Tonight ` Looks nice the grey pair, right? Looks nice the grey pair, right? Yes. Browsing, banking, shopping online. It's extremely dangerous. Meet the woman in the middle. You thought you were connecting to the internet, but you were connecting to me first. The greenness of the country. He wants to be clean and green. Now he's got a big headache. You don't even what to come close. And do you know how important your credit file is to you? So, out there in Kiwiland, there's 135,000 people trying to rip off the system. (LAUGHS) Copyright Able 2015 Welcome to Fair Go. Now, nothing much is free in this world, but what about free Wi-Fi? Use somebody else's data as you sip your flat white and for nothing. How good is that? There's always a catch, though, isn't there, always? And this one is an absolute doozy. Here's Brodie. A quick check on the Facebook,... a cheeky bank transfer to fund those gorgy shoes... and I better fire off a life update to Mum while I'm here too. Three innocent, little actions, a few clicks of the mouse and taps at the keyboard and my info could be stolen by her. I can see the shoes you were trying to buy. I can see the shoes you were trying to buy. Can you? Do you like them? Sure why not? Sure why not? (LAUGHS) What you're seeing is my info being hacked by Emily Wang. Now, she is not really a bad person vindictively stealing my valuable information. Emily is an expert in all things mobile at local leading IT company Datacom, and she's helping me show you how easy it is to hack someone who's using free Wi-Fi. Lots of us use it, well, cos it's free. Oh they're good. Do you like those? Oh, yep, looks nice. The grey pair, right? Yes, with the gold buckle, yep. So many of us hook up to the free Wi-Fi of a cafe or a library, but I hate to break it to you ` there are baddies out there just waiting to pounce. We'll call them digital criminals, and what do they do? Well, it's called a 'man in the middle' attack Simply put, it just means you thought you were connecting to internet, but you are actually connecting to me first and then connecting to the internet, so whatever information you pass to the internet ` that you think you're passing to the internet ` is actually passing to me first. Everything? Everything. Now, this all sounds like it's out of a sci-fi horror movie, but it ain't. Watch this. I post a selfie on my Instagram account using my iPhone, and look at that. You see it? > You see it? > It's awesome. (LAUGHS) BOTH LAUGH BOTH LAUGH Awesome photo. (LAUGHS) Oh my God. So how do they do it? Well, all Emily has to do is set up a wireless access point and call it the same or similar name as the free Wi-Fi hotspot. If the signal is strong enough, computers will detect the rogue access point and not the real one. You go on unknowingly, browsing the web, doing your banking or whatever and boom. Once the hacker has your info, they can access your stuff as if they were you at their leisure. For example, if you are here and you thought you were connecting to the free Wi-Fi here, you are browsing internet, everything works for you. Even if I hijack your network, you wouldn't go to your network settings and say, 'Am I connecting to this still or am I connecting to something else,' right, you wouldn't; you just wouldn't suspect a thing. So that's why it's extremely dangerous when you have Wi-Fi on in public place. Now to be very clear, what we are showing you is designed to help and warn you ` I knew what was going on and was a willing participant. No other cafe patrons using the Wi-Fi were involved as that's illegal. These people are no better than common thieves on the street, are they? Yeah, but it's so easy that you can do it, and imagine that you can easily get somebody's username and password even if it is just for one service, right? So many people reuse their username and password for every single thing. Do you do that? Do you do that? Well, it's hard to remember them all if you keep changing them. So what can you guys do to protect yourself and your valuable info from these brazen digital thugs? Funny you ask, cos we gathered up some tips. 1) look for Wi-Fi accounts that require a password. 2) use https where possible. This is way more secure than http. If you don't see that lock, you are definitely vulnerable to attacks. 3) if you're in a busy area, watch out for shoulder surfing. Get out! 4) don't have the same username and password for everything, and change them regularly. 