STRATUS BUILDING SOLUTIONS Franchise: Guadalupe Clemente’s Horror Story
Unhappy franchisees of janitorial/commercial cleaning franchise companies often share a common complaint.
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They allege that janitorial Master franchisees use deceptive tactics and dirty tricks to keep from providing the cleaning accounts unit franchisees have paid for with their life savings.
Unit franchisees pay these masters thousands of dollars for cleaning contracts with guaranteed minimum revenue.
But if the franchisees are offered jobs which they decline, the contract states that the masters have fulfilled their obligations.
The masters can keep the fees and the unit franchisee gets nothing.
Sometimes the masters offer jobs that are bid so low, the franchisee cannot profitably service them.
Sometimes the masters offer cleaning accounts so geographically distant, the franchisee cannot profitably manage them.
Sometimes jobs that have been accepted and are being successfully cleaned by the unit are taken away by the masters to give to another franchisee, and then another, a practice called “churning.”
In either of these scenarios, the unit franchisees have lost their franchise investments and have no cleaning jobs, and no cleaning revenue.
According to a class action lawsuit filed in Missouri Circuit Court against Stratus Building Solutions, Ms. Markeeta Rivera (STRATUS BUILDING SOLUTIONS: Markeeta Rivera’s Franchise Horror Story) and Ms. Guadalupe Clemente were two of many victims of these deceptive tactics perpetrated by Stratus Building Solutions and its master franchisees.
Ms. Guadalupe Clemente’s story below is an excerpt from the lawsuit Markeeta Rivera And Guadalupe, Plaintiffs -vs- Simpatico, Inc, And Stratus Franchising, LLC, Defendants.
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GUADALUPE CLEMENTE’S STORY
79. The story of Guadalupe Clemente is even more outrageous and a perfect example as to how the system developed by Simpatico has been used to blatantly take advantage of the Unit Franchisees.
80. Ms. Clemente discovered Stratus Building Solutions in a magazine called Segundo Mano. There were advertisements in Spanish concerning Stratus. The advertisements make no reference to the existence of the Master Franchisee and direct the reader to the Stratus website. (See Advertisements attached hereto as Exhibit “17”).
81. Stratus also advertised on radio station 105.9 in Phoenix, Arizona.
82. Ms. Clemente speaks little English, but Stratus provided a salesperson who spoke Spanish.
83. Ultimately, Plaintiff decided to purchase a Stratus franchise at the level which would generate revenue of $36,000.00 per year or $3,000.00 per month.
84. Plaintiff asked how long it would take to generate the revenue and was told it would occur immediately after she completed her training.
85. In order to pay for her franchise, Ms. Clemente had to sell her car.
86. She delivered a check for her franchise fee on April 4, 2011, signed her Franchise Agreement with PHSCCH SBS, LLC, doing business as Stratus Building Solutions of Metro Phoenix, the Master Franchisee, and completed her training. (A copy of the Franchise Agreement is attached hereto as Exhibit “17”)
87. Based on the representations made to her, she expected to be offered accounts by mid-April.
88. She was offered her first account on April 28, 2011. However, the account was too far away and would not have given her the profit she needed to make it feasible to accept the account.
89. When she refused the account, Stratus had her execute a form entitled “Non Acceptance of Account.” (See Exhibit “18”)
90. Plaintiff was not offered another account until September of 2011.
91. Prior to visiting the account, Plaintiff contacted a woman named “Martha” who had gone through training with her.
92. Martha informed Plaintiff that she had only been given three accounts and that they had just taken one of the accounts away.
93. Further discussion revealed that the account being offered to Plaintiff was the account that had been taken away from Martha.
94. Plaintiff visited the account but felt bad that it was the account taken away from Martha.
95. Plaintiff was not willing to participate in the “churning” of accounts.
96. Plaintiff informed Stratus that she did not want any part of the system and asked for her money back.
97. Instead of getting a refund, Plaintiff received a letter informing her that her rejection of the account in April fulfilled Stratus’ obligations under the contract. (A copy of the letter is attached hereto as Exhibit “19”)
98. The letter further admitted that since Stratus only offered her accounts with total monthly revenue of $1,500.00 within the time prescribed in the Franchise Agreement, she would be entitled to a refund of the difference in the value of the franchise plans. However, since Stratus alleged she did not make full payment, they gave her no
refund.
99. Plaintiff has had to borrow money to purchase a vehicle and she has never been given sufficient accounts to be profitable.
100. Plaintiff lost all of her savings as a result of the fraudulent actions of Stratus.
Read all related stories here: Stratus Building Solutions Franchise
Read and comment here: STRATUS BUILDING SOLUTIONS Franchise Complaints
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Hi, i can write just a little bit english I need information in spanish by stratus building solutions. Because my housband want a buy franchise from this company and I don’t no if you is good o no. Because en this page I can se what this company have a problems on demand. Plese send me information in spanish to my e-mail. Thank you
Hola Araceli. Contestando a tu pregunta te recomiendo que no compres ninguna franquicia con stratus Building solutions. Es una compania que opera de manera fraudalenta y solo pierdes tu dinero. No es tan bonito como lo que te prometen. Ya que tienen tu dinero jamas te contactan para entregarte tus franquicias y si tu les llamas y logras que te den una te quieren dar una que primero esta mas lejos de las ciudades que tu especificaste, estan mas grandes de las que tu compraste, esto quiere decir que trabajarias mas de lo que ellos te prometieron y por ultimo no te dan las ganancias que te prometieron. En mi caso jamas acepte ninguna. Y este ano me llego una W-2 donde dice que gane $16,682.50 con una compania que ellos usan Goldeneye Holdings, Inc. pero que no es otra mas que Stratus por favor te recomiendo que no compres ninguna es un robo solamente que no te pase lo que nos ha pasado a muchos de nosotros.
