* Tonight, we focus on the heavens... You realise how small we are in the scheme of things. ...and zoom in on an astronomical rip-off. Do you think it was a good deal now? No. A black hole in the south is sucking hundreds and thousands of dollars out of the wallets of amateur astronomers. There's only one word to describe it ` it's a scam. And chaos on the home front... The car came rolling down the hill. Through here, hit the house on the corner, boom! The solution is simple,... Re-brick the house. ...but that's something her insurance company doesn't want to buy into. Not happening. Not happening. Plus, a pet peeve. (HISSES) Floyd the cat doesn't want to come out from under the bed, because he doesn't like me. Clearly, Floyd is a fine judge of character, but he's run foul of the neighbours. Two little nuggets. What is a cat to do about it's doo? I can't tell whether it's cat poo or whether it's bark. Copyright Able 2018 Kia ora, welcome to the show. 400 years ago, Galileo turned a homemade telescope on the night sky and became the first to see the mountains on the moon and hundreds of stars. Since then, we have found 100 billion stars in our own galaxy and hundreds of billions of galaxies beyond that. Pretty amazing, isn't it? You don't need to spend a fortune to explore space, but be warned, a black hole in the south is sucking money out of the wallets of many wannabe astronomers. Here's Anna. (GENTLE PIANO MUSIC) You're looking back in time. Some of those galaxies are 10 million, 11 million or more light years away. To me, that's quite spectacular. That is quite, sort of, astounding. You know, it really stretches the mind. The infinite, inky blackness of space. Its glimpse into the future and the past has been the subject of fascination and investigation from the first explorers to the amateur astronomers of today. It gives you a different perspective on the world. You realise how small we are and how insignificant we are, really, in the scheme of things. And it's just one of those mind-expanding hobbies that you can get involved in. A hobby that ` just like the professionals ` uses one particular piece of equipment to look past the clouds, deep into the clusters of stars and planets above. Look at that! Wow. Gavin Logan's a keen stargazer ` these are some his photographs ` but, lately, he's found himself staring at a big black hole in his bank balance after doing business with NZ Telescopes. On the face of it, it looked like a good deal. Do you think it was a good deal now? No. Gavin bought this mount from NZ Telescopes last year ` $2000 worth. But every time Gavin tried to use the mount, which helps guide the telescope, it pointed in completely the wrong direction. No matter what you tried, the telescope would end up pointing to the ground. You got shots of the grass. Yeah, basically that. It would not align properly. He sent it back to be repaired, back to the man who sold it to him ` fellow amateur astronomer and NZ Telescopes owner Robert McTague. And, presumably, that's where it is today, because McTague hasn't given Gavin a refund and hasn't sent him back the mount either. I've phoned... I've lost count of how many times. All I get is his answering machine. I leave messages. I have emailed him. He does not reply to emails. To make sure that he didn't say that he hadn't got the Disputes Tribunal's hearing notice, I actually couriered that down to him, and he signed that he got it, and I have sent down the result. But there's no response at all. He's in the dark. And so is another NZ Telescopes customer, Wayne Govenlock. I'd say I'd like my money back, but I've probably got a few choice words around the way he operates. You know, and just the deceit-ness of it all. Deceitful guy. Strong words, but Wayne's got good reason after losing more than $4000 to Robert McTague. I was ringing him continuously, but it's clear he's a very difficult person to actually get to answer the phone. Typically, he doesn't. He'll ring back. Last October, Wayne ordered one of these telescopes ` a Celestron CPC 1100. It was excellent. I thought I was going to have a great Christmas. I was going to have two weeks off at Christmas, and I thought, 'I'll spend two weeks setting up my telescope, and it's going to be great.' But this telescope? Yeah, this isn't the one he paid Robert McTague for. This is another one Wayne had to buy, because the one from NZ Telescopes has never arrived. Got the freight company name from Timaru, rang up the freight company, and they denied all knowledge of picking up any