AS far as Dominic Littlewood can see, there's always an angle. When I phone his mobile for our interview, he asks me to call him back on his landline. It's the same number, with a different dialling code.

I wondered if this numerical overlap was just good luck on his part.

"No," he tells me. "I phoned the mobile company and asked if that number was available. It was, so I purchased it.

"I can't help feeling there's an untouched industry where you could earn money if you bought up these numbers and then phoned people saying, `Look, I own a mobile number which is the same as your landline, are you interested in buying it?'."

It's only the start of our conversation, and it's obvious the 41-year-old's business brain is a finely tuned machine. It's an appropriate analogy for a man who's gone from flogging cars to presenting consumer programmes, educating the public in how to secure the best deals. In his latest effort, Don't Get Done, Get Dom (BBC1, Monday, 9.15am), he helps people out of red tape nightmares, gets the best deal on a big buy and teaches the art of haggling.

"It's a refreshing programme for daytime," he says. "There are so many property and auction things on right now. It drives me bonkers.

"This is different. Everybody can relate to it. You'll think, 'I'm learning from this'."

Champion

It's clear Dom relishes his role as champion of the little man. "If I get bad service, I'll do something about it," he says. "If you don't correct, you accept.

"I'll give you an example," he continues. "I have one of these insurance things on my gas system at home, so if anything goes wrong, you can call somebody out. I pay é16 a month for this and in the leaflet it says you've got 365 days, 24 hours cover.

"I got home on Tuesday and found my heating system had broken down. So I phoned up and they said, 'OK, we can get somebody out to you between 8am and 6pm'.

"'That's no good,' I replied, 'I need an evening visit'. But they told me they don't do evenings or weekends. 'Hang on, you say you do 365 days, 24 hours cover'. 'No,' said the girl at the call centre, 'that's the switchboard number. If you read the small print' - which, of course, nobody does - 'we only come out between 8am and 6pm'.

"I told her that was no good as I'm out during those hours. 'I've got no heating,' I continued. 'What do you expect me to do about that?'.

"'Get yourself a hot water bottle', she said."

Upper hand

This curt remark gave Dom the upper hand. Immediately he asked to talk to the girl's superior and told him he'd been spoken to rudely. Aware the company recorded all their telephone calls, he said he was now going to write in demanding a transcript of the conversation.

"Of course," he chuckles, "when I did that everyone started panicking."

As a result, the manager arranged to have an engineer come out and fix the system on a Saturday afternoon.

"I got a service that wasn't supposed to be available," says Dom. "If you start pushing the boundaries, you can get good service."

Guerrilla tactics aside, according to him the real secret of getting good service or a top deal is silence.

"In the show, I coach people while they're trying to make a purchase," he says. "I tell them what they should be saying and when they should be saying it. But, more importantly, when they should not speak at all.

"You see, what happens is you get to a stalemate where you're pushing the salesman to get the price down and he's trying to push you up. There's a certain point where you have to say what you want, then remain silent.

"That's really crucial, because the next person who speaks is the loser."

Acumen

Despite his business acumen, Dom is willing to concede there was one time - only one - when he didn't secure the best possible deal.

"Back in the early 1990s there was a house I wanted to buy," he remembers. "It was up for é132,000. I said to the estate agent, 'What sort of offer are they going to take?'.

"He told me someone had put in é120,000 and they didn't accept it, but they might go down to é130,000.

"But I always come in low and then work up, so I said to the owner, 'Look, I'm in a good position, I've sold my property, I can complete in four weeks if you want to. I'll pay you é115,000'.

"I was expecting them to say no, but they looked at each other and said, 'OK, we'll take it'. I remember thinking, 'You liar,' about that estate agent, because if he hadn't have said that, I would have gone in even lower.

"From that day onwards, I've thought, could I have got it for é110,000? It was a huge learning experience for me."