Dear Jac

If you've got a retail problem and don't know where to turn, try Jac. Email: jac@roper-biz.co.uk

Dear Jac

Job opportunity

For the third time, the new Making Tax Digital rule has featured as my lead story for the fortnight.

The collapse of Espresso Essential is still being felt

Do we look like mugs asks one of its former customers

This was a most curious tale

And it’s also a case of a missing PayPoint terminal

Was this just a coincidence or something more sinister?

And is the voucher credit system in the newsagency world foolproof?

It was third time lucky with the Financial Ombudsman

Although it wasn’t really down to luck – more like persistence

Is your glass half full or half empty?

What’s the future for convenience/high street retailing?

On the lookout for fraudsters using contactless cards?

There seems to be a pattern to it.

Not all banks are equal. Neither are their policies

Some do check for signatures and dates; some are in denial.

A petition for small businesses on cold calling

If you all sign the government will have to respond.

A gagging order

Moni White, who runs St Erth Post Office in Hayle, Cornwall, had her business on the market with RTA Business Consultants for four or five years.

The only one to suffer voucher credit problems?

Not by a long chalk… but now this retailer’s getting special treatment.

If a machine won’t work there will be fewer transactions

But nobody told admin this, so the bills kept coming and coming.

If you sell tobacco is Facebook your biggest rival?

This problem is very murky and might be difficult to regulate.

Track & trace crooks

Premier retailer Richard Johnson is on a mission to get independents to put GPS devices, disguised as cigarette packs, among their stock to track stolen goods.

A cancelled order and no delivery, but payment taken

The chargeback has also not been delivered – yet – so another dispute

Who is getting this extra fee to protect rural ATMs?

It’s all in the way you define the term ‘operators’

The collapse of this coffee firm left a lot high and dry

And they were stuck with too-long leases for the equipment.

There’s no one to notice a post-dated cheque these days

It’s all automated now and the machines can’t read

Top tax tip

This tip, on the Very Awful Tax that HMRC is insisting upon making digital, comes to you from the BBC Radio 4’s Money Box programme via Ian Phipps, who describes himself as a newsagent from Bolton.