5) and, sorry, if we're really being the fun police, Emily's fifth tip would be avoiding free, unsecured Wi-Fi altogether. If you really need to turn it on, don't use any sensitive services like banking, no, no. Emily says you just have to weigh up how much you value your privacy over the convenience of using the Wi-Fi. She certainly gave me something to think about. Oh my God, that's a little bit embarrassing. (LAUGHS) It was for the purposes of the story. What was embarrassing? I'm not telling you guys. Just don't get caught out like I did. I just found out what that bit is, here myself, actually. You don't want to know, Gordon. You don't wanna know. So be careful out there, people! and cheers to Good One Cafe here in Auckland for letting us take over their cafe. We'll put those tips up on our webpage. And maybe all of Brodie's selfies. That'll break the internet (!) You don't wanna know about that either. Anyway, this American software developer moved to NZ ` clean, green NZ, that is ` or so he imagined. You don't even want to come close? When it comes to his dream home, he wants to go clean and green. Plenty of fresh water, clean air. Now there's a big headache. I've never seen anything like it. And ` And ` I love investigating stuff. I love coming across facts that where I can go, 'Ah-ha, I've got you!' Welcome back. Over the last several months, we've been investigating a product that a Tauranga man believes made him sick. It's a flooring product ` lots of clean green claims on the marketing bumf. We've been back and forth with the Canadian company concerned. We've had a lab in the US do tests for us we. We were determined to bring you Anthony Sarafa's story. Here's Mark. And this is where it is? Down these hallways,... Yeah, it's in here. ...inside this door lies something that has floored Anthony Sarafa. You don't even want to come close? You don't even want to come close? No Cleanness and greenness attracted Anthony to NZ. The greenness of the country, um, plenty of fresh water, clean air. He's a software developer from America, but Anthony's been a new NZer for five years. And he's made his home in Tauranga. I came across this subdivision and said, 'This looks like a good spot,' so I just went for it. It's a new house, and for his flooring Anthony choose a Torlys hardwood artisan premier floor. Torlys are a Canadian company specialising in floorboards, and Anthony talked to Guthrie Bowron in Mount Maunganui and bought one for $26,400. They did a good job convincing me this was a good quality Canadian floor. Is it Canadian? No, it's not Canadian. The manufacturer Torlys is a Canadian company. So where's it from? So where's it from? It was made in China. Torlys are open about where the boards come from and confirmed it in an email, but this is why it's relevant. In the US, other floorboards made in China have been found to contain dangerously high levels of formaldehyde. Formaldehyde does occur naturally. In high doses it can be dangerous, and you can find quite high levels in new houses ` that normally dissipates over time. But it's its use in wood glues that bind floorboards together that concerns us here. Well, I noticed the smell. Anthony says there was a bad odour from the time his floorboards were delivered. And once, you know, the whole floor was installed, that same smell was present but it was stronger. It just never went away? It just never went away? No, no. Remember formaldehyde can occur in all sorts of products in a new home, but Torlys say you can breathe easy with its floors; they're solvent free and contain no harmful VOCs; that's volatile organic compounds. Torlys also says no formaldehyde is added to its floorboards. The California Air Resources Board, or CARB for short, is the North American floorboard industry's gold standard when it comes to measuring air quality, and Torlys say they meet or exceed the stringent standards set out by CARB as well as the European Union's E1 standard. But despite that, Anthony Sarafa believes his floor made him sick. I'm going to go get a mask and some decent gloves, cos I'm feeling it on my fingers, in my skin and in my nose and stuff. Builders Rory Kerk and David Farry worked on Anthony's floor. I've been building for 16 years now, and I've never seen anything like it. They say their health deteriorated as soon as they worked on the floor. I very rarely get headaches and this stuff seemed to set it off. It was sharp migraine headache too. It got so bad, Rory had to take a few days off. It was equivalent to a cold or flu, but just a different feeling in the back of my throat, yeah. It was something I'd never felt before. Anthony moved in, his health too started going downhill. So, I'm just documenting my symptoms that I feel every day. We have no medical proof the floor was making him sick, but Anthony recorded his symptoms at the time. I'm in a room where the smell of this Torlys floor is particularly strong. I'm just feeling extremely aggravated, uh, in this area here in my` as I breathe in. (COUGHS) and just a really bad cough. Hi, Anthony. How are you going, mate? Here's a few more tomatoes. His neighbours started to worry about him. He knocked on the door and hung on to the door. He was really crook. I was worried about him. I said I was going to call an ambulance. Inhaling formaldehyde can severely irritate the eyes, nose