Like many people, my wife and I thought of being self employed by owning a franchised business. We live in southern California in the Inland Empire area, and we wanted to have a business close to home to avoid commuting. ATL assured us that we can open a shop close to home, they also promised that ATL will find us a location and help build it up for operations. To get started, we first must sign the documents and pay our initial Franchise fee of $32,000.
After paying the initial fee, I was contacted by an ATL Site Developer to start searching locations in my home town and near by areas. After Two months of searching without success, we asked to get our $32,000 back but that wasn't possible. We had to keep looking. Then, ATL headquarters told us that there is a location in a nearby city that's for sale. This one would cost us $150,000 and it's a turn key operation. When we decided to purchase this location, I had to pay to fly out for 2 weeks for training in Maryland, since that's their headquarters for the Franchise. That training was of no help to me. I still had to acquire the licenses, permits, and filings by myself.
After taking over this ATL location, we used up our 3 months of back up funds in the first month of operations. They obviously under estimated monthly operations costs here in southern California. ATL assured us that things will get better if we keep paying for advertising. Months passed and nothing was getting better. They kept getting their weekly franchise fees and advertising fees, while we were still having loses. We told them that we want to get out of this deal and they told us that we have to sell it. I told them to find a buyer. Until now, no one has been found to take this shop over. We had to sell off our assets and used up our credit cards and credit lines to keep our doors open.
With all the programs they have and systems for a successful operations, it was not working here. As time went by, I began learning more and more horror stories from other local stores about their experience with the ATL Franchise. They are liars, they wouldn't do anything to help. The Franchise fees and advertising fees they collected were not being used in our area of advertising or support. We are considering filing bankruptcy, we just are too deep in debt to recover from this horrible situation.
I would like to join a class action suit against All Tune And Lube Int., please post a reply.
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