JANI-KING Franchise Complaints
JANI-KING Franchise Complaints: Add your own – or defend the company – below.
(UnhappyFranchisee.Com) Entrepreneur magazine lavishes high praise on the Jani-King franchise opportunity via its 2010 franchise rankings. Entrepreneur ranked the 10,000+ unit Jani-King #8 overall in the 2010 Franchise 500, the #2 low-cost franchise, the #1 home-based franchise and #7 in the “America’s Best Global Franchise” category.
Of course, Entrepreneur states that when compiling their rankings they do not “measure subjective elements such as franchisee satisfaction…” since “…these are judgments only you can make.”
In a time when many individuals are struggling to make ends meet, the Jani-King franchise opportunity – with its low start-up cost and guaranteed cleaning contracts – seems especially enticing. But do a bit of digging and you’ll find some troubling – and remarkably consistent – complaints from Jani-King franchise owners.
Lawsuits allege a cleaning-contract shell game.
In an August, 2009 Franchise Times article on lawsuits leveled against commercial cleaning franchise companies, Julie Bennett writes:
…the lawsuits, filed recently in Massachusetts against all three companies and in Pennsylvania, Minnesota and California against Jani-King, contend that the cleaning companies misrepresent their offerings, because they do not have sufficient customers to guarantee each franchisee the amount of monthly cleaning business they purchase. Instead, the lawsuits allege, they breach their contracts by underbidding the amount of time and staffing required for each job, refusing to allow franchisees to inspect cleaning jobs or bid sheets before accepting or rejecting a job, offering geographically inconvenient jobs and unjustly taking jobs from one franchisee to re-sell them to others.
Consumer complaint sites are abundant with specific complaints about the Jani-King franchise, the franchisor and the regional master franchisees who recruit unit-level owners.
On the Complaints Board, 2009-08-22 letshelp wrote
franchise is a scam
I purchased a Jani-King Commercial Cleaning Franchise after reading they were a great franchise opportunity in several franchise magazines. During my initial meeting with the regional director I expressed concern over the 40% they take off the top of what clients are billed. He told me not to worry as they take all their fees into consideration when giving a cleaning quote to a client.
When they started offerring me contracts I would do the math and tell them there was very little profit in some contracts and absolutely none in others. I was told this was a low profit margin industry and I had to learn to work some “break even” contracts for I would get additional business from those same clients ( floor waxing ).
I accepted some of these contracts since they are only required to offer you the amount of cleaning business you purchased (with the franchise cost ). If you don’t accept the accounts they are not required to offer you anymore.
Once I started working accounts, the operations director would go by the account every month to evaluate the franchisee’s performance. He would always find something negative to write about to justify taking the account away from the franchisee and reselling it to a new franchisee. So the franchisee ends up losing the original franchise fee and whatever fee he paid for the accounts he was working at hardly no profit.
I later learned this type of scam preys on people who have never been in business for themselves – so trust the Franchisor. If anyone is looking into purchasing this type of franchise, do yourself a favor and run a Google or Yahoo search on Jani-King. They have had numerous lawsuits and government complaints. I lost all my savings, but hopefully others can learn from my mistake.
85 days ago, Rickety Rabbit responded:
Almost the same thing happend to me in Boston. I bought a Jani King franchise in 2006. I paid $15, 000 for $4000 per month in business. Minus the 22% Jani- King takes off the top. With what is left I pay for labor, chemicals, and equipment.
Jani King has it so they do not have to provide you with the $4000 per month in business, they only need OFFER it to you. If you refuse it, that’s it. They don’t owe it to you any longer. You had your chance. But here is what they do. They underbid the account by hundreds of dollars. They make false promises to the business owner, and do not tell the franchise owner about it. When the business owner cancels because the promises are not met, the franchise owner is left to make a decision. Take care of the promises never mentioned to you ( such as delivering the newspaper ever morning, or a free strip and wax every month) both are actual cases, and both would have put me in the negative for profit.
So I was forced to give it up. No fault of mine. Also the account is not supposed to cancel before one year. If they do Jani King promises to file suit with a killer legal team. Which they must have because they are still in business. However they only use it to defend itself from angry franchise owners.
They purposely offer you accounts that are way underbid, or too far away. When you deny them, they no longer owe you the account. If I could do it all over again I would invest in real estate on Venus before having to deal with this again.
