This Midlands bloke (why is it always men wanting to be anonymous? If it were women I could call them Sue Donim), got in touch.
He writes: “Just wondering if anyone else has had this experience with a Camelot rep?”
To summarise, a rep offered him a terminal for scratchcards for which he had to pay £25 a month for the gsm sim card used in the machine. He adds: “So that meant I had to sell £2,500-worth of cards just to get my £25 back. I thought I would lose out, but might get the customers in, and so signed up. A few days later I see the same rep going into the off licence a few shops down, offering them a terminal, and there is also another shop nearby already selling lottery and scratchcards - so, all in all, three shops selling scratchcards.
“I phoned the rep and said ‘I’m cancelling my agreement’. He asked why and my answer was ‘you went to the off licence’. ‘Oh yes, I did but I haven’t signed him up as he is still deciding’. I cancelled as there was no point in continuing; they just want to sell scratchcards and don’t care if you make money or not.”
As you can imagine, Camelot doesn’t quite see it like that. A spokesperson says: “We’ve been trialling the selling of National Lottery Scratchcards as a standalone offering in a small number of retailers for the past year. Based on the success of this trial in terms of generating incremental sales and therefore money for the Good Causes, we are now scoping this opportunity further in areas where we have identified the maximum level of untapped demand for National Lottery Scratchcards. This follows a more than doubling of Scratchcard sales in the past eight years and growth of 20% last year alone.
“Finally, it is worth pointing out that, with 6% sales commission, a National Lottery Scratchcard retailer would only have to generate sales of about £420 per month to cover the small monthly operating fee of £25. Based on our recent trial, this is very much achievable - and is significantly less than the £2,500 mistakenly claimed in the email. On top of this, being a National Lottery retailer is a proven driver of footfall and therefore offers a great opportunity to drive overall sales.”
Mr Midlands wasn’t too impressed with that response. “How would it be possible for retailers to achieve that target when there are three shops that are right next to each other selling scratchcards?”