and throat. It can lead to headaches and skin rashes. Long-term exposure can damage DNA and lead to cancer. It should be 100% safe ` no odours from it from the beginning. The local Torlys' representative and Guthrie Bowron visited the house as Anthony also had complained about his floor from the get go, including how it looked and its bounciness. They rejected his claims and said the floor was safe. Can you see how some people might just think you're just trying to offload these boards because you don't like them? because you don't like them? By bringing up the toxicity story? It's too elaborate of a story, and I'm not going to spend thousands of dollars and other people are getting sick, and that's why` that's precisely why the scientific testing was done. Yes, Anthony hired an environmental scientist to test the air in his house. So, we found 86 micrograms per m3 of formaldehyde ` was the measured concentration. Now, that falls under the NZ guidelines of 100 micrograms per m3, but that's only measured over 30 minutes. The air in this room was measured over 24 hours, a whole day, and measured against international standards to give a more accurate measurement of repeated exposure to formaldehyde. The air in Anthony's room well exceeded the levels considered safe in North America. The floorboards were ripped out and the room aired and re-tested 12 days later. Formaldehyde in the air was five times lower. Can you say it was the floorboards causing that level of formaldehyde in that room? To actually go and say that that was from the floorboards, you'd need to do further testing. So that's what Anthony did ` out in the fresh air, following the guidelines. And then just begin. And then just begin. Just rolling it? And then just begin. Just rolling it? Rolling it very tight. He wrapped up some of his boards and sent them to the HPVA laboratory in Virginia, USA to test how high the formaldehyde levels were. Torlys' CEO, Peter Barretto, writing from China, told us the finished product, including a batch from the same shipment as Anthony's, had been independently tested four separate times and found every time to be well within compliance. But Anthony tested the core of the board and got a different result. The final result here is 0.20ppm ` that's parts per million ` and that shows that it's not compliant with the California Air Resource Board Phase 2 formaldehyde regulation of .11. It's also twice the European E1 standard. Here's a screen shot taken from Torlys' website taken in September last year. It says all Torlys floors contain no harmful VOC emissions and exceed CARB2 California Indoor Air Quality standards ` among the most stringent in the world. In an email, Torlys now says its website should've been updated to state that most of their floors exceed CARB2. Anthony's floor is one of those that didn't. Torlys says his floor complies with the first CARB standard. A standard that is no longer applicable in California. Rory and Dave have ripped the floorboards out. They're stored in a lock-up. After a significant amount of it got out of the house, it's like the air was so clean. It's like I can breathe. Torlys stands by their floors. Anthony doesn't even want to stand on them. They haven't talked since September last year. Anthony believes science proves his floors made him sick. Torlys say it's independent air quality tests prove otherwise. The courts may have to decide. There's going to be a price to pay. Since Fair Go got involved, Torlys and Anthony Sarafa have started talking and appear to be close to reaching a settlement. Guthrie Bowron accept Anthony was told the boards were made in Canada. That was incorrect, but there was no intention to deceive; it was information from the supplier. Now, if you believe you have an issue with a floor, we suggest you contact your supplier straight away, and we want to know about it too. Our address is on the screen there. Now, often people ask us about the stories we do ` What do we really think, what surprises us, shocks us, or continually amazes us? So we are going to start rolling out some video blogs from the team. Now, these aren't stories so much as a riff on something that's got us going. You'll see a different side of us, and maybe find some food for thought. Yes, we'll put these up online too. But first here's Gordon on what he loves about his day job. I love investigating stuff. I love coming across facts that where I can go, 'Ah-ha, I've got you.' And, of course, if those facts aren't there, then it ain't a story, but I love doing the digging, the poking around, the finding of stuff that shows the complaint is true, or that shows it's not, and then I love getting out there and chasing something. #Fairgo, and I'm not even on Twitter. How many bazillion followers have you got now? Oh, no, no, it's pretty miserable. Anyway, Hannah's got another blog coming up on a question you often ask