All articles by Jac Roper – Page 32
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Dear Jac
Dear Jac: The DTI is still busy winding up dodgy publishers.
In the last four days I’ve had two emails from the DTI saying that it was in the process of winding up Adrian Smythe Publishing and has already wound up UK Frontline Services. The former was engaged in cold-calling businesses to sell sponsorships in child safety and crime awareness books. ...
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Dear Jac
Dear Jac: ‘Top shelf’ means you have to be tall enough to reach the titles stocked there before you can buy them.
That’s a pretty good rule of thumb. And it is also Byron Jackson’s approach. Byron, who runs a c-store in Burry Port, South Wales, with his wife Nadette, emailed me with a bit of a saga. He writes: “We (rightly or wrongly) restrict the sale of the only two top-shelf ...
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Dear Jac
Dear Jac: Don’t put your signature anywhere near a blank standing order.
I had two calls in as many days in late July regarding SD Media, which sells on-screen space in places like doctors’ surgeries, advertising local businesses. But both retailers, Subhas Patel in Richmond, London and Roger Yalim in Margate, Kent believed they were only handing over cheques for around £120 ...
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Dear Jac
Dear Jac: Anybody know where a Lotto retailer can find supplies of plastic wallets?
Camelot used to provide special plastic wallets, but no longer does, and furthermore couldn’t tell me who could.
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Dear Jac
Dear Jac: There is almost always another side to the coin.
In the last issue I discussed coins of the realm, prompted by a call from Binz Sidhu in Telford who wondered whether it was okay to accept coins from the Channel Islands, the Isle of Man and so on. He had been told they were okay/they were not okay and ...
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Dear Jac
Dear Jac: When is an accountant getting money for old rope?
Mukesh Patel is unhappy with a bill he received from his accountant following a VAT inspection.
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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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: ‘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: 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: 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 ...