CURVES Franchise: Curves Still Bullying Failed Franchise Owners
September 18, 2012
CURVES franchise owners don’t get a helping hand when they fail. No thank you card or best wishes. Just legal threats and a demand for tens of thousands of dollars.
Curves has new ownership, but not much has changed in the lack-of-compassion department.
Curves franchise owners who are unable to save their failing clubs (more than half of Curves clubs have failed) still should not expect a helping hand from Curves International.
They shouldn’t expect a nice letter thanking them for building the Curves brand, for paying years of royalties, for enabling Gary Heavin to strut like an altruistic peacock on national TV and cash out with an untold fortune.
What they can expect is a legal demand for the future royalties they would have had to pay if they hadn’t run out of money and could stay open to the end of their contract.
And they can expect Curves International to tell them they don’t actually own the equipment they paid for, and they should return it.
aussie z wrote:
Well I closed my club at the end of June, 4 years prior to the end of my agreement.
I did everything that CI wanted me to do in regards to closing.
I did not give them my equipment or CS [Curves Smart]I figured that I paid good money for it so I will do what I want with it.
I received a letter of demand for $64,000 to be paid within 7 days (what a joke).
I asked them to review this amount as I had no money, I then got another email telling me the figure was now $17,000, again I explained that I had no money and then a month later I got a letter delivered to my home signed by a person I have never heard of in the 6 years I have been dealing with Curves (must be from the new people who have taken over) telling me that I owe $64,000 again.
I sent an email to this person and have not heard anything since, it has now been a month since I received that letter.
I know that this will not be the last I hear from them but they will not be getting a red cent out of me. The restraints they put on you regarding getting rid of the equipment is ridiculous, there is no brand name on the equipment so what right do they have?
If they want my CS they can pay me the $12,000 I paid for it. I will not let CI bully me into anything and I will help anyone else who is being bullied by them. They need to be stopped.
In Australia we have gone from over 400 clubs in 2006 to 283 in 2012 with still many in the process of closing. I think that Curves has run its course over here and I would encourage any owner who has a profitable club to try and get rid of it before its too late. CI are putting to much emphasis on Curves Complete, I personally think it is a rip off. None of the members I had would have been able to afford the $199-$299.
I am so stressless since closing my club BUT I do miss my incredible members everyday.
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Comments
54 Responses to “CURVES Franchise: Curves Still Bullying Failed Franchise Owners”
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I googled number of Curves locations and found it on aggdata.com/gym_locations/curves. It lists 2486 locations as of 1-10-2013 in the US only.
That is an interesting figure Getting Out, we have gone from over 400 in Australia to 241 so obviously they cannot brag that there are over 10,000 worldwide now. Would be good to find out somehow exactly how many are left.
I’ve been told by clubs in other areas of the US that when you do not go to the area meetings that are mandatory that they take your club off the Curves Website, so if that is the cause you can’t go by the website which is what I did and counted each one for every state.
It just keeps getting better. NOT
I was told if you didn’t attend the REQUIRED meetings that you would not be entitled to receive any more leads. 90% of the leads we receive are bogus. So we don’t care.
We were also told that Curves plans to offer Curves Complete only! You won’t be able to offer just the exercise. It’s getting better.
We are planning on closing our club real soon. We can’t keep the doors open any longer. Rent just went up, our Wellness attendance is down and we are just not going to deal with Curves demands an longer.
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