IT Employment
See my experience with a franchise of an international training and certification provider.
by timwalsh
At this point, if there is still any chance of you getting your money back, You're probably going to have to get a lawyer involved to do it.
You really only have two other possible routes at this time:
Going after ExecuTrain itself. They are the franchisor. They might hold some sort of enforcement ability over their franchisees. Or they might tell you that they aren't responsible for the any actions of their franchisees that is over and above their standard policies.
Going after theprevious owners of the franchise. However, if the previous owners were smart, they didn't own the franchise directly but through another company that offered limited liability. If this is the case, and that company is also out of business, you areout of luck.
It might be possible to pursue a fraus suit against the previous owners as officers of the company that held the franchise.
It is not unusual at all to purchase the assets of a company, but not be responsible for any debts of thatcompany.
To see what your LEGAL options truly are, you really need to contact a lwyer specializing in business law.
Anything you get from anyone on this forum (unless they happen to be trained in law), is only going to be guess work and suppositions.
I'm not going to go into how wise or unwise it was to sign a contract based on such a guarentee as this subject was pretty thoroughly covered in response to your MCP magazine article. All I will say is that if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
by edgargarrett
At this point my purpose is merely to make my story public so that others may avoid my mistake. Like I told MCP Magazine's Keith Ward with regard to lawyers and lawsuits, I'm not interested in throwing good money after bad.
People need to know that there are in this industry sleazy operators who operate under the reputation of international companies.
by timwalsh
Didn't mean to lecture.
I took your post to be one seeking advice instead of merely getting the word out.
The franchises in the IT industry are no different from those in any other industry. Franchises, in general, can run from those that arevery strictly regulated by the parent company to those where "Sorry, we only lease our name and give the franchisee a few resources. How the franchise is run is left up to the franchise owner."
Any time you plan on laying out big bucks for any kind of service or product, it is very much a case of "Let the buyer beware!" Very often it is even more so when dealing with a franchise as your case very vivedly points out.
However, the point I was really trying to make was that the current owners of Executrain of Tulsa purchased the franchise from the national Executrain Corporation, not the previous owners. Therfore, although it has the same business name, it is an entirely different business. Therefore, they are correct in that they are not responsible for the previous owners obligations.
While you have a valid beef, it is with the previous owners of the franchise (for not following through on their obligations), and the national Executrain Corporation (for not policing there franchisees. You do not have a valid beef with the current owners of the franchise. Because of this, the current owners also have a valid beef about you trashingtheir name. Sorry, that's how franchises work.
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