Tabcorp pays a business to send people to lottery outlets to check (audit) compliance with signage and other requirements.
Through Covid, Tabcorp suspended this service and instead asked (encouraged) retailers self assess. The company offered no compensation for this. Indeed, it was put as a polite request.
Retailers have told me they have been threatened with a breach by a Tabcorp representative if they do not complete the self assessment.
If true, this is the company using a heavy financial weapon against these businesses because the businesses have not done for Tabcorp, for no compensation, something that Tabcorp wants only for themselves.
This would be appalling and bullying behaviour.
Tabcorp preferences paperwork over sales, it preferences keeping small business retailers performing like circus monkeys with threats if they do not complete the circus performance routine exactly as Tabcorp demands.
You can have a small business retailer delivering net sales growth to Tabcorp and yet the company will issue bullying emails and threats of breach if the retailer does not do the act that Tabcorp demands.
Making financially harmful threats to small business owners in the middle of covid is appalling and bullying behaviour.
The harm of threats by Tabcorp against small business retailers have been considerable emotional, but the compare does not appear to care. It takes a toll at a difficult time, in the middle of Covid, with challenges in-store and in local communities, but Tabcorp and its people do not appear to care.
Tabcorp has been no help through Covid, it has offered no support.
I get that there will be people at Tabcorp who will say he is just ranting against us as he usually does. They’d be right for there has been plenty to rant about when it comes to Tabcorp and its treatment of small business retailers. They screw up time and again, hurting businesses and those who run them. Indeed, the personal emotional cost I have seen has been considerable.
Frankly, I don’t personally care as I don’t have The Lott (Tabcorp) in my businesses and never will. I cannot and will not work with that company as their treatment of small business retailers is unprofessional, disrespectful and bullying.
Is ‘self assessment’ likely to become the norm expected by Tabcorp when all this COVID stuff is in the past ?
My guess…. ? …. Probably..
Why pay to have controls monitored when you can force those being controlled to do the monitoring for no cost, and still penalise them for breaches.
Personally I prefer the concept of self- assessment which I feel is less disruptive to our day to day trading. What I don’t like is Tabcorp’s compliance penalty stick which ties non compliance (however minor) with a decrease in remuneration back to us . Any non compliance rewards Tabcorp effectively reducing our net commission by 10 per cent. The compliance requirement to actively sign up registered players for Omni channel promotion is particularly concerning with absolutely no benefit to the franchisee in growth in this channel.
In this current era of job promotion and small business government support I would love to see the state governments tax all online revenue at a higher rate than in store gambling. Further the instore rate could be reduced with all savings passed directly onto Tabcorp franchisees in the form of an increase in the current rate of commission.