- Tonight ` the tradesman with many names and a knack for scarpering who did not want to talk to Fair Go... - No. - You and I have been talking on the phone. - ...and then just couldn't stop. - You (BLEEP)! Can you (BLEEP) off from my house?! - Then one woman's battle to help others like her combat a deadly gene mutation. - I feel desperate, absolutely desperate, that I don't want others to go through this. - And do you know your number 8s from your number 7s? - Bought a dozen eggs and was going to do some baking, and I thought, goodness, these eggs look really small. www.able.co.nz Copyright Able 2024 - Tena koutou katoa. Welcome to the show. Well, tonight, a new face who goes by several different names and says he can do many skilled jobs. - But his real skill seems to be taking the money, leaving a terrible mess and scarpering. But Kaitlin tracked him down. - If it's a plumber you need, an electrician, a heat pump installer, a tiler... hot water cylinders, this man claims he can do it all. But will it be as Niel Shankar... or by his other name Rahul Shankar, or Ravi, Ram Gareeb, Sri Krisna, Tine Lizarondo? One thing's for sure, he doesn't want to hear from Fair Go. - You (BLEEP)! Can you (BLEEP) off from my house?! - Here in Tamaki Makaurau Auckland, Mariam and Allaa only know him as Shankar. Looks like him? - Yeah. - Ram Gareeb? - No. - That's him, that's Shankar, but that's not the name. - Yeah, he changed the name. - But a name isn't as important to them as their home renovation Shankar never finished. - I don't know how he's still doing business till now, he do all this work. I don't know how. It's very bad, very sad. - The family of six agreed to pay Shankar in cash to convert a garage into bedrooms for their older kids. The job was supposed to be completed within a month; they say it dragged on for more than a year. - Sometimes he said we going to holiday sometimes. I don't know everything. I'm busy, I'm coming. - And when he was there, Mariam says there was little work to show for it. - He do, like, whatever for half an hour. Then he go away again. - Broke some walls down, put some cheap board down, sanded the floors, put some tiles on the ground, left just stuff around, didn't do much. - At one point, Mariam says Shankar cut the power and didn't restore it for more than a week. - It was freezer and fridge in the garage, so it's all the food gone, rubbish. Allaa, like, call him up lots of time, 'Come, just fix the power, fix the power.' - The Gib board started growing mould too, insulation left exposed and the toilet uninstalled. - I feel like I'm working really hard weekly. I make some money to do something else for my family and my kids. They were sleeping three boys in small room, not enough space. But someone come take money and go like that, not funny. It hurts. - By this point, they had paid Shankar $10,000 in instalments, so they chased him up. - We got five or six numbers, I got. I don't know how many numbers until now, plus WhatsApps as well. I call all the numbers. - There was this one time my dad and I, we ran into him at Bunnings Warehouse, and he was just like, 'Take me to court, take me to court,' kind of laughingly` jokingly laughing at us. - Which is exactly what happened. Despite winning their case at the Disputes Tribunal against Shankar's company, they've haven't seen a cent of the 10 grand they're owed. That was back in 2021. Around the same time, another four other families were also cutting their losses with Shankar. - PHONE: It's almost three months he still hasn't finished his work. - Kranthi says he paid Shankar $6600 for a bathroom reno. The shower and toilet were pulled out but weren't replaced. - He left us with no shower or toilet for 30 days, which really made our family and kids suffer a lot. We used to use our neighbour's house for the shower. We were in so much stress, you know. And even he threatened us, asking more money as well, demanding more money to finish off the work, but we were paying him. - We've been following Shankar's trail since late last year, when Jordan Statham got in touch. He runs The Conduction Company, made up of qualified electricians in Auckland. They've got a nice-looking website too ` so nice that in November, someone decided to copy it and use it for their own electrical business. - Went online, and sure enough, there's another local company who had duplicated our exact website. They'd just changed the logo put their business name on it. - Jordan's company's website is on the right; the mystery business, Greenbay Electric, is on the left. - Exact same layout, same buttons. They've realistically just changed the colours and the logos. Oh, and there's a picture of me. - He couldn't get hold of anyone on the phone, but company records showed an address just up the road from him, which is where Jordan found the wife of Niel Shankar. Niel wasn't home but took a call from Jordan. - It was a strange conversation. It was almost as it he felt entitled to steal the website and use it as his own, as if it was sort of public property. - He says Shankar blamed a company called Media Partners. - Saying