us ` how do we pick our stories? But first, a question. If I pay all my bills, but I pay them late, that still affects my credit record; is that true? You have one. Go through to the really exciting part, which is your credit score. Do you know what your credit file says about you? My credit score is 804, which puts me in the top 20% of NZers in terms of, uh, risk. Which is what we would expect, John. Which is what we would expect, John. Which is what we'd expect, exactly. JAUNTY MUSIC As you get older, you want to keep enjoying the things you love to do in your own home. And with a St John Medical Alarm, you have the confidence to do just that. MUSIC CONTINUES If there's an emergency, you can press the button and it connects directly with St John, who'll know exactly what's needed, from reassuring advice... OK, tell me exactly what happened. ...to dispatching the right help for your situation. RT CHATTER MUSIC CONTINUES It feels like having St John right here in your own home. It's the only medical alarm that connects directly with St John. You don't have to deal with ambulance bills, and it is the alarm that doctors prefer to recommend. Keep enjoying living at home with a St John Medical Alarm. Call 0800 50 23 23 and find out about a free trial. Welcome back. Do you know that there is a credit file on you? What it says about you? How it scores your credit worthiness? Do you how to find it and check it out? Do you know how important it is to you, especially if, like most of us, you want to borrow money, or even just get the phone on? Hannah's been finding answers to questions about credit. I had a friend, trying to get a loan. He was told if he had too many credit checks, it would ruin his credit rating? Is that right? Well, I got told that if I pay all my bills, but I pay them late, that still affects my credit record; is that true? And I heard about someone ` good job, good salary, got turned down for a credit card. Turns out he had an unpaid debt that he didn't even know about. Can that happen? You know, before I started doing this story, I couldn't have answered any of those questions. because, like most Kiwis, I've never actually looked at my own credit file. And that's a shame because in our credit file there's, yes, stuff that could possible hurt us, but there's also stuff that could probably help us. Even if you're not applying for a loan, people should always check their credit file. If you want a free copy of your report, you come online, you apply for a copy of your report. So we did that with credit bureaus ` Veda. that's mycreditfile.co.nz, click on 'Compare our Products'; and Dun & Bradstreet ` that's checkyourcredit.co.nz Go to personal credit report to order your own credit report. That'll bring you to our home page where consumers can access their own information. To make sure we did it right, we asked the guys that run those two credit bureaus to take us through the process and give us some tips. This is the opening page. The cost of checking your credit file? If you don't need it urgently, it's free. To get it within 1 to 5 days, it's $10 to $30. Couple of things to watch out for when you apply ` remember both married name and single name. Because we would hold both names on the credit file. And again very important ` licence number version. You must put in your drivers licence version number. The version number changes when a licence is re-issued. It can be checked against NZTA's records to help prevent possible fraud. Now we get into my actual information. Listed on your credit file are all the people that have checked out your credit. You give them permission to do this. Whenever you apply for credit ` say, getting a credit card, or it could be a mortgage, or a smaller loan, or you could've signed up for power or phone. And then the details of how good or bad you are at paying your bills goes on your credit file to form your credit rating. It goes from negative 300 ` that's if you are a bankrupt ` up to a 1000. And a low score ` say, 200 to 300 ` might be OK if you're only borrowing money from one pay day to the other. Where if you are a mainstream bank, you might say that a good credit score is 550 or 600. So it really gets back to the appetite of the person who's actually providing the credit. So how many of us know what's on our credit file? Well, 3.8 million is the number of checks made on other people's credit files. 