goods from this company. At that point, Wayne realised things weren't quite right. It was really when the freight company denied all knowledge, and then I was getting fake track and trace numbers. That's when I was going, 'Uh-oh. I've got a problem here.' Freight problems weren't the only excuse Wayne got. Robert was in hospital. That's why he hadn't responded back to me. Then I was told that, no, his sister had died. He was cleaning out the apartment or flat or house in Christchurch. In January alone, Robert told another customer again that his sister had died; he'd had a fall, suffered a stroke and been diagnosed with cancer. In March, McTague told a customer his son had had a car crash, providing this photo as evidence, but this photo was taken two months earlier. What he didn't tell customers was that last year, Robert McTague was charged after taking money from his elderly brother's credit card. He was convicted in February this year and ordered to pay reparation. McTague wouldn't discuss this with Fair Go and opposed our application to review the court file. But while all this was going on, more and more customers were coming forward. After months of trying to get a hold of Robert McTague, Wayne did a Google search on the company. To his horror, there were suddenly a whole lot of very bad reviews. Fair Go's heard from 13 NZ Telescopes customers, all owed money ` in total, more than $60,000. It's a website. Looks pretty flash, professional. Says all the right things. You know, it's got huge statements about the Consumer Guarantees Act; and 'repeat business is important to us; we look after our customers; support is very important.' Robert McTague's still making those promises. The website is still taking orders. Well, there's only one word to describe it ` it's a scam. McTague wouldn't talk to Fair Go on the phone, but he did send us three statements. But he wouldn't tell us who the suppliers were or how much he was owed. He also wouldn't say when he'd be able to pay anyone back. Robert did tell us several refunds have already been processed, but none of them are the 13 complainants who've come to Fair Go. Fair Go has heard from one customer, a former friend of Robert's, who received a $6500 refund after months of hassling. It's not a business model that's sustainable by any means. (LAUGHS) It's just shocking. It's the first time I've come across, you know, an outfit like this. It's so blatant. It's just unbelievable. NZ Telescopes is run from Robert's house, and we've established that he's not the official supplier of either Meade or Celestron telescopes. He also runs night sky tours from his backyard observatory. But these businesses aren't registered companies. So the only option for out-of-pocket customers is to try and put Mr McTague into bankruptcy. At least it will end the problem, because he's doing the hobby of astronomy a lot of harm. Gavin, Wayne and others have taken their cases to the Disputes Tribunal and police. Oh, I think it's terrible. I mean, he's just a fraud. He's just taking money off good, honest Kiwis. So, apparently, the money is coming back, so we're gonna keep our eye on that, with our telescope. But also, online shoppers, if you're giving a large amount of money away, you've gotta make sure you know where it's going. Do your research. Google up. Look at reviews. It's your money. You've gotta look after it. Good advice. Coming up after the break ` a crash course in the frustrations of dealing with insurance companies. Car came rolling down the hill. Through here. Hit the house on the corner. Boom. Her house was smashed. So was her faith in her insurance company. I thought my policy was good enough to be able to cover any sort of damage. That's how I bought my policy. And some not-so-subtle indiscretions... Two little nuggets, which I can't tell whether it's cat poo or whether it's bark. ...have got Floyd in trouble with the neighbours. What I love about Nova is we make getting great value easy. Ashley, you're right. We're more than just Dawn Ocking and... ...Pam Flets! When people call us, we make their Bill! Easy. We make it easy to Joy Nup. Whether it's April, May, June... ...or the first... ...Dave Spring. So when you need energy to cook Stu! Mo. ...the lawn or manufacture... Polly! Esther. Socks. Great value made easy is our priority number... BOTH: Juan! Welcome back. Can I run a bit of a scenario past you? Yes. All right, OK. Picture this ` you crash your car; the insurance company repairs the damage, but they can't match the red paint, and they