Dear Jac – Page 63

  • Dear Jac

    They just won’t let you quit

    2011-11-11T00:00:00Z

    “Retirement is wonderful,” said Marion Lowe, who emailed from Swanbourne Stores & Post Office. Marion got in touch when she read my report on Unicom and its contractual contortions.

  • Dear Jac

    Look after your customers

    2011-11-11T00:00:00Z

    Mick Pinder (Overton Corner Shop) has forwarded a warning from the National Federation of Retail Newsagents about scams involving Ukash vouchers.

  • Dear Jac

    Price match or rum deal?

    2011-11-11T00:00:00Z

    It’s the way they package these juicy deals. My correspondent from Norfolk found Sainsbury’s Brand Match wasn’t all it was banged up to be.

  • Dear Jac

    An unhealthy reaction

    2011-11-11T00:00:00Z

    Malcolm Thompson (M&B Thompson’s, Darlington) has added his protest to the time the new Health Lottery tickets take to process (up to 10 minutes on a Saturday night). “It was at a virtual standstill,” he reports.

  • NEWSPAPER-DELIVERY-CARTOON
    Dear Jac

    No one wins but the lawyers

    2011-11-11T00:00:00Z

    In July I featured Mary Birchall (Derwen Stores, Bala, Gwynedd) who was up for collecting names of retailers stuck with five-year leases with failed photocopy company Lanwall, with a view to possible collective action

  • Dear Jac

    Tra-la, it’s double trouble

    2011-10-14T00:00:00Z

    Once again I must repeat that, if you play a radio in your store, you need both a PRS and a PPL licence. I know this is a bit like telling an off-licensee that (s)he needs one licence to sell beer and another one to sell whisky but there you go.

  • Dear Jac

    A light bulb moment?

    2011-10-14T00:00:00Z

    A few issues back I reported that Michael Outama was investigating the possibility of installing solar panels on the roof of his West Midlands Londis. And I promised an update. This has taken far longer than we expected since Green Sun, the company…

  • Dear Jac

    Policing the publishers

    2011-09-19T00:00:00Z

    I have written from time to time about publishing scams, whereby retailers have been persuaded to buy advertising space in magazines that claim to support the emergency services or promote drugs awareness in schools.

  • Dear Jac

    Epos systems drive you rand the bend

    2011-09-19T00:00:00Z

    It isn’t just our country’s Post Office experiencing problems with its computer system (Horizon), which has seen many sub-postmasters penalised for accountancy errors.

  • Dear Jac

    Part and parcel of playing by the rules

    2011-09-19T00:00:00Z

    This was different. This column has spent a lot of time exhorting retailers to follow PayPoint’s rules by the book to avoid being scammed. But high-profile retailer Lesley Brown, of Frankmarsh Stores in Barnstaple, likes to do things by the book….

  • Dear Jac

    Would you credit it?

    2011-09-04T00:00:00Z

    Rajan Jhanjee, who runs Paradise Stores in Brentwood, Essex, has a complaint about John Menzies’ policy on box-outs/credit advice notes.

  • Dear Jac

    A minority objects

    2011-09-04T00:00:00Z

    Some people don’t know how they ever got on without the internet. But some have picked up their barge poles and are not touching it.

  • Dear Jac

    Paying through the nose

    2011-09-04T00:00:00Z

    Here’s a tip from Marco Carini, whose family has run Carini’s in Ebbw Vale, South Wales, for 90 years (est. 1921!). A customer paid £700 to the Secure Trust Bank of Ireland through Marco’s PayZone terminal. He got 20p for the transaction and his…

  • Dear Jac

    Alarm bells over security contract

    2011-08-22T00:00:00Z

    The characters in this story will remain anonymous by request. A retailer in the East Midlands had his store broken into two months ago and, although the alarm went off, he received no alert from his (heavyweight) security company.

  • Dear Jac

    Naming and shaming

    2011-08-22T00:00:00Z

    Unlike the previous story, this one is anything but anonymous. Chartered surveyor and rating consultant Ken Batty in Preston writes to me from time to time to update me on various cowboys he has uncovered (unfortunately, his industry is littered with them).

  • Dear Jac

    Saved from a scam by super staff

    2011-08-22T00:00:00Z

    I have a little queue of complaints about PayPoint that I will tackle in the next issue when I have had time to get responses. Meanwhile, though, PayPoint itself sent me this story about an alert shop assistant who saved a customer from a scam.

  • Dear Jac

    We'd love to hear from you sunshine

    2011-08-22T00:00:00Z

    Just a quickie. Anybody out there successfully installed solar panels in their store?

  • Dear Jac

    Raffle query baffles us all

    2011-08-22T00:00:00Z

    You’re fed up with retailing and want out. No takers on the ‘for sale’ front, so can you raffle off your premises? This question was posed by Khalid Khawaja and I asked in this column (C-Store, July 22) whether anyone had successfully disposed of their business in this manner

  • Dear Jac

    Bright sparks having you on

    2011-08-07T00:00:00Z

    If someone offers you a free compliance check, a just-to-be-on-the-safe-side sort of thing, odds are they will find something wrong that you will have to pay them to correct.

  • Dear Jac

    Bill and Ben...a point of law

    2011-08-07T00:00:00Z

    My caller wishes to remain anonymous, purely from shyness I think. I’ll call him Ben since the story features the Old Bill. Ben is very polite. He says: “A gentleman called yesterday quite early. He told my dad, ‘You sold me a Tuesday copy of my…