One last thing. I placed over 40 calls per month to the district manager for four months straight. Not one call answered not one call returned. I had to buy an existing franchise that was already working with history in order to pay the bills while waiting for my $4000 in business. Now I am about to lose those accounts to under bidders. Can you believe that? In this economy there are those worse then Jani King that UNDERBID them. Sorry. Very sorry.
ARE YOU FAMILIAR WITH THE JANI-KING FRANCHISE? WHAT DO YOU THINK? SHARE A COMMENT BELOW.
still being moderated….I am a franchisee in Vancouver Canada ….I have been a franchisee….seems my spell check informs me I don’t spell franchissee right….for 12 years…..maybe you guys have a little bit different system where you live….You have my name and you can figure out where to check this…..I have never told Jani King the bid was too low….in fact the opposite is true….yes they take a cut…and yes it just increased….I am known for telling them to cut the price for a lot of contracts….why?….because I would rather that customer to call me back for the next time than say they were over charged>>>to be cont’d…
speak your mind….that’s funny…..but my point is I have the ability to input on a lot of contracts the price I feel is appropriate in order to KEEP the customer….not sure how it works in the states…..
I don’t have any employees…I do all my work myself….for one reason I haven’t found anyone who can clean like I do….the other reason is I Love To Clean….that is the whole difference here…..People who don’t like or love to clean should not get into this business….don’t get me wrong though…like any where there are those little problems that happen in house….like I said before 12 years a franchisee 27 years doing this type of work…..and I LOVE IT
Jani-king, Burlington Ma office. Sucks, they lie about everthing and it causes the Franchisee to lose money..
They low bid every job and expert the Franchisee to eat it. They never tell the truth or return phone calls.
They go bid on a job and NEVER include the Franchisee, You ask questions about the contract and the required work and they lie to your face, then when the customer ask why work is not done they blame the Franchisee, who was never told about thr extra work, SHAME ON JANI KING !
New people who can tell the truth are needed, stop screwing the Franchisee and stop lying about the under biding and not informing the Francisee owner!!!!
While there are surely negative things that I could say about owning my JaniKing Franchise, I must stress that after 7 years I am happy that I made this choice. Yes, it is a lot of work. I have 11 employees and work closely with my Regional Director on many items. I think that may be the major difference here – I feel fortunate that I have a local/regional office that responds to my questions and concerns. I don’t always like the answer that I get, but I do get an answer. GO TEAM OREGON!!
Jani-King is a sucker bet. Tell you a lot and show very little. Promises are mad and not kept. Two of the contracts they owed me are 60 miles apart, one of which pays 300 a month. Another can only be cleaned on Saturday when the store is open. Jani-king is the worst franchise you can get. Get anything else, and JaniKing is famous for taking contracts for BS reasons and giving them to new franchisees to satisfy initial offerings. One client I had taken from me offered more money to get me back but Jani-King never told me and tried to keep the extra money for themselves. They lost the contract because they tried to jerk the client around they did me.
yes you must have a different system because those complaints are the same ones i have in Milwaukee WI
jani king in Birmingham al is scam all of the franchisee of there money we need to stop them.
So,once again having issues with receiving my paycheck from BBJ and associates (Jani King) for work that has been completed over the course of 2.5 months. Mario D. Blount refuses to pay me my money for services that i have performed. This is an ongoing matter. I am not the only person that was formally an employee who either directly before payday or on payday has been told a bogus story about something they did not do correctly in which hundreds of dollars are being deducted or entire paychecks being withheld because he doesn’t want to pay or have enough money to pay for services rendered during the previous pay period. ***STAY AWAY FROM THIS COMPANY IF YOU WANT YOUR MONEY AND RESPECT!** (Its a safe place to work if you are a male. He typically respects them alot more)
This is in Columbus, Ohio
I purchased a Jani-King franchise in 2001 I invested $24000 in the franchise which was a total scam. They would find me clients that were already un happy with there current franchisee that they were with before I took on the contract so there was no way I had a chance of keeping the client contracted after his contract was up. Then most of the contracts were under bid on so I wouldn’t see a profit unless I completed the assignment myself. And then through all that mess they still didn’t meet my monthly income requirements of the $6000 of income per month and they started to charge me finder fees on new clients when they haven’t even met there contractual agreement with me. Total scam, I got contacted from some anonymous source about a class action but never heard anything since.