100,000 is the ridiculously small number of people actually checking their own file. And another shocking number ` 135,000. That's the number of ratbags using aliases to try and get credit. They are the bad people who are trying to use other people's names or fictitious names to try to obtain credit in a fraudulent manner. So out there in Kiwiland, there's 135,000 people trying to rip off the system. (LAUGHS) 50 to 60 bucks buys you a fraud alert, and you might want to get an alert put on a credit file if, for instance, you've lost your driver's licence or had it stolen, cos someone else might be trying to get credit in your name. You should also be careful after relationship break-ups. It might be a joint account, and you thought it was all cleared up. The partner might have said they cleared up the debt, and you find out that they haven't. You haven't looked until you've gone to apply for a credit card again, or a bank or a phone or whatever it is, a new power account, and, hello, there's a default on your account. Which answers this question. Can you have unpaid debts that you know nothing about? Yes, like leaving a flat, and leaving the phone bill in your name. It happens all the time. Often they're shocked as anything. They just ring up to say it's unbelievable, it cant be mine. Another question ` Another question ` Can you have too many credit checks? Yes, you can, someone who tries, for instance, half a dozen lenders in a couple of days... Yeah, it could mean that they've got some financial distress and they are going to multiple organisations to get multiple cards or multiple lines of credit to fund something, so that's why it's` you get a little nervous around that. < And that would be an alert to a lender? Absolutely. Absolutely. So what about those late bills then? You know, you get to two or three months in arrears it's gonna be noticed. It's going to impact on your ability to get credit. But here's the good news. A couple of years ago there was a big change, so now it's not just bad stuff that's on your credit file, but the good stuff goes on as well, like when you do pay off your loans and when you pay your bills on time. You can fix your credit file really quickly these days. If you just pay on time for 12-18 months, that's going to resolve itself. And here's what a potential lender wants to know ` have you failed to pay debts, have you been bankrupted, are you being chased by collection agencies, any judgements against you and possible fines, any lost or stolen ID, which could lead to identity fraud. So the green is good. So how's John's credit looking? Green means you're meeting your obligations on a monthly basis, and you'll see that I'm good. I'm a good boy. Red means you've gone 60 days over. And then we gradually go through to the really exciting part, which is your credit score. And you'll see here that in fact my credit score is 804, which puts me in the top 20% of NZers in terms of, uh, risk. Which is what we'd expect, John. Which is what we'd expect, John. Which is what we'd expect, exactly. Dennis' turn. Oh, looking OK, I think. (LAUGHS) Yep, nothing negative there, which is good. I am sweating a little bit, though. (LAUGHS) There's no defaults, no collection notices. It's pretty much current with the occasional blip where I'm one month behind. So what about my credit file. How did I do? No, no, no, look, I'm fessing up ` paid some bills pretty slow, and there's a bit of red on it. My report says could do better, must try harder. If you are finding things challenging, contact your lenders. Most lenders are happy to talk to you about what they could do to help you. If you get into a situation where you can't pay it all, pay something. Show that level of commitment. Now, if you're going for the free check, you won't get a credit score, a rating, like you saw John Roberts from Veda get. That costs extra. Dun & Bradstreet only do them for business and not personal credit checks. Now, a lot of you ask ` just what are we looking for when you contact us? Hannah's going to answer that in moment. And if you do wanna get in touch, we will be on Facebook for the next half hour to answer your questions. Our programme is all about your problems, your thoughts, so please do contact us. We're on Facebook. Email us ` Write to us ` And we'll close out the show with Hannah on some of the things we look for when we pick stories. I think people'll be surprised at how we pick stories. Sometimes we won't choose a story, because just last week we did exactly the same story. Now, that's a little bit unfair on the person whose issue is probably just as good as the person that we did a story about last week, but it is television, and we've got to keep our audience engaged and informed and entertained as well. The other reasons we pick stories are, um, well ` is this just a one-off situation, or can there be a lesson here for the wider viewing audience? Is this person a person who's done everything they can to sort this out themselves and now needs our help? Often it's, 'Well, can we actually fix it?' Nothing more frustrating, I think, for the viewer than to see us go in to bat for someone and not being able to fix it. I mean sometimes we just can't fix it, but if we can't fix it, then it does have to have that element of 'is there something in here that the viewer can learn 'and possibly prevent them making the same mistake themselves'?