All articles by Jac Roper – Page 3

  • News

    Giving it the thumbs up

    2004-03-01T00:00:00Z

    Here’s the theory: if a customer has forgotten his/her cheque book/cards and promises to come back later, they will do so unfailingly if you have taken their fingerprints. Furthermore, if you take their fingerprints even when the cards are present, they won’t be engaging in fraudulent practice using duff plastic. ...

  • News

    Am i breaking the law

    2004-03-01T00:00:00Z

    Roger Smith, who runs Bapchild Service Centre at Sittingbourne in Kent, got quite wound up when he read the ‘No ID, No Sale’ info packs left by his cigarette merchandiser as part of a campaign to stamp out sales of restricted goods to the under-aged. The fact sheet spells out ...

  • News

    Making your own luck

    2004-02-01T00:00:00Z

    The world divides into the reactive and the proactive. Sebastian Nonis, who runs Forfar Road Service Station in Dundee, is not the sort to take things lying down. I know this because I have a file This Thick on my desk illustrating the lengths that he will go to promote ...

  • News

    The silver lining is Jet

    2004-02-01T00:00:00Z

    Still on the above subject, January comes and I get a calendar through the post. It features a fine picture of Forfar Service Station, brightly branded Jet and with the message that the business is sponsoring the Dundee Tigers under 16s ice hockey team. It had all happened very fast. ...

  • News

    Take the bull(ring) by the horns

    2004-02-01T00:00:00Z

    A Birmingham retailer rang with an average tale of woe – roadworks had re-routed business for a while, general competition was up, place needed a facelift but he couldn’t afford it. I say an ‘average’ call as I do get many like this. It doesn’t compare with the ones I ...

  • News

    Rules is rules

    2004-01-01T00:00:00Z

    As one petrol retailer observed to me recently, you can hardly walk across the forecourt without breaking some regulation or other. The Association of Convenience Stores phoned with a query on age-related goods. One of their members wanted to know the legal age for selling petrol. Apparently trading standards had ...

  • News

    Smell a rat?

    2004-01-01T00:00:00Z

    Here’s a seasonal story for you. Chris and Marion Clark, who run Marion’s Shop and Filling Station on Rousay in the Orkneys, wondered why every Switch transaction via Streamline in the run-up to Christmas involved a call to Streamline’s authorisation centre. “As a consequence,” says Chris, “our customers have been ...

  • News

    Sue online

    2004-01-01T00:00:00Z

    One of the forecourt operators who contacted me about Deal Direct/Our Price was Bernard Knowles who runs Forge Garage in North Yorkshire. He had his fingers burned in dealing with Deal Direct and issued a small claims court summons over the internet. The company, which had not been responding to ...

  • News

    Off licence confusion

    2003-12-01T00:00:00Z

    Susan Young, who runs Nantybwch Service Station at Tredeger in Gwent, was bemused to get a letter from a firm of solicitors in Merthyr Tydfil, suggesting that she might like to use their services in renewing her off licence and urging her to reply by November 10. Susan wondered if ...

  • News

    Words fail

    2003-11-01T00:00:00Z

    Are you still selling phone top-ups? Steve Dyer, manager of Knight Bros Thornfalcon Garage at Taunton in Somerset, has sent me a rant. Cardpoint had written to say that Orange had reduced its retailer margins on e-top-ups by 0.5 per cent. “Words absolutely fail me,” writes Steve. “I have told ...

  • News

    What price profits?

    2003-10-01T00:00:00Z

    Our story back in August about Chris Cundall’s quest to make up his deficit on his Texaco petrol margins by putting up his snacks and confectionery prices has prompted some interesting responses. Richard emailed me a comprehensive set of equations to show you don’t necessarily need to match the competition. ...

  • News

    Different, but similar

    2003-10-01T00:00:00Z

    Anyone who has visited North America will likely come back with the notion that they don’t know they’re born as far as petrol prices go. Last month I visited my family in Canada, managing to arrive 20 minutes before a huge hydro blackout rendered everything into darkness along the eastern ...

  • News

    The art of writing

    2003-10-01T00:00:00Z

    They say letter writing is a lost art. Well, not entirely, although it may have become a bit sidetracked into those great stacks of emails and txt msgs u get 4 eg. But the writing of a good, coherent letter of complaint, now that is often a difficult thing, given ...

  • News

    Protect yourselves

    2003-09-01T00:00:00Z

    The Data Protection Act has been in force for a few years now – long enough for the crooks to get their brains around the various opportunities for scams. The most common scams take the form of companies demanding money from retailers for registering them under the Act – and ...

  • News

    Congestion at the till

    2003-09-01T00:00:00Z

    It seemed like one of life’s rich ironies when Carol Smith had to put the customer transaction for congestion charging through the PayPoint terminal 13 times. “Eight times is the norm,” she says, “and it’s the same with telephone top-ups. Error 2061 pops up.” This apparently means no lines available ...

  • News

    Passable petrol profits - just nostalgia?

    2003-08-01T00:00:00Z

    Don’t look back they say. Those who do are often accused of viewing the good ol’ days through rose-tinted specs. But as Chris Cundall points out, he was operating on better profits 10 years ago. He runs two petrol stations with Londis stores in West Yorkshire. He’s been a Texaco ...

  • News

    Sometimes you get what you wish for

    2003-08-01T00:00:00Z

    I had rather wished that DVD supplier Deal Direct would just go away. Sylvia Brudenall, who runs a Murco service station at Taunton, agrees. “I got a load of unwanted stuff last October from Price Slasher (another of the company’s incarnations). I kept asking them to pick the DVDs up ...

  • News

    Give us a break

    2003-07-01T00:00:00Z

    You wouldn’t have wanted the mini break I’ve just had. Most of the self-catering shopping I did on a four-day break in Cornwall involved visiting various Safeways, which seemed to have the supermarket monopoly in most places. We were offered leaflets at every entrance – cheap petrol etc. This didn’t ...

  • News

    Have you been dealt with yet?

    2003-07-01T00:00:00Z

    The number of calls I’ve received from retailers about DVD supplier Deal Direct is now just shy of 60, so here’s an update. One of Deal Direct’s recent tactics for delaying payment of sale-or-return money was the excuse that the accounts lady was off sick. It had been offering therefore ...