decide that a grey undercoat will do. Is that OK? Ah, no! It is not OK. No. How about this, then? You stained your lovely white carpet with ink, and rather than replace the lot, they cut out the stained section and replace it with a pink square? Is that OK? No! Of course it's not OK. All right, not OK. If that's the case, then you'll be able to sympathise with the victim of this insurance wrangle. Here's Hanna. Imagine trying to repair one of the famous Egyptian pyramids. Can't find an exact match. Let's just concrete it! Problems with the Taj Mahal ` that exact colour marble not available. Yeah, close enough. A grand old English castle gets a patch-up job with mismatched bricks. No worries. Looks OK, doesn't it? Nope. Not OK for the castle, the pyramids or the Taj Mahal. So, why would it be OK for this little brick beauty ` Jodee's pride and joy? The bricks were what drew me to the house. Not only because they are a lovely, different type of brick, but also the fact that it's low maintenance, and I needed that. Low maintenance until one night in September last year, when... The neighbour's car was parked up here, and he'd left his handbrake off, and the car came rolling down the hill. Through here. Through here. Over this. Across the road. Across the road. Over the curb, through the bushes, hit the house on the corner. Boom! That's incredible. It's incredible that the whole house didn't go 'boom'. (BOTH CHUCKLE) Well, obviously it's well made. Yeah. Luckily, of course, no one was in the car; no one was hurt. I was asleep on the couch upstairs, and the neighbours, actually, were the first ones that alerted me and said, 'Have you seen what's parked in your garden?' It's a bit of a shock. Huge shock, huge shock. But you thought you were covered by insurance? I was insured. No worries. We'll get this fixed. At least nobody's hurt. Your insurance company talked to their insurance company, and you were covered. I thought my policy was good enough to be able to cover any sort of damage. That's how I bought my policy. At first, it seemed just a matter of patching up the hole in the house with replacement bricks. Jodee's insurer, AMI, offered her an $8000 settlement to do just that. But these bricks turned out to be... irreplaceable. We couldn't find the bricks. We couldn't find them anywhere. Where did you look for the bricks? God, I've been everywhere. I've been to all the demolition trading places, been to all the brick places in Hamilton. We have emailed Australia and sent bricks. We've had the bricks sent to try and match them. We've done everything we can to find these bricks. But these bricks have been out of production for at least five years, and they're tricky bricks ` thinner and smaller than usual, with all the edges rounded off. So, matching those bricks up with other bricks that weren't rounded is a no-no? It's not gonna work. We fix it with mismatching bricks, and it's just gonna wreck the whole property. Then Jodee had another idea. Why couldn't we put it in a door, where the window is? Thinking that we'd get enough bricks. So Jodee called in bricklayer Rob Luten, who'd actually helped build this house. Said it was 14 years ago it was built, so, yeah, best part of 14 years ago. What about the idea of putting a door in here? Cutting a door, you'd probably take it back to the closest vertical joint, but, yeah, you run the risk of these ones breaking as well. A bit risky, then. In any case, AMI said Jodee's policy won't cover any work involving undamaged parts of the house. She was surprised. I asked if everything could be covered under any circumstance ` earthquakes, anything like that. And so I just felt comfortable in the fact that I had a policy that would cover any accident. AMI'S final offer was to re-brick just the front and the side of the house for aesthetic reasons. Would that make it look right? How would you feel if you had two sides of your house ` different bricks, different colour? I honestly don't think that they've got the right to do that, purely because when people are insured, it's to insure against this sort of thing. How would you like to see this settled? Re-brick the house. All the house, in the same brick. Return it to what it was before it got hit by a third party, not me. And Rob the brickie agrees ` two different types of bricks just won't look right. When you brick a house, all the bricks have gotta be out of the same batch so you get the same colouring. The option of doing just two sides of the house in the new brick and leaving the other two sides... If