This will be my final column after nearly 30 years of agony aunt-ing. First of all I would like to thank all of you who read me, responded and contributed. It’s been quite a ride.
When I first went freelance from William Reed Publishing in 1995 there were no mobile phones, no online shopping and Princess Diana was still with us. The National Lottery was less than a year old and it was estimated, that only one in three retailers had a lottery terminal which meant that two out of three did not. So quite a lot of my early callers were clamouring for help in getting the lottery. I never succeeded. In fact I remember presenting Camelot with what I thought was a very good case where retailer A, who didn’t have a terminal, used to collect money for tickets from his customers and go to another nearby village to buy the tickets on their behalf from retailer B. Not only did Camelot not give him the lottery but they threatened to remove the terminal from the obliging retailer B who was selling him the tickets. The Gaming Commission had an iron fist.
When this column was first introduced there was a contact telephone number published, there was also a fax number or a physical address to write to or, “for the computer boffins on the Internet” an email address!
Social media didn’t come along until a few years later: Facebook launched in 2004, YouTube in 2005.
Although it is a very different world now – in some respects it is still the same. Retailers still have problems with suppliers, with staff, with customers. There is still abusive behaviour, thieving and a lot of competition.
Back in 1995 I observed that the big three issues of the decade were Sunday trading, newspaper monopolies and Saturday Night Fever (the lottery, again).
The issues over the years have included how to get an off licence, how to appeal your rates, business transfer agents, which symbol group is best, dealing with roadworks, with energy suppliers, with the tobacco display ban, with trading standards, with phonecard scams, with PRS and PPL licences to play music in-store, with media screens, with metrication, with ATMs, with red tape, with Ukash voucher frauds, with loyalty schemes, the new millennium, the useless ads in the European City Guide (and its teeny-tiny fine print), the threat of superstores, break-ins, how to find relief management, dealing with banks, with VAT, with Chip & Pin, with pricemarked packs, with councils, with the police, with mobs of kids, with underage sales. The £50/£20 sleight-of-hand scam did the rounds for quite some time (whereby the customer pays for something small in a busy store, offers up a large note, pockets the change, rummages around, finds the right money and asks for the note back). Surprisingly it often worked. Similarly, distraction crime – swarming gangs – also did the rounds.
Alongside this were the stand-out baddies: first and foremost the ratings cowboys Strattons/Oldfields who scammed many retailers with their rates reduction ruses (promising no upfront fees until the appeal is accepted: all appeals are accepted). At one point it was rumoured that Strattons had gone bust because their old phone number didn’t work. I rang up their own trading standards office at Old Trafford in Manchester and the TSO said: “Oh, I have got their new number in the file I keep right here on my desk.” That’s how notorious they were. It took Trading Standards six years to round them up and close them down.
Similarly there were the Eurogrant companies – just cons. And leasing companies that tied retailers into long contracts – long after the equipment lasted.
I never kept track of the money I saved people (but every time I wrote about the ratings cowboys I saved someone 300 quid). Looking back over the issues I noticed that on the 10th anniversary it was noted on the news pages that our intervention saved a retailer from being sued for £50,000.
I also stopped keeping track of the number of people who have contacted the helpline except for the early days. In the first year I recorded that I had taken more than 900 calls (and on top of that postbags of letters, faxes and the odd email) and filled seven fat notebooks with queries and comments. By the second year it was more than 2,000 contacts all told. By ten years it was 1,500 a year. Heady stuff.
Along the way there was quite a lot of criticism of PayPoint (particularly of its fine-print contract and its ‘never mind the commission, feel the footfall’ promises) and also Payzone, a fair bit of Booker bashing, and to a lesser degree Bestway bashing.
Then there was the photocopier saga – Lanwall’s broken promises of refunds for those not reaching the required transaction levels to offset the cost of the leasing.
More recently there was a lot of coverage of the years of coronavirus lockdown restrictions.
And of course, the Post Office Horizon scandal. The first mention I can find of it in my columns was August 2002 when a retailer told me he had elicited the Prince of Wales for help (Prince Charles’ office wrote to the PO on his behalf). Then in 2009 I covered it extensively. For months on end the coverage was Lanwall/Post Office. Now, more than 22 years later from the first mention of Horizon the scandal still struggles on.
I was never an expert and couldn’t always find a solution (I was just a ‘Jac of all trades’) but I tried to make it a rule to never send anyone away empty-handed.
I frequently asked retailers for feedback, particularly when asked to recommend a supplier and you always obliged.
So let us end on an upbeat note: it’s nearly Jingle-tills time so I wish you the very best for the festive season. And, as always, watch your backs.
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