CURVES: Negotiating Curves Closing Fees

322 thoughts on “CURVES: Negotiating Curves Closing Fees”

• Curved out. You’re in the same situation we were in – your story is identical. When you search for franchises at the top of this page, most well known franchises don’t seem to have negative comments, CURVES and NORTH CASTLE are the problem which is why they’re ranked by Forbes as in the bottom 10 of all franchisees. Should you negotiate with Curves? There are a lot of pages on this site devoted to Curves and it would take a few hours to read all the stuff posted, it’s that bad and most simply can’t pay. Seek legal counsel. In BC you can get 30 minutes of legal advice through the “Lawyer Referral Service” for $25 and I had to do this and it was well worth it. But I’ll sing this from the rooftops, THEY OWE US and are unlikely to take you to court because in all these pages, if we’re this far away from Texas they don’t have the resources to start something – and to get what? Broke is broke. It’s largely their lack of business acumen that led to our failure and inability to be a “going concern” paying their fees and making a living ourselves.

  There is NO RISK on their part. They collect money from us, dictate what we should do (not entirely a bad thing for the Franchise image), but they’ve contributed not ONE thing to building the brand other than a prettier website. Their attempt at brand building through (see the bottom of the Curves website) web promotion have failed. Who really reads “People” or “Family Circle”, etc., online? Their “promotion” attempts at this and social media for the last 3 years have utterly FAILED. We still believe in the Curves workout, BUT, the brand needs to be built at the corporate level who HAS to educate the public on why the Curves workout and formula are still relevant to ladies everywhere. I work in retail/service and people will pay more if there are recognizable benefits. Oddly, Curves advertising people agree with me, upper management doesn’t, and I was very vocal in my views to anyone at Curves who’d listen. Problem is there’s a huge level of incompetency there because they simply have zero experience running a franchise because almost everyone who’s run clubs “in the old days when it was great”, are GONE. All they do now is offer more courses which simply “pretty up” the same old ideas that worked 20 years ago. There’s nothing new and exciting (Body Moves is good), but try to respond to our local market and have hand weights or hula hoops or a couple of stair climbers or whatever and you get shut down.

  This is what we know. North Castle has downsized personnel and is running a lean ship. Their shareholders still have faith in Raymond and Mike, but eventually their excuses (and blaming the franchisee’s) on why an organization that was the leading Womens Gym with over 10,000 locations in North America is less than 1,000 today will wear thin and the shareholders will force a change.

  “I” was blamed for not trying hard enough, but I told them “in 2015 I paid them $9,300 in ALL charges & fees and LOST $6,500 (before accounting adjustments such as depreciation), therefore THEY did not give me good value and THEY failed ME. I have a line of credit to pay off of $114,000 so I can’t go bankrupt and it’ll take 10 years to pay off at which time I’ll be 73. When I purchased Curves I did searches but I didn’t find this site – too bad – I wouldn’t of read these pages and made different decisions. My girlfriend managed the club and took 20 hours of pay every 2 weeks because she believed. I believed and didn’t take a penny – like most owners who are struggling. In a metro area of 2.5 million people there are only 8 clubs left and one or 2 will be gone next year.

  If you plan on paying them something (I’m an accountant), set up a spreadsheet in Excel. In each column start off with how many members you had EACH month since you started. i.e. Column A titled Jan 2015 you might put 200, Column B titled Feb 2015 you put 180, Column C titled Mar 2015 you put 172… You get the idea? You’ll see a pattern. Let’s say that’s a 5% drop in membership each month. Then you continue out till the end of your lease dropping the membership number 5% each month. In the row below calculate your 5% franchise fees for EACH month, and in the row below that calculate 3% advertising fees. Do that for every REMAINING month after you close till your franchise period would of ended. This means and I’ll do a calculation for you.
  March 2016 (assumed you closed) – you had 172, so April would be .95×172 = 163
  Multiply this by the average membership – 163 x $44 = 7172 for April 2016.
  Franchise fees = $7,172 x .05 = $358.6 Advertising fees $7,172 x .03 = $215.16
  And let’s say your franchise agreement ends Dec 2017 – 21 months left.