it was your house, would you want that? Uh... Not really, no. (CHUCKLES) What do you think needs to happen here? Yeah, I'd replace the whole lot. Rob estimates that would cost around $20,000, but, again, AMI says, 'No, we're not obliged to pay for work on any undamaged parts of the house.' Stalemate. It's not my accident. I didn't do it, so I am really being disadvantaged why? That's my question. Why am I being disadvantaged for this? AMI's response to Fair Go is that... AMI has offered several options including repairing the damage with similar bricks, re-bricking two walls and a cash offer. Even if Jodee accepted any of these, she could still ask for an ombudsman's review. AMI is disappointed that Jodee feels they haven't done enough. They want to work with her to achieve a fair and reasonable outcome under her policy. Or someone out there might have a stash of these. What we need to do this job is a perfect match for this brick. Actually, we need at least a couple of hundred of them. The bricks most likely came from Midland Brickworks in Aussie, and they've got these unusual, rounded edges. For now, though, Jodee's hanging tough. I'm refusing to settle. Jodee says having two different types of bricks would devalue her property. If she can't have the whole house re-bricked, she will take her case to the ombudsman. It should never have got this far. I mean, I've come to you guys to help me, because I've just been deadlocked and kicked out by the insurance company, basically, saying, 'You accept this, and we're wiping our hands of it.' We're not talking about a huge amount of money here ` $20,000 as opposed to $10,000. What is the question you'd like to ask to the insurance company? Well, it's probably the question I've been asking all along ` what if it was your house? So, I think I know the answer, but I'm gonna ask anyway. Is that OK? No, no. I don't think it's too much to ask for the house to look the same as it looked before the accident. Now, AMI Insurance has offered to sit down with Jodee and review the various options to see if they can come up with an acceptable resolution that doesn't necessarily involve re-cladding the whole house. In the meantime, take a good, hard look at this. If you've got a stash of bricks like this, or know where some are, please, give us a call. We might be able to put them to good use. We need around 100. Yes, and we've got details on our Facebook page ` dimensions, etc. Coming up after the break ` when good neighbours go bad. Floyd is not particularly sociable. Poor old Floyd is in a spot of bother. Floyd the cat doesn't want to come out from under the bed, because he doesn't like me. A few indiscreet indiscretions have got the neighbours crying foul. Two little nuggets, which I can't tell whether it's cat poo or whether it's bark. What's a cat to do when the welcome mat is pulled? Heat always finds places to escape. So keep the warmth in with effective insulation in ceilings, walls and floors and draughtproof doors and windows. Check out the three essentials for a healthy home on our website. Welcome back. Kiwis love their furry friends, and second to America, we own more pets per household than any other country. Yeah. There are heaps of reasons to own a pet. They give us love, companionship, and are good for our physical and mental wellbeing. Look, that may be so. But, rightly or wrongly, pets can also be really bad for neighbourly relations. WOMAN: Come here, boy. Come on, Floyd. This is a story about a cat... Come on. ...called Floyd. Come on. Floyd is currently angry... (HISSES) ...and in hiding. We've come to meet Floyd the cat, and Floyd the cat doesn't want to come out from under the bed, because he doesn't like me. Mm. Come on! Floyd is not particularly sociable. That's Emma ` Floyd's owner. (LAUGHS) No, we haven't had much luck at all. Emma has a plan. I've got treats. Emma has endured that sort of one-sided relationship all cat owners have since she rescued Floyd six years ago. Well, I'm committed. (LAUGHS) He's a cat, so, you know, he's semi-there. Even though Emma's really into Floyd,... He was ridiculously handsome. ...the cat has caused trouble. I tell him all the time that he's lucky he's still got a roof over his head. Two years ago, Emma bought her apartment with Floyd in mind. She says the real estate agent said it was pet-friendly, and she got written permission from the developer for a cat door. And he said, 'Hi, Emma. I have no problem.' For a few months, Floyd's life was good ` his days rolled into one happy