All Dear Jac articles – Page 48
-
Dear Jac
Between a rock and a hard place
Ashok Pandya and PayPoint are at loggerheads. Many of you will be familiar with this scenario.
-
Dear Jac
Cover your back
Ukash launched an internet safety campaign in the week that I write this column (Nov 7-11), but it was too late for Robert Cole in Grantham
-
Dear Jac
An appealing case
As you’ve no doubt been reading lately, business rates appear to take only one direction: up.
-
Dear Jac
And another thing...
Many newsagents complain about lack of choice in the market but, as I see it at the moment, if there were to be a choice it would be Hobson’s choice
-
Dear Jac
An unhealthy reaction
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.
-
Dear JacNo one wins but the lawyers
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
They just won’t let you quit
“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
Price match or rum deal?
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
I feel a lecture coming on...
When did you last read the fine print? Of course, no one ever bothers to read the terms and conditions on their airline ticket until they are stranded at an airport.
-
Dear Jac
Look after your customers
Mick Pinder (Overton Corner Shop) has forwarded a warning from the National Federation of Retail Newsagents about scams involving Ukash vouchers.
-
Dear Jac
Tra-la, it’s double trouble
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?
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
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
Part and parcel of playing by the rules
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
Epos systems drive you rand the bend
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
Paying through the nose
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
A minority objects
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
Would you credit it?
Rajan Jhanjee, who runs Paradise Stores in Brentwood, Essex, has a complaint about John Menzies’ policy on box-outs/credit advice notes.
-
Dear Jac
Saved from a scam by super staff
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
Naming and shaming
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).