  You should come out with an amount owing on POTENTIAL fees of $7,567 based on a 5% declining membership.

  I guarantee Curves will ask for the maximum amount (also I’m sure they like the scare factor) $795 Franchise/mo & $395 Ad fees/mo, and will ask for $1,190 x 21 = $24,990 and they’ll add to that other fees you might of paid for OS $29/mo ($49/mo for some), and CurvesSmart $89/mo plus EFT and online fees. So they’ll add on at a minimum

  $29 x 21 = $609 for OS charges and $89 x 21 = $1,869 for CurvesSmart.

  $24,900 + 609 + 1,869 = $27,378 will be their minimum demand. Read all the comments on this site. http://www.unhappyfranchisee.com/category/franchisor/curves-for-women/

  They’ll come back with a much lower number ($13,000) and if you say you can’t pay that, it’ll go back up to $27k!

• I will try not to pay them at all. I will Let you know how I make out.

• I was doing research and came across a line on one of these pages “Gary & Diane still own 60% of Curves”! That would explain why they are still on the board. That would explain why North Castle still refers to “shareholders” – that means not just NC shareholders, but Gary & Diane. While the 60% number gives G&D controlling interest, I couldn’t find out anything confirming it, but I did find this on the North Castle website where Gary states “we believe our partnership with NC….”!!!!

  http://www.northcastlepartners.com/news-media/north-castle-partners-invests-in-curves-international/

  I also found this 2011 article that’s really interesting.

  http://clubindustry.com/blog/examining-state-curves

  In it Mike Raymond states “We made it easy for them to decide to leave by announcing a policy that removed any penalties for closing”. Is this because they have (according to other pages on this website) that Curves has over 200 lawsuits filed against them that they’re in court with and don’t have the man power to deal with franchisee’s who are abandoning ship well before their franchise closing date?

  It’s also an eye opener into Curves decline and how they’re pinning their hopes on China & India. There is also this statement “Raymond went on to say that many Curves clubs that are sold get turned around by energetic new owners”. That’s the same rhetoric they spouted in the June 2014 Forbes article used and EXACTLY what Curves told us just before the article came out. They told us “We’ll be featured in Forbes and it won’t be all positive because unhappy franchise’s were quoted but we feel that everyone who operates their franchise in “The Curves Way” will be successful.”

  http://www.forbes.com/sites/karstenstrauss/2014/05/27/crash-diet-after-shedding-thousands-of-locations-can-curves-get-back-in-shape/#6fabfa0363f8

  We took over an existing franchise that was doing OK in June 2011 – we were “energetic new owners”. My girlfriend had been the manager in the “Golden years” when our club had over 800 members, when the owner and son were paying themselves $160,000 a year. I had been in retail for 40 years and had been an accountant for 30 years and was an enthusiastic gym member. We would of been considered Raymond’s “dream owners”. We took our club from 235 to 252, then, even with vigorous promotion watched it melt away when el-cheapo, no frills, no service gyms opened up in our town. From 10,000 clubs at it’s peak, in one article I just read Curves had 4,000 locations in 2011 in North America. Wiki says in May 2016 they had 1035. It’s probably less than 1,000 now (3 Curves have failed in the our area since). Again, I say, if you tried 1/2 as hard as we did, it’s not your fault. North Castle, Gary and DIane failed EVERY franchisee. Buying Jenny Craig brought us nothing, it may of been good for corporate. They asked us to take on Jenny Craig, but with $50,000 in licensing, permits, equipment and their endless checklists, regulations and training we would of just gone deeper into debt.

  We’re sooooooo glad to be out.

• Great read. I keep feeling more at ease with closing. Only a few weeks left. I haven’t told Curves yet? Anyone have experience with this? They have bigger problems than me closing.

• Could a stand alone gym based on the concept of Curves succeed?

• Yes. It’s the franchise fees, strict rules, and lack of any extras that kill Curves.

