Well, I am another victim of Ufg and Sign A Rama and I am sure that I am not the last one. My wife and I bought the franchise in Mar and filed for bankcrupty in Feb. From the day they sell you the franchise till the day you are flat ass broke, you will see a steady decline in relationship with the company overall.
My wife and I saved up $100000 with a goal of starting a business. We looked for a while and found this amazing business of selling signs and sign service to local businesses. We were taken to a few franchises locally in Vancouver area and send down to Fl as well to talk to few very successfull franchise owners. All of them are so programmed to say the same thing that Sign A Rama is the best thing they did in their life.
The Regional Vice President assured us that he will get us the used equipment from another franchise and we can pretty much start the business with the minimum investment. Both my wife and I were excited that we can be business owners and minimum investment. That didn't happen. We signed the lease for the space and now we were on the hook for the commercial lease and suddenly we were told that the used equpment option wasn't available.
We had to go ahead and buy all new equipment. Also, we signed a form that says we need $35000 working capital to run this business. We spoke to few franchisees and all of them said the same thing. Yes, you need about that much money to run the business. Once I was into it, I found out that how all of them including myself we programmed to say the same thing to new potential franchisees.
We were under the loan of $125000 from Royal Bank of Canada plus the working capital of about $80000 that we invested plus the lost income for a year for both my wife and I plus we lost every penny that we ever saved plus the equity in our house. Bailiff told us that all the equipment was re-sold by Sign A Rama to another sucker for less than $14000. $125000 to $14000. Wow.
When I gave the deposit to RVP, I told him that my kids future belongs to this business. I have 2 small kids almost 3 years old and 1 year old and we have no money. We lost our jobs and in this economy we can't find any work either.
Great. The amount of threat and intimidation that I went through in 1 year, was more that our entire life. Thank you Mr Sign A Rama and Mr Titus.
I tell you that this doesn't end here. I have been looking for ways to save other people from going broke like us. I promise that I will do something that has never been done before and that will stop this frenzy/
Sumit
Maple Ridge, British Columbia
Canada
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