All Service Centre articles – Page 2
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News
Service Centre: Jac Roper on going back to Londis; two become one; and a fond farewell
A remarriage of convenience Once upon a time Mandeep Singh’s site, Hillcrest Filling Station in Huddersfield, had been a Londis store but they had parted company it was a sort of square peg in a round hole situation. When he first contacted me a year or so ago, he had ...
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Service Centre: Jac Roper on Horizon in the dock; and warranty woes
Is there justice on the Horizon? Some 560 retailers (the ’claimants’) are hoping that their group action against Post Office Ltd (POL the ’defendant’) will bring them justice retailers who lost their livelihoods, reputations and in extreme cases their lives over accusations of false accounting using the Horizon system. Among ...
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Service Centre: Jac Roper on inheriting a horrendous bill and cashing in on cashback
An ’inheritance’ he could do without This is a story full of twists and turns with one consistent note. Scottish Power has so far not been able to provide Central Avenue Service Station in Nuneaton with either an electricity meter that works or an appropriate bill although it has been ...
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Service Centre: Jac Roper on how One Stop threatens retailer with bankruptcy order
When One Stop was not the answer This is a sad story about a garage that is no more. Well, it’s still there, in Wales, waiting to be re-activated, more of which later. It goes back a year or more to the previous owner, who wishes to remain anonymous. His ...
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Service Centre: Jac Roper on poor customer service and canopy carnage from HGVs
A big complaint and a big response A poor service record can cost you customers. Jon Brownsey, who runs Fordingbridge Service Station in Hampshire, sent me a subject that he said was beyond a joke for him: pump maintenance, or lack of it. He writes: "For some time now, the ...
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Service Centre: Jac Roper on shoddy work, ATM questions and why it pays to compare
It’s undercover work so you can’t check it When you pay more than £60k for underground work that you can’t actually inspect, you have to trust the guy doing the job. Those of you who receive Petrol Heads-Up from the PRA may have noticed a story recently concerning a contractor ...
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Service Centre: Jac Roper on finding the best fuel deal and going nowhere with deliveries
Fuel for thought and some tricky sums A lot of people will shop around for the best deals but it can be a huge headache working out what is best for your site. An anonymous retailer wrote in to say that a big problem he has had in the past ...
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Service Centre: Jac Roper - energy woes roll on... but a happy ending for one reader
Power struggle Here’s the dilemma. If an energy company badly screws up by not having a meter working at your site and then sends you a bill for £7k after you have folded the business do you pay it or not? I think I know what most of you would ...
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Service Centre: Jac Roper on solving a supply problem and sending back Scratchcards
Going that extra mile for deliveries A lot of garages got left in the lurch following the collapse of Palmer & Harvey last year. Nisa picked up quite a few of the pieces, but not all. Carol Smith’s small store at Bridge Garage in Shrewton, Salisbury, has been left stranded ...
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Service Centre: Jac Roper on fuel contract confusion and finding the right symbol group
It was a bad split up Just before Easter I got a call from Akbar Aras who runs Top Stop Services in Cannock, Staffordshire. He was about to come out of his contract with Jet but, with just four days to go he received a call from the Phillips 66 ...
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Service Centre: Jac Roper on gas supplies, epos problems and staff safety
It’s Catch 22 This was a tricky one. Ismail Bhattay, rang from his Uplands site in Birmingham to say that he had had no gas for nearly three weeks and his supply agreement with Flogas prevented him from obtaining supplies elsewhere. He said he understood that rural areas had to ...
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Service Centre: Jac Roper on another power struggle and finding the right fascia
A powerful way to put customers off You do sometimes wonder how quite big companies manage to screw up so badly when dealing with customers. Jagdish Radia got in touch to give some unwelcome publicity to Scottish Power after he felt he had no alternative but to complain to the ...
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Service Centre: Jac Roper on a tale of two energy queries plus credit card fees
You win some, you lose some I was contacted on two different occasions involving Kirit Patel’s two businesses (Premier Forecourts, Penryn, Cornwall) and on the same subject but with quite different outcomes. In the first case he had bought a rundown property in 2015. The premises had a gas meter ...
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Service centre: Jac Roper on fury at police response to drive-offs plus bespoke repairs
Is the first drive-off really a freebie? Happy New Year and all that. But some things just won’t go away. Jay Patel got in touch from Scaynes Hill Service Station in West Sussex to draw my attention to Sussex Police’s decision to not regard drive-offs as crimes. He says: "According ...
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Service centre: Jac Roper - three reader problems resolved
Early Christmas present for Salim Last month I featured a retailer who was totally ticked off with Innzone for sending him unwanted supplies of e-cigs via their third-party arrangement with Smiths News. He was by no means the first to complain about this arrangement. I therefore wasn’t surprised to get ...
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Service Centre: Jac Roper on a major epos headache plus a happy ending for Diyan
Dealer gives up and gives in on epos At the beginning of this year, I got embroiled in a dispute between Gibbs Group and Point Four over its pos system. Lesley Graves, company secretary at the Group, wrote that the previous year they had purchased a Point Four pos system ...
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Service centre: Jac Roper on fuel supply woes; epos help; and contactless feedback
I got an email from Trevor Griffiths, (Overbrook Recovery Services, Gloucestershire) which said: "We are a small garage who opened in 1969. We were first of all with BP and then changed to Butler Fuels in around 1981. They were eventually bought out by Power then Certas. The end of ...
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Service Centre: Jac Roper on a coffee scam, plus Payzone and Paypoint problems
Wake up and smell the coffee rip off Gunvant Patel got in touch from Hangleton Service Station in Hove, East Sussex, to alert us to what he describes as an "increasing problem" with Costa Express. He, like a growing number of you, has a Costa Express machine which is apparently ...
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Service centre: Jac Roper with more on rates; a power struggle; plus an ATM win
The rates have gone up in smoke There has been some discussion on this page in the past about rateable values and how business rates are calculated and how unfair retailers believe them to be. Back in April, Thair Majid wrote that he thought the Valuation Office Agency (VOA) had ...
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Service Centre: Jac Roper on cash that won’t come; Htec responds; and more on rates
Happy solution to ATM problem Every so often I get copied in on emails that Nailesh Gokani fires off to Cardtronics about the various faults he has with his ATM at Empire Garage in north London’s Enfield. Last year he found the machine out of money on a weekly basis. ...