Hola Sra.,María yo acabo de comprar una franquicia con Stratus en mayo y estamos
En agosto y no me han ofrecido nada mi pregunta es le regresaron
Su dinero?,porke yo ya fui a buscarlos y he estado insistiendoles y me
Dicen ke legalmente tengo hasta septiembre para ke me devuelvan mi
Dinero.por eso mi pregunta de ke si si le devolvieron su dinero completo
hola vivo en colorado y si saben de alguien que ya tenga una demanda en contra de ellos por favor dejenme saber gracias !!!!
Hola yo apenas fui a la clase que le dan ,entonces con su experiencia ustedes no me recomiendan que entre a este mentado negocio?
por favor saquemnme de esta duda
This company is horrible. A business I work for employed them and they take advantage of undocumented people who are trying to support themselves and their families. They have them work long hours and drive long distances to only pay them $500 to $1000 per month 1 time a month and normally the payment is late. This is not even minimum wage and it is horrible these poor people work hard and should be paid accordingly. PLEASE DO NOT DO BUSINESS WITH THEM AND DO NOT WORK FOR THEM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
@Wendy, You are 100% correct. Franchising done the way that Anago, Stratus, Jan-Pro, Jani-King and Coverall do it is a LOSS situation for those that chose to join them. Stratus Franchising (Corporate) has cheated people from all walks of life, all income brackets, all educational levels due to the False Statements, False Pro-Forma, False Validations done by the following people:
Corporate/Owners- Pete Frese, Dennis Jarrett
Corporate Goons- Marissa Lather, David Farrell, Bill Blair, Bob Stapleton, Carmen Garcia and the worst of all Marvin Ashton.
Creator/Architect of the False Pro Forma: Afshin Cangarlu/Foad Rekebi
Validator of the False Pro Forma and Stratus: Ken Cassiri, Jeff (I know I’m Anal) Abiel, Channen/Rene Smith, Tom Weiss, John Coleman, Mark/Jayson Bashforth.
All the above have cost Thousands of People their Life Savings, Loss of Homes, Loss of Cars, Loss of Dignity……
What I’m wondering about now is why do people such as David Smith (Nashville), Ralph Sizemore (South Carolina), Tony Smith (Triad), Mark Stocker (Cincy), Don Gartner (New Jersey), Greg Fishman (Austin), Tom Grassi (Cleveland) continue to do business with Dennis Jarrett and Pete Frese and supporting their deceit and lies and harm done?
Mr. Reasoned Source or should I call you Mr. Wenger or you prefer for us to be casual and just call you Jerry? But whichever you prefer, it is obvious that you’ve never built anything in your life. You’re just a sorry old loser with 25 years of bad janitorial experience who is trying to terrorize a lot of decent people who have worked very hard over the course of past several years and built up a nice small business helping themselves and a LOT of others as Unit franchisees who are successfully making an honest living. You may not remember me but we met in your hometown in Indiana at one of your accounts that you were so proud of but in just few months lost it to a competitor as a result of your weak management skills. As evident from your hundreds of postings on this site, you are obviously very bitter and have decided to partner up with some crooks to try and destroy people’s lives in hopes of either extortion and blackmail, or somehow finding an explanation for your failures in life. Unfortunately for you everyone will continue to successfully operate their businesses around you for many years to come in spite of your best efforts to the contrary. You do have a lot of extra time these days as you and your sorry partners are without work. It’s so easy to hide behind your little computer and write away but has that gotten you anywhere in the past three or four years? You are a just a bitter blogger, that’s all ….. Stay tuned my friends, more to come regarding Mr. “old ass, loser, bitter blogger” Wenger.
No compren frakisias en stratus te Hablan bien bonito pero nada ea sierto tu no elijes tu orario ellos lo elijen cuando cierran el contrato con el cliente .agarran cuentas por muy poco dinero y terminas ganando como empleado te inventan qejas asta q tenquitan la cuenta y terminan vendiendola a otra persona, cuando te dan una cuenta no especifican bien lo q debes hacer hasta cuando ya firmaste el contrato, aveses si no revisas bien tu talon de cheke te pueden robar dinero o no pagarte tranajos extras q isiste .ellos siempre le ban a dar la razon al cliente y tu pierdes si no tienes pruebas del problema .ellos abusan de la gente q quiere progresar y no saven mucho sobre negosio todo esta escrito en los contrtos pero la gente no los entiende muy bien y ellos aprobechan eso para robar dinero con derecho
Yo compre franquicia con Stratus Bulding Solution el mes de September del 2015 son una Basura de compañía… Te roban tu dinero y trabajas gratis para ellos.a la primera semana que empeze a trabajar con ellos les regrese sus llaves y cuentas .. Y la peor vergüenza es que gente hispana trabaja con ellos en sus oficinas y se prestan para engañarnos traduciendo en español y firmar contratos que están en inglés .. NO COMPREN FRANQUICIAS con ellos .. Hay que para este abuso a nuestra gente que sólo quiere trabajar y SALIR A DELANTE. SI HAY AYUDA PARA TODO EL QUE NESECITE.