter reading done? - Actual readings of the water meter are done every two months. An estimated reading is done in between actual readings. The estimated calculations in this case were based on historical daily averages of 0.4kl per day. Unfortunately, in this case, the actual readings could not occur because of a flooded meter box caused by the weather events in February and an overgrown section in April. - Miriama disputes this, and says her meter wasn't flooded in Feb, and even if the grass around it is overgrown, you can still clearly see it. But surely Veolia could have sent someone out at any other time between November and June? Plus, the property passed the leak test. None were found. - After I did the leak test, they said that must just be the numbers that they are. And that's where I was failing to get that answer. It just felt like I was being told it could be usage, it could be estimates, it could be we're not sure, but make a payment plan, but pay the bill. - She turned to her Facebook community for answers. - I got a lot of responses ` a lot more than I expected. They were experiencing the same thing; they had noticed the recent changes. And, yeah, that confirmed that for myself that OK, so I'm not` It's not just me and it's not the normal. Papakura residents are screaming that they've got high water bills ` 500, 600, 900. I don't think that's normal. - Property manager Shadi Salehpour knows of at least three Papakura tenants who have received unusually high water bills from Veolia. The first one that came across my desk ` and I just nearly fell off my chair. Over $700. Alarm bells start ringing. 'OK, there's a massive leak there.' And then once you eliminate that, 'OK, what is the tenant doing?' Which creates tension between myself and my tenants. - But Shadi knows this bill is out of the ordinary. The tenant was charged $774.42 in April ` that was their last quarterly bill before the switch. Their average quarterly bill was $470. - So it was a big jump. - Since the switch to monthly bills, they've also had high charges. Veolia says this tenant's April bill is based on an actual meter reading, but the tenant is adamant they didn't use $700 worth of water in three months. About their more recent high charges, Veolia hasn't responded. Also, the tenant actually had somebody leave the property, so one less person in the house, plus their kids are at school during the day, so the numbers don't add up. A couple of leak tests didn't turn up any results either, and so, as the property manager, Shadi's company footed the bill. Now the tenant owes them. - It builds a bit of a tension between us and our tenants, so that wasn't` It's never easy. - Fair Go found that this issue is so much bigger than Shadi's tenants and Miriama's cases. At least 100 other Veolia customers have got in touch about the same thing, and it seems Veolia has some tightening up to do. It told Fair Go its new billing system has had teething issues for around 1000 Papakura customers. The system is designed to exclude unusually high readings in its estimates, but due to a system glitch, in some cases, the high readings were included. Veolia apologises and is working to resolve this with its customers. Since Fair Go has been involved, Veolia has got in touch with Miriama and Shadi's tenants to help sort the issue. They're desperate to get this sorted before summer rolls around. - 'System glitch'. The old system glitch, eh? - Hmm. - Here's an enormous bill. Happy days. - That's unfortunate. Well, Veolia's encouraging its customers to get in touch, and we will put their contact details on our Facebook page, where you'll also find out how to contact the Ombudsman if you need extra support. - E haere ake nei ` coming up ` parking notices. How much is too much? - What has it cost them to enforce it? What is the loss that's been suffered? - Kia ora. Nau mai, hoki mai ` welcome back. Now, picture this, Haydo, cos I can see you all over this ` you pop into your local sandwich bar to pick up a quick fizzy drink. - Little Danish. - Yeah, you don't pay much attention to the parking sign because you are going to be ever so quick. - What you don't expect, of course, is a whopping parking bill which climbs as you fight to sort it out. Garth with a story that so many of us can relate to. - GARTH: At the Sandwich Factory on Auckland's North Shore... (FUNKY MUSIC) ...you can still get a munch for not much. - $4. - $4 for a sausage roll. - Yeah. - How much for a Coke Zero? - Small can, 2.50. - But it's outside that the cost of living really bites. $340?! - Yeah. - For 25 seconds of parking? - Yeah. (LAUGHS WRYLY) - Wow. After a hard day rigging scaffold, Emerson stopped off here. If you're looking straight ahead or to the right to the lunch bar, you might