• Bill, I know of a Curves that refused to renew when their franchise ended. Curves actually came out to their club to review them at one point because they had the old gear and were thinking of continuing with Curves one more year. Curves refused to renew them because they refused to make changes including removing 2 pieces of equipment. They simply said “No Problem, we aren’t renewing then”, and Curves came back and asked them to consider continuing on for another year. Their franchise ended, they renamed their club, added more interesting features club members would be interested in, and are doing OK – including BUILDING membership. Curves has asked them to cease and desist their business immediately and threatened legal action. This is not the only Curves that has rebranded and stayed in business that I know of giving Curves the heave ho.

  When you got your franchise, Curves sent a PDF that was 300+ pages long listing all the Curves open, all the Curves who’ve ended, all the current, pending and settled lawsuits and all about the Curves organization. The 2nd set of paperwork was the ones that you had to sign and fax in. In all my documentation they don’t refer to each other. We were supposed to get employees to sign documents saying that if they quit they wouldn’t compete against us, and if there’s anything in your documentation that limits you that way, it’s a problem. Get legal advice. I needed some so I contacted the local legal services and got a 30 minute appointment/referral for $25. So check your documentation to see where you stand.

  As a Franchise you have NO control if you play by Curves rules the way they want you to. You have NO ability to respond to your market or make the changes needed to keep your business viable. In 2015 I paid Curves over $9,500 in fees, advertising, OS, Mytrack and all other fees they nickel and dime you on and I lost (before accounting adjustments like depreciation) over $6,500. I made it known to them that there was NO way I got $9,500 of value from them, but it points out that I would of made a profit if I hadn’t been part of their operation.

  In the top right hand corner of this page do a search on other well known franchises. No one complains about Subway or MacDonalds because Head Office keeps their product interesting and works hard for their franchisee’s. Forbes listed Curves as one of the 10 worst franchises for a reason and If Wikipedia says there were 10,000 franchisees in 2006 and in May 2016 there were 1,035, you can probably guess that there are less than 1,000 now, as I know of 5 that have folded in my area alone. Will Curves sue if you reopen under a different name? 3 of the Curves that have folded did so with no warning to Curves and I’m sure Curves in all their belt trimming doesn’t have the manpower to do anything serious other than threaten.

• I closed in December with 1 year left on my franchise agreement. I am curious if anyone has dealt with Curves recently. I am not paying them a thing. Such a relief to be done.

• Recently closed; if you look at my Nov 13 post and work out your numbers you can figure out pretty close what they’ll be asking for. I’ve been ranting on this site for many months now because way too many people (including me) have lost a LOT of money believing North Castle could turn Curves around. Curves has admitted that their brand is growing (or so they say) in Japan, but if you go to Wikipedia you’ll see that Curves has dropped form 10,000 locations a decade ago to 1,035 in May 2016. They’ve downsized, re-vamped, laid head office staff off, trimmed their belts (only financially as the big honcho’s at Head office don’t look fit in the video’s) and I don’t believe they have money to take ALL the Curves that have been closing in the last year to court. Guaranteed there will be a lot of threats and bluster, but look at ALL the stories of people (like me) who’ve lost their shirts living by THEIR rules and believing in THEM. I was lucky to close nicely, and let me tell you we worked our butts off till the end, but I was left with $115,000 of debt, and I’ll be working another 10 years to pay that off. Keep in mind that when they ask to “to pay them out essentially” they’ll be asking for the maximum royalties you would of paid if your franchise was kicking butt times the months left in your franchise agreement, which might be 1/4 of what you might of paid them if you’d stayed open. As many on these pages have said “you can’t get blood out of a stone”.

• Just called to cancel Socan. I said “You must be getting a lot of these lately? ” She said “Yes, you are the third Curves this week for me I think .”

  Curves International has bigger problems than me right now. I have been closed a month and haven’t heard boo.

• No Money Left: How did things pan out with the close? What did CI have to say regarding what you “owe” them?

  Recently Closed: Please keep us updated! There are likely many of us sitting on the side lines pondering the same move!

• They want 10000 USD plus 795 a month USD for the remainder of my contract. If I follow procedures I can reduce my penalties. I can follow procedure but I still won’t pay them.

