UPS Store Franchise Dream Ends in a Florida Trailer Park
Franchise Pick reports on an excellent story about the UPS Franchise,
UPS Store Franchise Dream Ends in a Florida Trailer Park: "
(FranchisePick.Com)' According to a story in the Orlando Sentinel, UPS Store owners are angry.
In fact, more than 200 owners of UPS Stores across the country have filed a complaint against UPS and its franchiser, Mail Boxes Etc.
[Graphic:' The UPS Store franchise banner]
In a filing in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, the'franchise owners said'that they haven’t been able to make money because UPS undermines them, using the branded stores as drop-off points for prepaid packages and forcing the owners to focus on providing low margin services, like printing and document preparation, that they aren’t geared to provide.
Retirement Dream Ends in a Nightmare
The article tells the sad tale of Chuck Wilson, who used his retirement savings to relocate to Winter Park, FL from Baltimore to own the UPS Store there.' His dream turned into a nightmare.' after losing nearly everything, Wilson has taken a job with an electric company and moved into a trailer park in Clearwater.
‘I never made any money at all the whole time I was there,’ he said. ‘We were' getting so desperate for ways to make money.’
‘We’re so counting on this lawsuit, to somehow recoup all the money we’ve lost in this whole thing,’ he said.
Whatever the result, it probably won’t come quickly.
It can take months, and sometimes years, for a complaint to be certified as a class-action suit, and for the lawsuits to be resolved.
Ellis Abide, who had a UPS Store in Orlando’s College Park area for more than three years, says he also became disenchanted with his investment.
‘That wasn’t clearly stated, that I would be a glorified drop box,’ Abide said.
Separate Suit Alleges Overbilling of Franchisees and Customers.
Another'complaint filed May 2 in U.S. District Court in San Francisco'contends that'UPS overbills its franchise owners for shipping rates.
‘Once you get in the store, you realize UPS is charging you more than everybody else,’ said Wilson, who said it wasn’t uncommon for customers to balk at — and walk away from — the prices he offered.
But when the franchise owners started to complain, they said UPS had an answer for them.
‘They’d say, ‘You have to get your profit centers going,’ ’ Wilson said. Owners said they were encouraged to rely on their copy machines and document and printing services to boost revenues, but said consumers see ‘UPS’ in the stores’ names and associate them with shipping, not document work.
[Also see:' Is UPS Cheating its Customers, Franchisees… and YOU?]
High Dollar Bait & Switch?
The UPS Store franchise owners are just hoping to get back some of the money from their initial investments — which for some was $150,000 or more.'' They believe they’re victims of a bait and switch scheme perpetrated by one of the nation’s most reknowned brands.' According to one franchisee quoted in the article:'
‘What I was told and what I was sold were two different things’
