All Dear Jac articles – Page 49
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Dear Jac
We'd love to hear from you sunshine
Just a quickie. Anybody out there successfully installed solar panels in their store?
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Dear Jac
Raffle query baffles us all
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
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Dear Jac
Alarm bells over security contract
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.
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Dear Jac
It might be you...maybe...perhaps
A few retailers have been in touch to ask how they could improve their chances with Camelot now that it’s been announced that there may be some new terminals on offer come the end of the year. I asked Camelot for some advice and got the usual…
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Dear Jac
Go where the buck stops: the top
Kirit Ved, who runs Ved’s News in Stoke Newington, keeps an eye on his property because, as I reported some time ago, his local council had him in court and made him change his shopfront in keeping with its listed building status even though Kirit…
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Dear Jac
Bright sparks having you on
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.
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Dear Jac
Bill and Ben...a point of law
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…
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Dear Jac
Can you raffle off a store?
Khalid Khawaja is fed up with several aspects of retailing and wants out. He doesn’t think he’ll get much for the store so he wondered if he could raffle it off in the same way that some people have raffled their houses.
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Dear Jac
You must give as good as you get
I’m sure retailers stuck in leasing arrangements with finance companies over failed photocopy firm Lanwall will be pleased to know that I have heard from Pam Hoffman, who campaigned on behalf of retailers for years, winning many judgements against Lanwall.
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Dear Jac
A crippling court case
Can anybody out there help in this case? It is shocking and for obvious reasons my caller remains anonymous. A customer came into his store in Manchester a while ago and wanted to sign for purchases of less than a fiver. The retailer explained that…
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Dear Jac
The checks for online betting
John Smith has been pondering the role of the internet in the sale of lottery tickets to the under-aged. He writes from Rockland St Mary PO in Norfolk: “We had a visit from Camelot with one of their underage testers just before the lottery closed at 7.30pm.
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Dear Jac
You must shop around when it comes to insurance
Joyce Wade rang from her shop in Ipswich to enquire whether others had complained about huge hikes in their annual insurance premium.
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Dear Jac
Another load of rubbish
I’ve had another complaint about rubbish collection company PHS Wastetech, which appears to operate much like utilities companies in that it has a rolling contract which runs in 12-month cycles. It renews your contract from the anniversary date whether you agree to it or not
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Dear Jac
Play up and play the game
I upset both the music licence companies PPL and PRS for Music in a recent issue.
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Dear Jac
Dear Jac: You have been warned
In fact, I've been warning for the past few months about fraudulent transactions through PayPoint. Get the money first, I said. Get the money first, says PayPoint. Get the money first, says its literature. And every time I report on one of these...
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Dear Jac
The alternative view of pricemarking
Graham Barney is all in favour of PMPs. He writes from Winifred Way Stores at Caister on Sea in Great Yarmouth: “I don’t understand why retailers get upset at pricemark packs.”
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Dear Jac
Who prices the pricemarks?
The role of pricemarked packs (PMPs) has been unexplored territory by this column for quite a while. Last time I wrote about them, retailers’ reaction to them was that they objected to being dictated to. And the time before that. And, oh, the time…
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Dear Jac
Dear Jac: Strength in numbers for Lanwall retailers
Many readers will recall stories about the joint action being taken by legal firm Shoosmiths on behalf of more than 50 sub-postmasters over their faulty Horizon systems (average so-called debts for each amounting to about £30K).
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Dear Jac
Dear Jac: The l’eau down on a PayPoint wrangle
I've been caught up in what I'm tempted to call a clash of wills. George Sandhu trades as a Costcutter in a rural setting outside Wisbech, Cambridgeshire. He does all of his electricity, gas and phone top-ups via PayPoint and processes Anglian Water...
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Dear Jac
Dear Jac: What a fine business this is to be in
I got some feedback from my last column on the subject of credit card authorisation through terminals and fraud prevention. It was Ukash/Visa last time through PayPoint. This time it is Elavon credit cards through Payzone.