CURVES franchise: Negotiating Curves Closing Fees
Struggling, failing and soon-to-close Curves franchise owners seek information and advice from Unhappy Franchisee on how to handle the demands Curves International is placing on them. One of the frequent topics is the club closing procedures, and how to negotiate with Curves International in regard to their demands for “failure fees” and often tens of thousands of dollars for “future royalties.” (Also called “Liquidated damages”)
If you have advice or experience closing one of more Curves clubs, please share your experience below.
From the post CURVES: Robert Lay’s Story, here’s an exchange regarding the closing fee:
Donna Submitted on 2009/10/08 at 2:41pm
HELP!!! I have read some of the horror stories listed. I to have to close my club. I can not get anyone to return my calls from CI. I do not know what to do. I have had my club almost 7 years and have paid my dues. I do not have 10,000 dollars. Because of the recession I have to close. I love my members and hate to dissapoint them but I have no choice. The closing packet was sent to me but I’m scared to send it in. Is there any help out there? I have to do what I need to do today. Will they let me out without the 10,000 fee. Has anyone out there been in my shoes. Please someone respond as I need advice and help NOW.
CA ex-owner Submitted on 2009/10/08 at 8:21pm
We’ve all been there! Our club has been closed for over a year. We refused to pay the $10,000. They emailed us two more times, first lowering it to $8,000, then to $6,000 – we still refused. Next came a letter from Curves Legal stating we now owed fees for the remainder of our franchise agreement, somewhere in the amount of over $42,000, with a fair amount of scare tactics! (Read our story above: CA Ex-owner on October 16th, 2008) We then sent a letter back to legal, refusing to pay anything and the reasons why. Now I will knock on wood before I say this, but it has been over a year that we sent them that letter and we have not heard a thing yet.
We are not part of the legal action that many of the people above are pursuing, and I’m sure someone will respond on how to proceed in that direction, or direct you to on what other options you may have. Remember, you are not alone, we’ve all been through this horrible experience. It hardly makes it better, but at least maybe knowing there are so many of us out there, you might feel a little better…
Hi Donna.
Like You, I had to close my club. I closed it Feb 28th this year…
Of course I did everything I could to keep Curves International properly informed and I asked them for advice on the best way to proceed…The one thing they did spell out, there is no “standard” $10,000 fee. At least Not Anymore. They said, if I write a letter asking for a settlement instead of paying all the outstanding royalties and ad fees, then they will put it to a review board and the review board will make a suggestion for a settlement. Then they told me not to write a letter but to hold onto the closing packet.
Well, then they forgot about me for 6 or 8 or 10 weeks. I think it was sometime in May that I got a notice that I owed some $40,000 for the balance of royalties and such…
however, i did inform them that i was filing for bankruptcy. they never asked for the bankruptcy attorneys name or the case number. i am just now filing, so they havent gotten any legal notices yet either.
since then I have not heard one word. it’s been what, 7 months since I closed. ridiculous…
i do have another franchise, that i’m struggling to hold onto, and you would think maybe that’s why they’re giving me some slack…
they are very frustrating but i think they have a backlog of closed cases. i have been told by others (gossip?) that they are understaffed and overworked. of course they’re busy with the big lawsuit that “unhappy” is part of it. and all the little lawsuits. i would like to know more about gofigure’s lawsuit against them too.
my attorney told me not to worry about any of it, because our state law supercedes whatever was written in the franchise agreement….
Donna Submitted on 2009/10/12 at 12:21pm
Robert was right on. Settlement from 10,000 now wanting 2,500. And its only been 12 days. I don’t close until Oct. 30th. They were also nice and I wouldn’t have to pay it until the end of Nov. I wonder If I ask nice they’ll say i don’t have to give away my equipment to another Curves or destroy it -I can do what I want with it. What do you think?