routine. Alternates from sleeping to sitting out by the window. (MIAOWING) Back to sleeping. Maybe a little bit of a snack. (GROWLING) Bit more sleeping. (SNORING) Bit more bird watching. (BIRDS TWEET) And a bit more sleeping. Then, one night, Emma got an email from building manager Marianne Inglis. It came completely out of the blue. It was about Floyd, the cat door, and some poo found in this nearby garden. READS: 'Stop your cat using this door, as it is going to be an ongoing issue, 'and Ken the groundsman is really annoyed.' Marianne, who's employed by Boutique Body Corporate Ltd, had photos claiming cat poo was a health and safety issue. READS: 'The body corporate has an obligation to protect Ken from onsite dangers, 'and this poo is classed as that, as it is unsanitary.' Emma shot back an email asking how you can be sure it's her cat, and 14 minutes later, Marianne returned fire. How can you respond to somebody that's being so unreasonable and thinks that cats traps is a reasonable solution to a little bit of cat poo in the garden? There's gotta be a paper trail. That was 18 months ago. Since then, there's been a paper war. Emma's been ordered to get rid of her cat or shut her cat door. She's been fined, then not fined, by the body corp. She's fired back with lawyers' letters. Yeah, it does feel a little bit out of hand. Emma did try closing the cat door. Floyd went crazy. He was aggressive. He got quite agitated. I ended up with scratches on my hands. Now Emma, who bought the apartment with permission to have a cat door, is being taken to the Tenancy Disputes Tribunal for using the cat door. If the body corp win, they want the cat gone in 48 hours, plus money. They have demanded... I think it's the equivalent of about a couple of grand's worth of lawyers' fees, time for building manger, time for the body corporate manage. (CELLPHONE BEEPS, RINGING TONE) See if Marianne's here. We decided to get Marianne, the property manager, on the phone. Hello. Marianne speaking. Marianne Inglis says the developer should never have let Emma have a cat door when the rules say you can't have a pet unrestrained in common areas. The developer ` he'd never done a development before. It was his first one. And he was just, 'Yeah, yeah, yeah,' anything to sell an apartment, which is so stupid, because it's against all his body corporate rules. So he should never have done that. He was, to be blunt, a little bit of an idiot. Marianne believes Emma is a poor pet owner. So, she hasn't got any kitty litter or anything in her property, on her decks, like everybody else does for their pets, and her cat goes out and poos in all the gardens, particularly all around the bottom of her area, and she expects everybody else to clean it up. Emma says she does have kitty litter in her spare room, but for Marianne, the answer is simple. Shut the flap door on your apartment door, and your cat can stay inside like everybody else's in the complex. Do you think it would be healthy for a cat to stay indoors all day and night? No, but they can get out on to their deck. This is the garden Floyd allegedly damages with his poo. Emma claims she cleans it once a week, and today this is what she found. Two little nuggets, which I can't tell whether it's cat poo or whether it's bark. In the end, the cat door at the centre of this dispute may be cursed. Oh, (BLEEP)! It's certainly bad luck for Floyd. Maybe also for Emma, who says Floyd is staying. I've never thought about getting rid of him. Or they are leaving together. If I decide to sell and move, it's gonna be on my terms. It's quite a flap over a cat flap. You know what the world needs more of? Apart from oxygen and an ozone layer. It needs discretion! The woman's allowed to have a cat flap door when she bought the apartment, so let her keep her door, and also just make sure she picks up the poo. Nice, simple solution. There you have it. Just before we go, a bit of an apology. We were going to bring you a story tonight about police call waiting. We have had to put that on hold. See what I did there? Yeah. And we'll bring it to you next week. So, that's the show for tonight, but we're always here to help. Our programme is all about you. So if you've got a wrong you want made right, or you feel like you're not getting a fair go ` that's also the name of our show ` please, drop us a line. Remember, no problem is too small. Yes. We're on Facebook, or you can email us ` Or write to us ` Thanks for watching. I've actually gotta run. I've left the cat out. Until next week... BOTH: Po marie.