This saddens me. I honestly was in the verge of investing $21000. Never. How have they not been shut down?
I bought one of those 4k a month franchises some years ago.
All contracts they gave me were from accounts they took off of other franchises ie: damaged goods which were either underbid or were getting serviced poorly…Through a ton of hard work and a little luck, I managed to hang around for several years. I honestly don’t see how this is even legal?
The office isn’t there for you, it’s there for the master franchise owner and Texas to generate fees by fines, churning accounts and excessive fees. Better off starting your own. What do you need them for? Cleaning is easy…They seem to prey on foreigners and minorities. I’m white and college educated so I had an advantage. I could go to the accounts and put out fires and defend myself on my own.
The office sides with the owners and they don’t have any problem taking the account away from to and giving it to someone else. They generate huge fees this way. Most in the office know little to nothing about cleaning. They sell accounts and farm out the work under the guise of “Franchises” but don’t operate like your typical “franchise” again, don’t see how this is even legal…They exist because they can…Coverall, Janiking, Janpro etc.
There isn’t much to be made from private attorneys and what janitor has 200k for a class action suit? So your only real hope is the government and that probably isn’t going to happen…You can’t really grow your biz because if they offer you a new account they charge you 80% up front the 1st month and then 40% for the next 13 months so you can’t afford to even hire someone so you are doing it yourself.
Over time the combination of
1. dealing with all the b.s from the customers
2. the hard work.
3. dealing with the office (it seems like they are undermining you at times)
4. your help if you have any
5. The crazy, excessive fees, will wear you down over time. They make you carry a crazy amount of insurance…10 million…Much better to start your own..
I’m from Winnipeg Canada and planing buying a $23000 cleaning company (janikings). They said 10% royality fee and 7% other fees.
And an extra insurance which I don’t know yet how much. This is for $3000 a month. Is it worth to buy ? Need help.
Thanks.
Eden
The insurance they make you carry is a 10 million blanket with a high deductible…You will be paying at least 20% including insurance to the office each month. The initial accounts they give you in all likelihood will be accounts they take off of other people so you will be walking into a situation where the accounts are either being serviced poorly and/or poorly bid. If you cant get these accounts renewed at their anniversary date, they may offer you more biz, but you will pay thru the nose with fees this time around…I’m sure there are some success stories, but the buyers remorse is likely to be higher…
I have viewed the Jani-King franchise offering in New Zealand. I find it attractive and would be more than willing to invest. I know that they honour what they promise as I’ve seen many franchisees that have purchased a franchise and been successful. I was aware one recently re bought a franchise after having to sell his first one a few years ago to return to China for personal reasons. I agree though, do your homework but also ask the company to give you the names of 5 or so franchisees to talk too … I have.
Jani King Commercial Cleaning – Labour law violations-Scam (Vancouver, BC)
Buyer beware this place is going to court for Labour disputes. They scam there franchisee and employees control the owners. Employees never work and have something over the employer. The girl working there is the worst of the worst in B2B and the office psychopath. I am way over qualified and glad to move on, but seeking compensation in lost wages and harassment and abuse. They are breaking the labour laws and all franchisees need to be warned and protected. The existing sales staff lie and never work. It is a loud, unpleasant environment, and they will put on an act to use you. The others have no experience. It is the worst of the worst I have ever seen. Family business that is going to ruin the reputation for the entire company Globally. Most unprofessional, unethical business I have ever experienced. Franchisee scam. There will be no benefits and they will block EI contributions, thinking they can get around labour laws, and benefits just before the three months. Evil is the appropriate word to describe the owners and the way they run there business. They don’t provide clients for franchisees, and openly state they don’t care. Edna just bought herself a brand new car, at the expense of all franchisees. I have never seen anything so unprofessional, and deceptive. This is a SCAM and you will get no help from Head Office in Canada or the U.S.
1741 Boundary Rd, Vancouver, BC V5M 3Y7
We are still having the same issues with Jani-King to this day.
Please sign and share this petition that we have set up: http://chng.it/VNyv7fzLfQ
My wife bought a Jani-King Franchise and like most of the comments on here they have underbid the accounts and played a shell game with the contracts. We are now in Arbitration with them and trying to make it out. We did create a petition on Change.org about the company in Phoenix and trying to get the word out. If you have a moment please sign.
http://chng.it/CPHyHrk5qS
Thanks,