I really shouldn't watch "Watchdog" as it makes me so annoyed.
Every week on the Rogue's Gallery feature, we are presented with people who I feel are no better than thieves. They take people's money under false pretences, promise a service and never deliver it and often leave people in a terrible mess. Last week it was a garage sourcing and fitting reconditioned engines (which turned out to be old engines that had not even been cleaned, let alone re-conditioned). A customer who was interviewed was almost in tears as he'd paid money to this garage but they had not repaired his car, which he needed for work. He said it had "wrecked his life". This week it was a woman and man supposedly designing, supplying and fitting kitchens. Again, it appeared that these people had absolutely no intention of fitting the kitchen but had taken money, purportedly to purchase the parts (which all turned out to be the wrong size, colour, finish, etc. etc.). The firm had £60,000 of County Court judgments against it, none of which had been paid.
How is it that these businesses are allowed to continue trading when they are so obviously deliberately ripping off their customers? It seems that as soon as they get into financial difficulty, they change the name of the firm and get different people to head it up.
I believe that in Germany these sorts of firms have to be licensed and if they continue to receive bad reports, their licence is revoked. I think we need something in this country to properly protect consumers. County Court judgments are difficult to enforce and I think there should be another way of deterring these crooks.
The Republic of Ireland and their tensions with migrants.