It all started with a man in a van, working his way, block by block, through the streets of Timaru, looking for trouble.
He'd narrowed the search down to a suburb, then a street, and finally, a single house.
The trouble was lurking in the backyard of one Dion Allison. And Dion had no idea what was coming.
In fact, Dion had been having troubles of his own. During Covid he'd moved his work station out of the house and into the garden shed, where he stayed post-Covid.
The problem in the shed was it had a very poor signal, and Dion needed a cellphone booster. He researched several on the web, choosing signalboosters.co.nz.
"It looked very legitimate," says Dion, noting all the major cellphone networks logos, at the bottom of the webpage.
"We've got the Spark, the Vodafone, and the 2degrees logos. And it was going to guarantee me full signal as well."
He spent $800, the kit arrived quickly, Dion set it up and it was a dud.
"It lights up nicely but then, boom - no better. I feel a bit silly being duped."
Dion kept it plugged in though, and, four weeks later - this is where the man in the van comes in - there's a knock on the door early one morning.
The man was representing Vodafone - now One NZ.
Using a triangulation method from various cellphone towers, he'd tracked down the aerial that Dion had put up as part of his booster kit.
Turns out not only had Dion's signal booster failed to boost his own reception - it had done just the opposite to a big chunk of Dion's home town.
He was told the equipment had severely impacted around two-thirds of Timaru's cell phone reception, and in the worst case, clients were unable to make a phone call and had zero data through their mobile device.
He wanted it gone - and it could either go quietly - or - in an hour when the police come.
"I didn’t want to go down that road."
If you're wondering how often this happens - well, according to One NZ 's Thaigan Govender, it's quite common. He said the company had tried to contact Signal Boosters but without success.
Dion's wife Wendy had also tried the 09 number, and was told that the company was actually based in France. She tried for a refund, but the $800 is gone.
"We’ll never see that back ... and they won’t respond."
Wendy called again while Fair Go was filming. This time they claimed to have a base in Auckland, but they couldn't provide a street address.
When she asked what the weather was like - there was a long pause.
"Are you googling now?" Wendy asked. More silence, then gone.
"Hello? hello?"
Signal Boosters also claimed they were "certified" in New Zealand? Turns out that's a broad term, in that they may be certified safe, but not certified as fit for our airwaves locally.
And they admitted they don't have the backing of the three companies whose logos sit at the bottom of their webpage.
"So you don't have their permission?
"We don't ask," came the reply.
We asked them why they thought it was okay to sell illegal products, and then fail to supply a refund, and they said: "Please send us an email with proof that selling these devices is illegal. We've been in business for over ten years and haven't had any issues over legality."
And finally they said: "You can provide me with an order number and I'll provide a refund and we'll go from there."
Nathan Schaffer, from Radio Spectrum Management (the government department in charge of cellphone networks) told us that all three major telcos have made attempts to get the websites shut down, but that's been difficult because they are all off-shore.
Signal Boosters' website is registered to an address in Colombia, and they have websites in 17 different countries.
Their Kiwi address is a Christchurch house, where the real owners told Fair Go they've been trying for years to get the fake listing pulled down.
As for Wendy and Dion, they are still looking for decent cell reception and asking how a dodgy signal booster could nearly knock out coverage of a good chunk of Timaru.
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