that they were the ones that put the website together. - So Jordan called Media Partners and spoke with someone called Samuel Shankar who lives in Fiji. Samuel denied making the website, saying his company is just a host, but he agreed to take it down. We've learned Niel and Samuel are brothers. The reason that matters is its Samuel's name listed as the director of the company All Trades Services which Niel represented when he took money for jobs he didn't complete. We got in touch with Samuel in Fiji, who says he's got nothing to do with the company any more. - PHONE: Now, what I'll have to do is sort these issues out and probably have to get these companies wound up by the Companies Office, because I have no interest in this. As you can see, I'm stuck trying to help everybody out, including my brother, which he has turned out to be of no use to anybody, to be honest. - We know of five other companies Shankar has advertised his services under ` Alltrade Property NZ, Electrical Refrigeration Heat, Printhouse, Webcom, and most recently ` the one duplicating Jordan's website ` Greenbay Electric. None of them have records of a Niel Shankar in the Companies Register. Instead, the names of other family members are used or those we can't verify with no legitimate residential addresses. - Which means when he's taken to small claims tribunal or to court to try and collect some reparations, he can put up his hands and say, 'No, I'm just an employee of the company. I'm not part of it.' - One of Niel's former employees says she was asked to have a stake in a company just a week into starting her job in 2020. - He asked me to sign a contract and be part owner for a company that he wants to open up, and I said no immediately cos I had a bad feeling about it. - Billy got out of there fast. She says this CCTV video, sent to us by another former employee, shows why. - Yup, throwing stuff, hitting stuff, screaming. - When she got a new job, she says she missed out on weeks of wages during lockdown. - Because someone with the company All Trades Services has already claimed for my Covid subsidy, or wage subsidy. - Niel Shankar is still actively advertising on Facebook, offering to do work Jordan doubts he's qualified to do. - There are quite a few cowboy players in our industry who are out there doing illegal electrical work and leaving people in the lurch. - For example, it's one thing to supply a heat pump, another to install and connect it. - It seems to be a lot of heat pump installers will install a heatpump and connect it to the electrical supply, but they won't have any practising licence. - Not only is that illegal, it's also risky business. - If they've completed that work incorrectly and there was to be a fault which causes a fire or property damage, you wouldn't be covered by insurance without the electrical certificate. So it's a decent problem. - We contacted the Electrical Workers Registration Board and the Plumbers, Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board. Both have no record of Niel Shankar or any of the other names Shankar has used. Of course, we'd love to know what he has to say about that, but we didn't get the chance to ask. - PHONE: Nah, I think you're wasting your time with me. - Why am I wasting my time? - Just get lost! - Niel later told us his mental health difficulties meant he couldn't answer our questions. When we asked for sufficient evidence, like a letter from a doctor, he told us to go away. But his ads on Facebook didn't stop, so we didn't either. Niel, Kaitlin here. We spoke on the phone, I'm from Fair Go. We spoke on the phone? - To me? - Yeah, that's right. - No. - Kaitlin from Fair Go. - No. - You and I have been talking on the phone. Come on, Niel. We wanna talk to you about your customers. Come on, Niel. Come on, Niel, just five minutes. - (BLEEP) off bitch. (BLEEP) off from my house. - OK, we're leaving, we just wanna` - (SHOUTS ANGRILY) - All right. - You (BLEEP) bitch, can you (BLEEP) off from my house?! - What about your customers, Niel? What do you have to say to them? All right, we're leaving now. - You cannot come in my compound without my permission! (BLEEP) bitch! - Do you have anything to say to your customers, Niel? - (BLEEP) bitch! - Nothing to say? (BLEEP) bitch! Kaitlin bitch! - Not quite what we wanted to hear, but maybe what Niel said says it all. - Wow! Good on Kaitlin, and I think he could do with a bit of help on how to win friends and influence people. - That's for sure. Look, keep an eye on our Facebook page, where we'll put up advice on what work can and can't be done without qualifications. - E haere ake nei, coming up ` a deadly gene mutation ` and one woman's battle to fund prevention over ongoing treatment. And Fair Go weighs in on egg sizes. Are you getting what you're shelling out for? - I'm actually going to go with maybe one-and-a-half mouthfuls, but certainly a mouthful in it. - Kia ora. Nau mai, hoki mai. Welcome back. Last week, Gill tackled the issues some cancer patients are facing with their insurers ` with good results. - But this week, I'm talking to people who, on the face of