Shopping in Sandton – March 2024
Welcome to Megaplex's monthly newsletter! We alert the up-market shopper to the new and interesting in Sandton and Bryanston. What can you learn from unresponsive Chiropractors? See below. We also have shop openings and closings, scam warnings and how to avoid losing your house if your business crashes. Our jokes are good and original, even if the good ones aren't original, and the original ones aren't good! Feel free to support our advertisers! To subscribe, see our subscription page.
A Business ParableI put my back out on Sunday morning 17 March. Busy roofing our dreadful slate roof (= slating our roof in two ways, ha ha!), I lifted too many tiles, popped my weak L5 vertebra. For the first time in at least a decade. I was in pain and needed a Chiropractor. Having the Megaplex database of businesses in Sandton, it was easy to search for "Chiro". Fourteen open ones came up. At 07:30 on Monday I started with the one nearest to me, at Manor Medical Centre, who claim to open at 07:00. I got "an SMS will be sent to let them know that you called". Lovely. I tried the next nearest two, at Morningside Shopping Centre. For both I got "the subscriber you dialled is not available at present, please try again later". Their links on myappointment no longer worked. Rivonia was next. I left two messages on voicemails for two different practitioners. They have yet to be answered. How about Riverside Shopping Centre? This one's website said to book on myappointment, but didn't let me book for the same day. Darn. It was now after eight. Finally, 7km away, I got a booking at Bryanston Chiropractic and Sports Injury Clinic in the Naturally Yours Centre (also called Culross Crossing). A human (Avril) answered the phone, and I got an 11 o'clock booking. Is Chiropractic booming to the extent that six practitioners did not want my business? Was I wrong to start calling at 07:30 on a Monday when most say they start at 07:00? Or are six practitioners now going hungry because, while they may be well-qualified, their ability to respond to patient enquiries sucks? Is your business any better? You can't answer your phone 24x7, but does your phone take messages? Do you respond to them promptly? Can customers find your website and book online easily? Times are tough and business is not guaranteed (look at the list of closures below if you doubt). There is someone out there willing to eat your lunch if you aren't proactive. Update: After three visits to Dr Samantha Young at Bryanston Chiropractic, my back is much better. Sam and her partner Dr Bradley Sandler practice evidence-based treatments, something not guaranteed of all Chiropractors. It seems that this complementary medicine has its share of snake-oil practitioners, of which that centre has plenty too. An Easter Riddle Back to topWhat do you get when you pour boiling water down a rabbit-hole?
Answer: (for the woke: no rabbits were harmed in the making of this joke)
Checkers Opens at 90° on Rivonia Back to topYes, folks! As at 28 March 2024, the long-anticipated Checkers is finally open! Lots of opening specials for the Easter Weekend. The new Checkers is bigger than Spar was, having also taken over the long-unused restaurant area to the left. That is now the entrance, bakery, butchery and deli area. The supermarket area is compact and light. They have, unusually for a supermarket, kept the big glass windows that look out onto the car park. That is now the checkout area, which also has express tills. This give a pleasant, open effect. Here is a photo of the South end of the Centre with Pet Shop Science, Eden Tech, and Oasis Water:
New on the Block, Movers and Shakers Back to top
Today's Mondegreen“It doesn’t make a difference if we’re naked or not”. ... Correct lyric: “It doesn’t make a difference if we make it or not” from Bon Jovi’s ‘Livin’ On A Prayer’. Scammers, Damned Scammers...The internet is like the Wild West. One has to be so careful. A friend asked me to make a purchase on her behalf on a Facebook group, as her card was not working. It looked like a very good deal: "Clearance sale" - buy one bottle of hair conditioner at about 90% off and get another one free. I had hardly confirmed the transaction when I got an SMS from Standard Bank, followed shortly by a voice call: Urgent Standard Bank Fraud Dept: Hi RICHARD RAUBENHEIMER, please confirm the following transactions on your card with number ending 6943. R57.22 on 2024-03-25 at <site1> has been Approved, R57.22 on 2024-03-25 at <site2> has been Approved and R74.98 on 2024-03-23 at Clicks Morning Glen has been Approved. If you did the transactions reply Y, otherwise reply N. It is important that you reply to this message to prevent your card from possibly being suspended. The debit for <site1> was mine (but should have been R60). The other debit, for the same amount, by <site2>, I never authorised. The Clicks transaction was genuine. The Bank cancelled my card and is issuing me a new one. The conditioner was a scam. It is strange that they put through a double debit, which must have alerted the bank. I should have questioned a R649.99 price marked down to R60, but I was in a hurry and trusted my friend. A Google search for the name of the company quickly revealed "Treloran Retail" as a known scammer. Google Maps shows their business address of "34 Shelduck Crescent, Cape Town, Floor 2" as a small one-story house. Later, scrolling down below the advert on the Facebook page, I found comments warning that it is a scam. Of course, the conditioner never arrived. Moral: Do your research –unlike me, preferably first! If it seems to be too good to be true, clearance sale or not, it probably is! My friend also got a message about a parcel addressed to her, with a "damaged label". They asked her to pay R38 for delivery. The link took us to a website with FedEx branding that even had a photo of a label with her name on it, and a torn barcode! But the site's URL was nothing like fedex. I Googled that plus "scam" and it turned out to be a suspicious site. When I clicked through to see what would happen, AVG blocked a virus download. Be warned! Odd JobsWould an optometrist's website be "a site for sore eyes"?
Joined Their Ancestors: Back to top
Closing Down? Would You Lose Your House and Marriage? Back to topOur friend and mentor, Peter Carruthers, writes: Many years ago, the local sheriff in Somerset West took all my furniture. And my wristwatch. I went into free fall. I had signed personal sureties for my business. The firm had closed, like 75% of startups. And like a helluva lot of firms in 1992-94. My wife came home and saw me sitting on the floor sobbing. She sat next to me. She told me that this was God's matriculation exam. And that I should take what I had learned and share it with every other business owner in the world. I have been sharing since then. Click here to see it. I have never seen a business book that tells you not to sign personal guarantees. Instead, every author assumes that these are obligatory. No business book tells you the reality of the fallout.
I recently contacted a senior Canadian attorney who focuses on personal guarantees. I asked him why so few cases reach court. He came back with a short reply. “The document is waterproof. There is no point in fighting it. No sane person should sign it.” The only time to fight it is BEFORE you sign it. Yet none of us know how, or even that we should. Once signed, you're negotiating to get it back. And that's almost impossible. Unless you use the tools and techniques that I learned back then. We don't go into business in isolation. When we start out, we are triumphs of hope over reality. We wouldn't start out if we didn't think we would succeed. Our business partners are more concerned about their success than ours.
They don't care about your problem starting during COVID. (Or from lack of electricity or anything else.) They want your house if your business closes while you owe them money. (Your home gives them immense leverage to make you pay that business debt.)I've been there. Since my closure, I've shared these secrets with 30,000 small business owners. Go here to see how to NOT sign personal sureties (guarantees). This is the only training which shows you
I wouldn't have lost my home, got divorced, and gone through five years of financial agony if I had known all this. Please share this email.Regards Thought for the Weak: Back to topImagine a beauty parlour that also did BDSM: You'd never know what type of lashes you might get.
Overheard at the Restaurant Checkout"Are you sure that is edible?" "Definitely. I had some just now, and I've had no ill effec... splutter... choke...aaaaagh!" |
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Newsletter Issued 30 March 2024 – Page Last Updated: 29 March 2024. – Contact us.