COLLEGE PRO PAINTERS Franchise Complaints
COLLEGE PRO PAINTERS Franchise complaints include exploitive practices toward young franchisees, inadequate training, exorbitant and hidden fees, unkept promises, cult-like corporate culture, underpayment of workers, and “thuggish management.”
The UnhappyFranchisee.Com post COLLEGE PRO PAINTERS: Great Opportunity or Franchise Scam? generated dozens of comments, many from former franchisees who said College Pro Painters left them heavily in debt.
One called his decision to join College Pro Painters “the worst decision of my life.”
Have you had an experience – good or bad – with College Pro Painters? Please share a comment below.
“Alfred Griffin” wrote:
…in ’89 everything changed,… Greg Clark the visionary founder sold out for peanuts and ownership moved to a public corp, heavily in debt and full of thuggish management. It was at this moment that the vision for the company changed into a conveyor belt of naive student types paying ever more unreasonable rates of royalty and failing in larger and larger numbers. Territories were carved up, fees for every item under the sun were introduced and smoke and mirror ways of convincing a 19 year old kid that he actually “made 10,000 last summer” were rolled out (gee, how come i have nothing in the bank and owe you guys $4000?)
“Pissed” wrote:
College Pro Painters is an awful company. They nearly forced me to drop out of college. Think about this. You get off for summer break, work your butt off all summer long, and I actually lose money that summer as a manager. Then I had to go back to school broke, and continue studying. It was an awful experience, and it still pisses me off that CPP took advantage of me. I know other people that ended up dropping out of school as a direct result of CPP. The only thing I learned was not to trust anyone from this company…
“Brandon” wrote:
I worked from May until September and ran a $50,000 business and actually barely broke even. In fact, I probably lost money in the end. How would you feel if you booked and produced $50,000 and never saw a penny go into your bank account? Instead, I paid College Pro $35,000, my painters $7,000, and my paint cost me $8000. They only reason my employee cost was only $7,000 is because I painted all summer with them for free! I never saw my friends, had my phone ringing non stop because customers were unhappy, and college pro always got their money from me at the end of every week…
To this day, I do everything in my power to talk to and meet with people who have an interest in working for this company. Take this as a lifesaving warning. DO NOT EVER AFFILIATE YOUSELF WITH COLLEGE PRO PAINTERS!!!!!!!
“SCAM!” wrote:
PLEASE READ
I was a FM [Franchise Manager] in 2012 and it was awful. I went in as a FRESHMEN in college and those fat cats at the big office convinced me that I was better than everyone else and I should work for them.
So I did. And it was THE biggest mistake of my life.
First of all, I was always struggling with money to make ends meet. I was from out of state with no place to live and no transportation. I had to buy my own car and rent out an apartment. Every month paying rent was a challenge because CPP [College Pro Painters] never taught me how to deal with money AT ALL. Even though that is at the core of any business, the only part that was emphasized was the part where THEY make money off of MY hard work.
And let me tell you, it was a lot of hard work.
I went through all the weird cultish training and parties where all they do is reinforce how much better I am than non-FMs and no time was spent explaining anything of real value to any of us.
CPP LIED TO ME. They let me hire high school kids even though they knew I didn’t have the permit to do so. I’m hit with $500 fine and 3 counts against my record from L&I [Labor & Industry] so thanks College Pro, ya did good to me on that one.
CPP CALLED ME A LIAR. My GM was really nice at first but I noticed that he was a real slave driver. There were so many sketchy things going on but I was 18 how was I supposed to know, I was counting on CPP to teach me what I should and shouldn’t do (that’s how they marketed it to me! more lies!).
CPP STOLE MY MONEY. I was $7k in debt by the end of the summer even though I produced good work, all because of the bullshit “royalty” fees. AND CPP failed to mention that I had an additional overhead fee with Sherwin Williams for supplies that came to about $1k which I was expected to pay even though I stopped making money in SEPTEMBER. They told me at the end of December.
All in all, CPP screws over all of its workers. It’s a typical top-down structure where the more the little guy loses out, the more the fat cat executives make out of it.
ARE YOU A COLLEGE PRO PAINTERS FRANCHISE OWNER OR PARENT OF A CPP FRANCHISEE?
ARE YOU A COLLEGE PRO PAINTERS CUSTOMER?
PLEASE SHARE A COMMENT BELOW.
TAGS: College Pro Painters, College Pro Painters franchise, College Pro Painters complaints, College Pro Painters scam, College Pro Painters franchise complaints, College Pro Painters franchise scam, painting franchise, college painting franchise, franchise complaints, franchise scams
I ran a college pro franchise from 2004-2006. All the rules were laid out ahead of time. I knew what I was getting into. I made $27,000 my first summer, $22,000, and then my $36,000 last summer.
People wining on here should READ what you SIGN.
Your generation is full of entitlements. NO ONE owes you ANYTHING.
Get out and get it. If you put as much time as you do into facebook as your CPP franchise you would make $50,000 a summer.
Hi…My son has also been screwed over by College Pro. He has gone through everything that previous posts complained about. He has worked 6 days a week 10 to 12 hours a day since early April and at this point is losing about $17,000. He is being threatened with a lawsuit if he doesn’t come up with another $10,000. Has anyone taken College Pro to court and challenged the contract? Has anyone been sued by College Pro? If anyone has any suggestions please email me[redacted]
I had my trim painted by college pro this summer. I can say that they were very nice kids, but far from “pro” in my estimation. There were some things that were not done well, and some things that were just not done. Such as:
1.The decorative window on the front of the house was not prepped correctly, even though we discussed it at length beforehand. The paint was just slapped on over the rough surface without preparation and looks like it.
2. Several windows were painted shut, and in addition, the storm window hardware was thickly painted over, making both the windows and storms inoperable.
3. There are several drips of the trim color on the contrasting main color of the house. Just sloppiness.
4. The power washing was unprofessional and incomplete. The garage was not washed at all. I have hired professionals to do this before, cheaper and better.
5. After prepping the dark green frame over the patio (with something white), they decided it wasn’t in the bid, and left it unpainted for me to finish. I agreed to that solution, but they left me the wrong color of paint to finish it with! Unfortunately for me, I paid them in full, mostly due to my overly busy schedule and because I believe in holding up my end of any agreement.