it, are a picture of health, but have a gene mutation which is a ticking time bomb. - But there are ways to diffuse this risk. So what's getting in the way? (UPLIFTING MUSIC) - This is Cheryl's path to happiness. She lives for a rock-climbing rush... - Oh, it gives me a buzz. - ...but she doesn't like risk. Same approach with her health, especially when it comes to cancer. - My mum was 36 when she died of breast cancer. - And your grandmother? - She would have been in her late 50s when she died of ovarian cancer. - So she went to the doctor and was referred for a genetic test. It confirmed a BRCA gene mutation, which meant... - A lifelong increased risk of breast cancer of 80% and about a 40% increased risk of ovarian cancer. - What did the doctors suggest you should do? - They said the only medically proven method to prevent breast and ovarian cancer is to remove my breast tissue and ovaries. - You'll have noticed we're not showing Cheryl's face or using her real name or voice. We'll explain why soon, but it's linked to her insurer. Its policy didn't cover this surgery. Cheryl wants people to know she thinks it should... - I feel desperate, absolutely desperate, that I don't want others to go through this. - ...because right now, it's happening. These are comments on a Facebook page ` they're from women who, like Cheryl, have a BRCA gene mutation, meaning a hugely increased risk of cancer, but also, like Cheryl, they can't get funding for surgery that could prevent that cancer taking hold. Surgeon Susannah Mourton sees the grim toll ovarian and other gynaecological cancers can have. - The only really true option to reduce that risk is undergoing risk-reducing surgery. - How much would risk-reducing surgery reduce your risk by? - Over 90%. - Wow. - Yeah. So you're looking at a cancer that we don't have a way to screen. Most of the time, when we diagnose ovarian cancer, we diagnose it at an advanced stage, where cure is unlikely. - So if surgery can help so much, you'd think you could get it through the public system. But right now in Christchurch, capacity is full with women who already have cancer. So when you were talking to me on the phone, you were saying pretty much you can't do this surgery in the public system. - Right now, like, if you said this week, this month, no. - So Cheryl hoped to high heaven she'd could rely by her insurance ` but no. Surgery's only covered once a tumour develops. And basically they're saying, 'Come back to us when you've got cancer.' - Yep. And that was absolutely shocking to me. After all, this is medicine that's been practised for the last decade. - Do you think that in this day and age that that's acceptable? - Absolutely not. You know, I can't imagine that you're feeling like a little ticking time bomb, and, you know, that's` that's scary. - It was that bomb that Angelina Jolie wanted to defuse. After finding a BRCA mutation, She famously had her breasts, ovaries and fallopian tubes removed. It's now standard now in the US. Dr Mourton knows as she worked there for years, and says it's the same in Australia too. - All insurances cover risk-reducing surgery for patients with a BRCA mutation. Talking to my colleagues there, they were just astounded that insurance companies here would not pay for this. - The crazy thing is... - To me, it would be actually cost-saving for insurance companies. - This is how the two scenarios compare for ovarian cancer, for prevention and treatment ` the usual ops to remove the ovaries and the fallopian tubes; a preventive procedure involves day surgery and taking it easy for about a week. If cancer's present, it's usually only picked up once advanced. So patients need chemotherapy and surgery lasting about six months, with recovery taking up to a year. - For a cancer that majority of the time will come back and at that point will not be curable. - So which of Aotearoa's main health insurers cover prophylactic surgery for BRCA mutations? It's a tick for Southern Cross after a three-year stand-down period, a tick for Accuro but not AIA, not nib ` which also underwrites AA health insurance ` and UniMed and is also a no, but says it may review and reconsider. - It's disgusting that they don't cover it, you know, for this. Would it not make more sense to prevent the cancer from happening in the first place, not just for the cost to them of the treatment, but morally? - We took this argument back to the insurers, but no change. Still, Cheryl wasn't taking no for an answer. She went to the ombudsman to appeal, and she won. Insurers will sometimes agree to ex-gratia arrangements ` that's a one-off payment outside of usual policy. And thankfully, that's what happened here. It did come with conditions, though. - There was a confidentiality clause I had to sign. I'm really disappointed about that. - She felt the least she could do was ask Fair Go to make her views known, hoping it would shift the dial, meaning she wants all insurers to see that this kind of preventive surgery makes sense. But right now, at least of the insurers we spoke to, a couple do provide this cover. So if it's important to you, you know where to put your money. Because remember, if you do find you have a BRCA gene mutation, your risk can be reduced by around 90%. Cheryl has another percentage to throw in. - 120. 