Commercial Cleaning Franchise Complaints

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• jan pro is bullshit

• Stratus Building Solutions, Especially the one is Pittsburgh is a big scam. Please do not go to Stratus. I bought a franchise and now they plan on taking the one and only account off of me. That leaves me with zero income. The way the contract is written is that they are able to take off of you any accounts they say. They tell you they have complaints about the cleaning you have been doing. They tell you "We warned you now the account is taken from you. We need to protect our intrest too." The contract favors them. I lost $13,700 Also even tho you think you own a franchise you really do not. They get you accounts that belong to them. so you can not sell your franchise. The only way you can sell it is to go door to door and get your own accounts. You could have started you own cleaning and keep all the cleaning money yourself. Please listen to me. The contract does not protect you at all. The contract benefits them. Please help me stop Stratus of pittsburg and Stratus corporate from swindleing any one. The solution to me is to go clean places on your own. By the way, if you do get your own places to clean while you are with stratus, you still have to pay percentage.

• You are not alone buddy. I think most all cleaning Franchise are rip offs.

• I definatly feel chris on this one, the one thing I cant stress enough for anyone thinking about doing this for a living is do your homework. franchises take anywhere from 13% to 30% from your gross, leaving you to squeek by on your net. if you are looking at a company and they want more than 15% total with all their taxes and fees and BS then walk away. mine takes the 13% and 20% on special services, though for that cash what I am suppose to get would be a good deal, untill you find out that they get that money even on accounts you got 100% on your own. any company that wont let you outsource your supplies you don't want anything to do with them either. and most will underbid accounts simply because it is a cut throat buisness, the average consumer of your services in the commercial aspect will look at everything before they pick a company, so ask yourself; is my company really different from the others or does it just blend in? what will make your potential customers pick you over "billy bobs sweep n`mop" if you promise the same, seem very similar and billy bob charges less, then they will most likely go with billy bob. remember your potential clients really have no true idea of the costs and time involved in running a cleaning cleaning service. so make yourself truely unique, and what ever you do, don't deal with a franchise that lied to you about anything, just imagine what lies they may be telling your customers and you never want lies told to your customers... they want the truth at all times even if you are sure they will end their contract with you, telling them the truth in a straight forward manner is always the best way to keep an account.
  (sorry about my spelling, never was good at it. anyway thank you for reading I hope I didn't ramble too much)

• First off, I have been in the commercial cleaning industry for a while and seen owners make alot of money. With these new smaller "Franchise Company's" the days of making money in this industry is almost impossible. They will promise you the world, but once you sign the will show there true colors.

  Most the Franchise Owners never been in this industry, but have experience in ripping people off. They are good with numbers and SELLING DREAMS. You are actually paying 10's of thousands of dollars to make between $8-$10hr. You can't even hire people without taking a loss. They will take any account bidded half the price, Promise the customer exceptional service(at your expense and time) then charge you 4-5x the monthly gross + Royalty + Management Fees+ Paying Workmans Comp(Even if you clean it yourself) + Insurance + Supplies and Gas. It is possible to be working for less than minimum wage w/ no tips.

  They will have a list of tons of things to be done thats impossible to do in the amount of time for the money. Then pleasing customers(After there expectations are so high) is almost imposible and make a profit at the same time. Any Commercial Cleaning Business owner should make between $17-$35 hr Minimum. They are bidding at $15-$20 an hour BIDDING I SPECIFY. Divide that by 70% (what it costs you to pay all the fees and run a business Taxes, Etc) You are actually making less than minimum wage. The only accounts that are profitable are the once a week and twice a month accounts.

  They will also VOLUNTEER you to do free extra service work. I tried to ask to get out of my contract because the MASTER FRANCHISER was not delivering the kind of service that he promised and sold me. If you buy into this and expect to make money, You will be working day and night for minimum wage. Its better to Subcontract from another Contractor than to buy into a franchisee SCAM.

  They get all there customers from telemarketing (which is the best way) but that means that they are willing to change and change often for a lowball bid. They will find ways around taking accounts from you and you will loose money on those and there is nothing you can do because it is writting in these Master Franchisor Benifited Contracts.