miss this sign on the left. Big mistake. No parking ` not in this spot, anyway. - The sign doesn't say, but Emerson had three weeks to pay. That was in a letter a week later. By then, he was back in the Philippines for a month to move his wife and son here after years apart. - It's come at a hard time. - Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. - You're overseas, so you don't know that you've been fined 95, and then you get another notice here` - Yeah. - ...says you now pay 170. - 170 now. - And now it's gone up to 245. - 245. - All in less than six weeks. Forget that I called it a fine ` Emerson paid that breach fee when he got back, but he questioned the reminder charges that still kept coming even after he'd paid the $95. So when you write to them, do they write back to you? - This is not about fines or penalties, but something called liquidated damages ` the cost of the loss Emerson may have caused the car park owner in that 25 seconds. So is $95 fair? - I would say that that's probably more on the unreasonable side. What does it cost them to enforce it? What is the loss that's been suffered? If you feel that the charge is unreasonable given the circumstances of the length of time that you were there, the harm suffered, the cost of enforcing, you do have the ability to dispute that charge. - And on stronger grounds ` if the sign isn't clear or if terms aren't there in full to read before you park. In this case, it doesn't mention 21 days to pay and $75 weekly reminders ` just that there's more detail online. - I'm not sure that actually having a link to a website is providing enough information. For example, my mother doesn't use a cell phone and wouldn't be able to log on and check what those additional terms are. - If you can't` um, don't have internet to get the full terms and conditions, then maybe you shouldn't park there. - This is the man behind that sign. Jake Thomas is fighting a one-man war on people just nipping in for a minute while using someone else's park. - This is creating a huge cost for business owners and private owners of these car parks. I got sick of it, so this is why I started Parking Services. - He sends out the signs and the businesses send back proof. - Basically, they send us photographic evidence ` through on the photos comes metadata, the time of the shot, it comes GPS location ` all the information that we need to put on to a breach notice, and then we send that out to the person that parked there and enforce it. - Like Emerson and his $340 Coke Zero. - There was a lot of confusion there. Emerson's English isn't very good. We have got to the bottom of that. He was overcharged $95 in the end, and we have returned that to him. - Which is still $245 in fees ` all to Parking Services, including two $75 reminders. - Why do you think those charges are reasonable? - There's not a huge, um... huge volume of tickets that come out of these car parks. There's a lot of costs in signage. There's also a lot of other costs that we have to endure. And on top, we need to make a profit. Like, if my company doesn't profit, then we're not going to be here to do it. - Part of doing business well is getting it right, so why the silence when Emerson tried to appeal? - Yeah, so we could have done better in that situation. I do think that his lack of good English helped the situation at all. - Emerson felt he had to pay. - But he could have spent $45 to take this to the Disputes Tribunal to ask it to decide whether he actually owed that much. - We're happy for the challenge. - Though it will probably be a lot harder to argue that now Emerson has paid up. It's a very expensive drink. - Yeah, a very expensive drink. - I may appear calm, but I am so mad. I'm writing a letter to the editor and I'm ringing talkback. It's ridiculous. - Yeah. Yeah. It is. It is. But the moral of the story is, be careful where you park, but if you feel the charges are unfair, dispute them in writing and take it to the Disputes Tribunal if you can't work it out. - Back yourself. Right, that is it from us. If you only caught part of the show, you really missed out ` it was a great show, so you can see it all on the Fair Go page on TVNZ+. - That's right. Our programme is all about you, your consumer aches and pains, so please do get in touch. - We're on Facebook ` great spot ` TikTok and Instagram, and also, we have a webpage on the internet ` tvnz.co.nz, or you can email us ` go on ` fairgo@tvnz.co.nz If the computer's on the blink, send us a letter ` PO Box 3819, Auckland, the postcode 1140 ` and remember, send us your phone details. Call us. - That's right. And thank you so much for watching. You can listen to Haydo for the next four hours on talkback if you like, ranting on. Until next week ` - BOTH: Po marie.