HAVE YOU SUCCESSFULLY NEGOTIATED CURVES CLOSING FEES? IS CURVES OR THEIR LAW FIRM HARRASSING YOU FOR CLOSING FEES & DAMAGES? PLEASE SHARE YOUR EXPERIENCE BELOW.
This post was originally published October 12, 2009 and updated June 20, 2012
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View Comments
Andres,
Keep spreading the word about the site as that way we can hopefully prevent this from happening to other good people. Good luck and god bless
Andres and Unhappy, thanks for your encouraging emails : )
Andres, I am so sorry to hear about your sitation too. What country are you from? Are you from Bulgaria? [del]
Like I said, I am not sending them any money or signing any documents! They told me I had 2 days to sign them and that if I didn't they would pass my case to their legal department. They seem to think that by using words like ' our legal department' they are going to scare me off and that I will obbey their orders. It's so obvious that by telling me that I only have 2 days, they want to make sure that I don't have enough time to seek legal advise on the consquences of signing those papers and that I will simply panick and do what they want!
So here is what I did this afternoon; I sent them an email pointing out the following;
- I asked them to tell me where in the contract it stated that I had to respond their inquiries within 2 days
- I copied and pasted all the emails I sent to Curves where I was asking for guidance and advice in the past when I was having problems and was worried about closing down
- I asked them to explain why I never received any meaningful respons from them until such time that my club was eventually forced to close down
- I told them that my current situation was a direct result of serious negligence from CFW side and that they didn't fulfill their responsibilities that were outlined under certain sections of the franchise agreement
- Alsofrom last year they owed me some money (around 1,100 USD) due to some shipment error they made when they were delievering my equipment . I was promised (by email) that they would reimburse me when I sent them the receipts. So today, I also told them that I would be posting the receipts on Monday and asked them to make the payment within one month!
It's true that there are 4 clubs that closed down in Istanbul since last June. One of them is mine, the other 2 belonged to non-Turkish citizens (I think they are Americans actually) who lived in the US and from what I heard from their former manager they ended up paying CFW some settlement money after they closed. The 4th club belonged to another Turkish lady like me, she said that on paper she still owed them a lot of money
I forgot to mention that I also told them that I would be consulting my lawyers if needs be
Make sure to tell the other Turkish lady about this site and not to pay Curves and Howie anything not one dime. Keep up the good work and don't let them intimidate you as it is a form of extortion. Howie is nothing but a crook and so is his wife Diane. I can't help but wonder how they sleep at night. They are sociopaths.
they must be counting sheep dressed up in USD customes : )
Do not give them NOT ONE PENNY
Elif,
That was a good one and brought a smile on my face. Thanks for the humor I need that.
Andres.
That's right not one cent more !!!! You know the old saying sucker, me once shame on you , sucker me twice shame on me.
"You know the old saying sucker, me once shame on you , sucker me twice shame on me."
Funny I was just thinking about that quote in relation to franchisees who were too stupid/cheap to hire a lawyer before buying a franchise, then compounding their problems by being too stupid/broke to hire a lawyer now that they're failing... and listening to anonymous internet commenters instead.
You can't get out of a problem using the same thinking that got you into it.
Andre:
Someone should tell you that what you are posting is ridiculous in English. Some of it's funny. Some of it's bizarre. Lots of it makes no sense. Here are a few:
"60 days from the date of application, we will begin to receive emails from the curves with death threats" Seriously? Death threats?
"I understand that I must return the money to people who do not use their time for study."
"I have started to intimidate lawyers"
"As long as we keep quiet we will beat, beat and beat."
"Contact us representative in our country and threatened to pay royalties for 10 years of the contract, the courts and lawyers."
"Hello friends affected by the one-eyed!"
Andre, you really should have someone translate your comments before posting.
Andre,
Don't let this guest upset you it is probably jd or someone like him so just disregard his posts. If they can't understand what you are saying let them go elsewhere. We appreciate your posts and understand that English is not your native language.