  Moral to the story is that something has to be done with there contracts because people are getting fooled into think that they are business owners, when in reality they want to treat you like an employee. You have all the downfalls of being an business owner *High Stress*Taxes*Supplies*Franchisee Fees*Insurance*Bonding*Royalty Fees*Management Fees* ETC* and Downfalls to being a Employee *They tell you how to run your business*Low PAY*Treat you like an employee* The customers expect the world from you on your low pay*If you do not perform to the highest expectations that where promised but not what was bid for you lose all the money you invested into it. So the Franchise got you by the ***** and the customer got you by the ***** Trust me its a lose lose.

  I am a current ANGRY FRANCHISEE/EMPLOYEE in the Phoenix area expressing my freedom of speach or writting. I wont say the company name because they probably got something in the clause that i will lose all my money if I tell the truth about there Crooked System. There is a small amount of franchisee's that will succeed from luck of getting the right accounts, but the majority will not make any REAL MONEY. To me its not worth the headache if you are not getting paid good. Then alot of customers wont give you keys, so you have to be there at a certain time and work around there employees like you are one of there own employees(sounds like fun right) and a whole bunch of 7 day a week accounts that pay the worst Profit of about $6 hr.

  I know most wont read this whole thing, but I am giving my FAIR WARNING about this Cleaning Franchise Scam. They make there money off of your franchisee fees not off of these UNDERBID ACCOUNTS.
  John

• CREATING YOUR OWN DREAM
  first of all you can make alot of money with STRATUS. If you have NO buisness sense, business skills, or a closed mind you can easily fail. Just like any busineess if you dont put out your best youll only get what you put in! If you think your going to make 100.00 an hour all the time your better off investing in lottery tickets! I personally know a guy who invested 1000.00 with STRATUS and after 3 yrs of hard work he is now making 15600.00 a month (after all fees) he has 4 part time employees and pays out about 5000.00 mo. Hes clearing over 10000.00 a month and working 6 hours a night!
  how is this possible!
  1. Do your best, go that exrea mile to please your customer
  2. this is your business, treat it as so.
  3.hire people who clean as good or better than you!
  4. ask for more accounts!
  5. keep in contact with the office and find out what you can do to take on more business!
  Yes you can get jobs on your own!
  STRATUS will take 20%.... Why?
  1. STRATUS is charged 10% for your insurance
  2. They will handle ALL of your billing, any nessasary operations, office work, and any collections on your behalf! well worth the 20%!

  WHY NOT JUST START YOUR OWN CLEANING COMPANY?

  STRATUS is WORLDWIDE!
  you have several people in the sales dept. working to get you accounts!
  you are backed by over 30 yrs of experience and leadership!
  you have a portfolio of refrences at you fingertips!

  STRARUS IS NOT FOR EVERYBODY!!!!
  If you are motivated and open minded you can make 500.00 a month or 10000.00 a month... Its up to you... Not Stratus.

• Vanguard cleaning rip off. Well you pay 10,000 for 2 vacs a buffer and cleaning tools. Bait Then you get a few contracts. You start making some money.They give you a few more.Then they swamp you with work.You have to hire people to help.But they bid the contracts so cheap you can't keep up with paying for extra help.The reason is this.They don't make there money on the 15% you are charged for each contract.They make it when they come around and get the customer to change to another vanguard cleaner.They drop the cleaning price for for the customer a little.It all starts over a complaint .You might never know what it was.The SCAM You buy the contracts.You pay them off as you do them .Most are a year But the big ones are longer.Figure a $1400 three times to own it..And if you lose it .Well you pay for it still.Till its paid for the new vanguard cling people are also paying now for the $1400 contract,till they get there complaint and so on
  Like a ponse scam

• Rich Stephenson All of these fake cleaning franchisors keep ripping of so many people. We all need to file complaints with the attorney General and the Federal Trade Commision.

• stratus is all bull shiet !! its a fucking fraud!!!

• They all are scams.....the ONLY people making real money are the people selling the franchises. Beware....they may be charging you an insurance fee. But make sure you are totally covered under their policy (i.e. your named on the paperwork).