120% worth it. I respect some people don't wanna do it, but we should at least have the choice, and for me, it's definitely been worth it. - Well, I think I would want that done, and I would definitely want the choice, and I really hope a few more insurers come on board. - I feel exactly the same. E haere ake nei, coming up ` does size really matter? Fair Go finds out. - They're supposed to be 68 minimum. Oh. It's a bolter. We got a bolter. - Kia ora. Nau mai, hoki mai. Welcome back. It might seem like a 'poultry' issue, but the size of eggs has got one Wellington woman really worked up. - That's right. She's been monitoring egg sizes for a while and thinks one company is 'eggs-aggerating'. Here's MJ. (QUIRKY MUSIC) - They used to sieve because they'd have weevils in their flour, (LAUGHS) and I thought that's why the only reason you did it, but no, apparently, is to put air... air in you're baking. - Lauren Hale of Waikanae is no free-wheeler when it comes to baking... - If it says 360g, I'll put 360. I won't put 362 in it. I'm a lab technician. Things have to be accurate. - ...and something that has not been measuring up lately is eggs. - Bought a dozen eggs and was going to do some baking and just out of curiosity weighed them, and they weren't size-8 eggs; at best, they were size-7 eggs. - See, she's been keeping tabs. Although they can look quite different, eggs are actually graded on weight, not size. Oh, it's alive. Just kidding. Jumbo eggs, or an 8, must be at least 68g, including the shell; large, or 7s, have to be at least 62; and 6s, or standard eggs, are 53. - I don't wanna pay for a size 8 when I'm only getting a size 6 or 7. - So Lauren got cracking and emailed the company Capital Eggs to explain her findings. (DOORBELL RINGS) And just like that, Capital Eggs delivered a box of replacements and hatched a plan to look into their systems. But this got Fair Go thinking ` does Lauren's digging just scratch the surface? We decided to do a little experiment of our own. So these are 6s. We bought eggs from many different brands and randomly weighed them... Yep. 68. Oh, it's a bolter. We've got a bolter. ...to see if they were all they're cracked up to be. We're going to the jumbos. They're supposed to be 68 minimum. 73. Yep, 70. 74, yes. No impostors yet. - The larger farms, there are grading machines. They go through a system what is called candling, which is a light is shown over the egg to make sure there's no defects in the egg, and then they go on to a weighing platform. And from that, they are diverted into whichever packaging is appropriate. - And does size matter? - Hello. - Have eggs, will travel. - Oh. - Well, it does to celebrity cook Annabelle White. - Size is important when you're doing baking, but, you know, on a day-to-day basis, I'm not too worried about it. - Watch what happens when Annabelle makes an omelette out of 6s... - Wait till you see this. You're going to love this. - ...and an omelette out of 8s. - Do you notice something? No seasoning. You don't season eggs. It toughens them up. What you do is you just swirl it around the pan like so. - I think there's a mouthful in it. - Yes, yes, I would say I'm actually going to go with maybe one and a half mouthfuls, but certainly a mouthful in it. - Annabelle reckons different egg sizes work for different foods. - Generally speaking, the larger the egg, the lighter your results are going to be. So I tend to always buy large eggs when I'm making my banana cake. - But what comes first ` the chicken... (CHICKEN CLUCKS) ...or the egg? - Hens, um, start laying about 18 weeks after they're born, and they're smaller eggs at that stage. By week 27, the eggs will be at about 62g, which of course is the size of a size-7 egg. - So the granny hens have got the big eggs? - Yeah, grannies will have` will have a bigger egg. - Back at our 'egg-spirament', the eggs Fair Go weighed were actually heavier than the minimum. We haven't found any rogue ones, have we? - Thank you. - Lauren might be pedantic, but she says it's the principle. - If you buy your mates a cup of coffee and you order four large, you don't want one of them to be a medium. - Did you make eggs today? - (CHIRPS) Turns out Lauren hasn't ruffled any feathers with Capital Eggs, - You like being told that you're nice, don't you? - (CHIRPS) - And at the end of the day, no matter what size they are, they all taste pretty good. (DOG BARKS) - Oh, I love the look of those muffins. I hope we get some. - (CHUCKLES) They look so good. Right, that's it from us, but if you only caught part of the show, you can catch our stories on the Fair Go page on TVNZ+ and on YouTube. - That's right. Our programme is all about you, so please do get in touch. - You can get us on social media, email us ` fairgo@tvnz.co.nz or write to us ` PO BOX 3819, Auckland 1140. - So let's get ready to eat cake. - Yes. (CHUCKLES) - Thank you for watching. Until next week... - BOTH: Po marie.