• I closed in December. See above post. They have not contacted me since the end of January. I haven’t paid a cent. I didn’t follow any procedures. Good luck to you all. There is a great life after Curves. Members were all understanding. I was completely upfront with them.

• Recently Closed: thanks for the update. That is really encouraging! The only thing keeping my doors open currently is a personal guarantee on the lease. I’m so looking forward to life after Curves!

• Would be happy to hear from anyone about to close ,sitting on the sideline wondering what next.

• Curves International was just made to pay more than $1 million to former franchisees. They aren’t coming after us.
  Just close. Don’t prolong it. Tell your members. Pro-rated their payments and move on. Close the bank account. It will be a sigh of relief. Members will understand.

• I received this from “Unhappy Franchisee”. Check this webpage out – you can even download the court records showing how 111 Franchisee’s won $1.5 million against Curves International.
  http://www.unhappyfranchisee.com/fortman-law-wins-curves-lawsuit/
  Fortman Law also has a Facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/fortmanlaw/ check the April 24, 2017 post.
  I’ve emailed Fortman (as I was out “6 figures” because of Curves & North Castle’s incompetence, but have yet to hear from them if there is another class action lawsuit happening.

• As “Been There Done That” said – we, Fortman Law, are very experienced with Curves and their closing procedures.

  We do offer consultations for Curves owners! If you are looking to close/having problems with closing your Curves franchise, contact us. (No obligation, it’s free to ask questions)
  314-522-2312
  email: tdk@fortmanlaw.com

• Hi,

  I own a Curves in Malaysia. I signed the agreement in August 2013.
  So my contract will end in August 2018 which is 15 months from now.
  But I can’t wait till then to close.
  I am a retiree, and I have used up all my savings and owing the bank couples of thousands.
  Moreover , my health is not so good.

  So far in Malaysia, the local franchisor are not doing much for the franchisees.
  They collect marketing fees from us but do nothing much to support us.
  As they themselves owns 3 clubs and they are more interested in marketing for their Club alone.
  They don’t care if we survive or die.

  Curves started in Malaysia around 2011 , and in 2014 there were a total 13 Clubs, but until today a total of 5 Clubs were closed, out of which 3 closed prematurely and the rest do not wish to renew their contract. So now there is only 8 Clubs left.

  I would like to seek your advice on the procedure of closing, i.e. can I negotiate for a waiver of the penalty fees given valid health reasons. Also I need to know how much notice should I give to my members and Curves CI.

• Sally Lee,

  We would be happy to talk to you about your situation. You can contact us by sending us an email to tdk@fortmanlaw.com

• Sally Lee: In Canada Maximum Franchise fees are $795 per month (5%) and Advertising $395 per month (3%) – Look into the paperwork you received before you signed your contract. As a MINIMUM Curves will ask for ($795 + 395 )= $1,190 X 15 months = $17,850. As near as I can tell they’ll also add in 15 months of CurvesSmart, OS, and ANY other fees for each of those months also. There is this set of web pages and this one – http://www.unhappyfranchisee.com/curves-monty-sharma-wtf-email-jenny-craig/#comment-1285403 – These appear to be the 2 main pages unhappy people are posting to. You’ll find that Curves will hit you with a notice to pay, say, $20,000 and when you say you don’t have any money, they’ll change it to a much lower number and when you say you can’t afford that, they’ll bump it back up again. The question is “how big is their bark”. North Castle has been downsizing and trimming the fat since they took over. If you have 100 members and are only paying them $350 a month (and dropping because of attrition), it’s likely they’d offer you $5,000 or so. (100 x $44 x 8% x 15 = $5,280. Would they bother to sue you knowing you’re dead broke – and spend expensive lawyer time on it to possibly get nothing in the end? Lots of Franchises in our area have simply closed on a days notice and dropped off the face of the earth. Regardless, you should talk to Fortmanlaw above. You could see a local lawyer, but Fortmanlaw is already familiar with Curves stories!

• I closed December 2016. They contacted me in January for money. I said there is nothing left. I haven’t heard from them since.