Dear Jac – Page 98
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Dear Jac
Dear Jac: Join me, I’m celebrating! This column is into double figures age-wise.
The helpline page ‘went live’ on September 8, 1995 and has appeared in every issue, every fortnight, ever since. I may not know, even now, how to run a c-store, but on your behalf I regularly try on lots of the hats that you are forced to wear in your ...
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Dear Jac
Dear Jac: Coins of the realm, but which ones are bona fide?
Time to talk money. I was contacted by Binz Sidhu, who owns a small shop in High Ercall, at Telford in Shropshire. He took over from his parents last October and says he’s been baffled by the not-quite-the-full-ticket coins that have come across his counter ever since. “I’ve noticed that ...
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Dear Jac
Dear Jac: Regard this as a global warning.
I had a very interesting conversation with Dilip Patel, who runs London Superstore at Millbank, behind the Tate Gallery. In the middle of the night he and his wife keep getting pestering calls from a call centre apparently based in the Punjab on behalf of Global Telecommunications.
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Dear Jac
Dear Jac: Can you club together to get cheaper video hire?
This was another service query and for obvious reasons I’ve kept the retailer anonymous because what he was suggesting turned out to be illegal. He thought that he might be able to run a ‘video rental club’ from his shop, signing customers up to a sort of library and using ...
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Dear Jac
Dear Jac: Here’s a scam masquerading as a worthy police campaign.
This is the old familiar drugs awareness publication aimed at schools. Peter Smith, who runs Sutton Benger Post Office near Chippenham in Wiltshire, was approached a year or so ago by a rep selling space on behalf of Wiltshire Police for a booklet to be circulated to schools to prevent ...
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Dear Jac
Dear Jac: Here’s a useful little tip about your tax.
I’m passing this on although I have no idea what the ramifications may be as, although I am self-employed, I do not personally have any staff (which I realise is a rather mixed blessing).
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Dear Jac
Dear Jac: Can anyone recommend a decent shopfitter?
Kash Patel has been trying to find one as his Holy Lane post office and newsagent needs a complete refit to bring it up to a better standard – one suited to its green and pleasant location in a tranquil bit of Cliftonville in Kent, complete with a super sea view.
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Dear Jac
Dear Jac: Did you claim your licensing rights on time?
This magazine’s research suggests that up to 25% of c-stores didn’t make the August 6 deadline. Frightening figures.
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Dear Jac
Dear Jac: If there’s more than one deal on the table for the same stuff, why would you opt to pay more?
It’s the question I always ask electricity suppliers when they refute complaints that the rep’s promised one thing and the contract delivered another. When you switch suppliers, it’s still the same stuff that comes over the wire to you. Only the paperwork, known as the tariff, changes. I’ve been quite ...
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Dear Jac
Dear Jac: ‘Buyer beware’ remains good advice.
Some ‘newish’ retailers contacted me with a stocktaking dispute following their purchase of a small store in West Yorkshire.
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Dear Jac
Dear Jac: New machines may help take the strain.
I’ve often thought that, if they can go to the moon, then surely they can marry up services like ATMs and telephone top-ups. Nick Mahony wondered about it too and urged me to find out.
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Dear Jac
Dear Jac: Time to close the file on the pre-pay Visa mystery, although I’m none the wiser.
Sometimes files live on my desk for so long that they fade round the edges, gathering a patina of age. One such file concerns Visa. Those with very long memories may recall that, last October, I recounted the story of Jayesh Patel, who runs Classic News in Northampton. He had been cold-called by two scruffy-looking blokes who tried to sew up a deal whereby Jayesh became an agent offering pre-paid Visa and MasterCards. No hassles, no credit checks and fifty quid to Jayesh for every one sold. He said no.
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Dear Jac
Dear Jac: What do you have to show for a lifetime in retailing?
This is a rhetorical question prompted by a sad letter from Rita Henderson in Caernarfon, Gwynedd, who is going out of business at the end of August thanks to the government and the Post Office, which together have wiped out the hundred-year old tradition of the pension book. Rita’s footfall ...
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Dear Jac
Dear Jac: Has anyone put staff through an accredited licensing course lately?
Some may remember that a few issues back (C-Store June 3) I wrote about Stephen and Lesley Devereux’ frustration with putting their daughter Simone through a £150 licensing course to go with her application for a new personal licence only to discover that the certificate was no longer recognised. The ...
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Dear Jac
Dear Jac: NPower has responded to a retailer’s recent complaint over promised prices.
Last issue I reported on Tushar Patel’s complaint about the power supplier’s verbal promise to reduce his electricity bill and his shock at discovering that the opposite had happened. NPower needed more time to consider its reply and thus I bring it to you now.
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Dear Jac
Dear Jac: Sorry Wales, you just don’t ‘rate’.
Well, not when it comes to discounting business rates anyway. Pauline Anslow says she got “quite excited” when she read my June 17 column recounting Harjit Singh’s advice that anyone with a rates bill under £5,000 was entitled to a reduction of 50% . I’m afraid that Malcolm Merriott did ...
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Dear Jac
Dear Jac: Get a P45 or a P46 for every employee. No exceptions – not even for kids.
I’ve had worried feedback from several retailers following my piece in the last issue about ex-retailer John Raisen who warned that the Inland Revenue had wanted £89,000 (eventually reduced to £10,000) off him for possible taxes on previous employees he had on his books but had not registered via the ...
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Dear Jac
Dear Jac: How do you tell the chavs from the chaps?
I suppose if you look at the statistics then the majority of your customers are reasonably law abiding, don’t pinch from you or abuse your staff. But, yes, it’s time for another warning.
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Dear Jac
Dear Jac: Is this a misuse of power?
Not for the first time, I have had complaints about the well-known electricity supplier NPower. Tushar Patel’s complaint dates back to the beginning of March. He runs Heathfield General Stores at Pound Hill in Crawley, West Sussex and he says: “A rep approached with a view to reducing my shop’s ...
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Dear Jac
Dear Jac: 0845 numbers are indeed very ‘national’ – they’re everywhere.
Twice already in this column I’ve mentioned 0845 national call rate numbers being used by big outfits. My latest complainant is Rakesh Sood, who runs Handersons at Waltham Abbey in Hertfordshire.