My wife and I had owned and operated our own business for over 20 years and had been very successful at doing so. While we were making a great income from our business there was something missing in our life. Neither us felt that we were contributing to society but just taking and we decided to make a major change in our life. That was when we heard about Curves for Women. It was a new franchise that only had 300 or so clubs and for the first time in years we both became excited at the prospect of actually helping people reach their goals. We bought our first club in 1997 located in a city of thirty thousand. From the first day it opened it was more successful than our wildest dreams. Not only were we making excellent money but the personal rewards helping people better their lives was a truly rewarding feeling. I can still remember as if it was yesterday the first time a Dr. of one of our members came in to check out what we were doing as he couldn’t believe the ch
We sold our first club in 2001 and bought two more franchises. My wife became a mentor for Curves International around this time and I was helping to sell franchise for Curves International as so many of are members wanted to own a club. It was at this time that we started to see problems arising with Curves International but we attributed it to the fast growth that Curves was going through. In 2002 we bought two more franchises but this time they were in what was called a metro-area instead of city under thirty thousand in population.
The first problem we encountered with Curves International was in early 2003. Curves sold a franchise that was a corridor of land between one of our franchise’s and the next city 8 miles from our southern boarder. It was obvious to us that the territory didn’t have the necessary population to support a facility and that Curves International was selling any location just out of greed and the fact that there were so many people who wanted a franchise. The people who bought that franchise tried to open up on our border but it had always been an unwritten but followed rule of Curves International that you open in the middle of your territory so that disputes between owners over stealing members from your territory didn’t arise. We immediately filed a complaint with Curves International and they stopped the new owner from opening at that location. Unfortunately for the new owners there were no other commercial locations between the two cities so they were forced into selling that franchise back to Curves International for a loss.
It was also at this time that Curves International started to change personnel. The employee’s who we had a personal relationship with that had started Curves International with Gary Heavin were leaving the company at an alarming rate. Seven employees that were the top management of Curves left or were forced out because of Gary Heavin’s greed. They ended up filling a law suit against Curves which was later settled out of court. It was at this time that Diane Heavin became involved with Curves and a whole new history was being written about how Curves was started. The original Curves member guide which was written by Gary Heavin and June Manley was taken off the market and the new Curves book authored by of course Gary Heavin was on the top 10 of the Times best seller list.. To make sure it was on the Times best seller list all the clubs had to order at least on case. That is when we as owners realized Heavin was a manipulator and not the born again Christian he portrayed to be. It was also at this time that the price to buy a franchise more than doubled in price. This came as quite a surprise as Heavin had always maintained that he would never ever increase his franchise price and he even swore on the bible in front of a group at club camp that he would never break his word on that. Well as we all know he didn’t keep that promise for long, which just shows his greed.
At this point my wife and I became quite concerned and even considered selling our business but other problems arose concerning Curves International that demanded our full attention. In 2004 another Curves location located on our boarder of one of our metro-areas hired two of our employees and stole around 15 members from our club. Both employees had signed the anti covenant not to compete and in our state those agreements are strictly enforced by the courts. We considered going to court but since it was another Curves facility we decided to file a complaint with Curves International. And to let them handle it. What a mistake that was as they did nothing. We transferred the members files but refused to transfer the money for the members dues until such time that Curves International responded to our complaint. We were told by the area director, which was a new position at Curves International, that we were trouble makers and he refused to send any of are clubs the members appreciation bags. Shortly thereafter Curves International resold the corridor of land that had been sold back to them at a loss from the previous owners and they allowed the new owners to open up in nearly the same location that they had refuse the previous owners only a year and a half before. The new owners advertised in our area and ended up getting 10 or 11 members to transfer to their club. Again we held their monthly dues but did transfer the members files. We immediately filed a complaint but again got the same response nothing. It didn’t take long for most of the members who transferred to come back to our club as the other location was small and in a very run down area and to this day that club has not shown a profit and has been sold numerous times over the years for little to nothing.
Then in 2005 the real problems with Curves International started that we are still contending with today. In one of our metro-areas a competitor by the name of Ladies Workout Express opened up right across the street from our location. Unknown to us they had hired our manager and one other employee from that location and when the employee’s left they had stolen off our computer our member files. They ended up stealing over two thirds of our membership with in a week. The employees had signed the covenant not to compete so we immediately hired a lawyer and prepared for a lawsuit. As I stated before in our state that agreement is strictly enforced but it took four months to get it into court. During this time that location was losing so much money that we decided to move the location next to our other territory so that both clubs could stay open. We sent in the required change of location form to Curves International but never heard anything back from them so we went ahead and relocated in late 05. The owners of the Ladies Workout Express eventually went broke because of the lawsuit and the fact that they would end up owing us monetary damages. They filed for bankruptcy to prevent us from collecting any monetary awards in Dec 05 but we did have the satisfaction knowing that we did what was right
In early 06 we were informed by Curves International that because we abandon that location they were terminating all of our franchise agreements. We immediately requested mediation for all of our clubs which is authorized by our franchise agreements with Curves International. We never heard back from them so we hired a lawyer in Waco, TX to represent us. He proceeded to send them a letter requesting the same mediation process and they did respond to him. They sent him letter stating that it was premature to go through the mediation process at that time as they were in the process of researching our reason for moving. Curves International continued to debit our account for the franchise and advertising fees for all the other clubs we owned but stopped talking the fees for the one territory that they stated we abandoned. The lawyer had us send Curves International a check for the fees and a new authorization form for them to deduct it from our account. Neither our lawyer or ourselves ever heard anything back from Curves International so we all assumed that things were back to normal.
In the spring of 07 we made the decision to start selling off all of our clubs and to completely retire. It didn’t take me long to sell the club we owned that wasn’t in a metro-area and I agreed to stay with the new owner’s to help train them how to run the business. We sent all the documentation into Curves International and the sale was completed by January 08. That freed my wife and I up to concentrate on our metro-area clubs and to get them ready for sale. In Feb of 08 we heard that a Curves club was opening in one of our territories within a mile of our current club. We could not understand how Curves International could do such a thing. We again filed a complaint by phone and e-mail to Curves International and several weeks later we were informed by e-mail that they didn’t know what we were talking about. We were told we didn’t own any franchises and hadn’t since we were terminated in 05. That came as quite a shock to my wife and I as our franchise and advertising fee’s had been deducted all along from our checking account and we had just recently sold a club that they were telling us we never owned. We had a local lawyer send a letter to the new owners explaining the situation and that we would be seeking legal recourse against Curves International and depending on the outcome they were opening themselves up to a potential lawsuit. During this time we had bought and paid in full for the Smart Equipment for Curves International and were waiting for the installation which was scheduled for the June 24th. On June 20th , a Friday we received a phone message telling us that the Curves Smart Installation was canceled and that we had to call Curves legal for an explanation. We left messages both e-mail and phone every 30 minutes on Monday June 23rd and finally late in the afternoon we received an e-mail stating that one of there lawyers would be in touch with us before the end of the day, They never sent an e-mail or a phone call as was promised but by mid day the next day they did respond by e-mail. It stated because of the problems with the members transfers, the fact that we abandoned a franchise, and that we had interfered with the opening of the new franchise located in our territory we weren’t approved for the Curves Smart. Yet in late May they had sent all the promotional ad material for the Curves Smart and of course we had gone to a considerable amount of expense for training the employees, advertising and promotion of the Curves Smart equipment. It was at this point that my wife and I decided that drastic action had to be taken against Heavin and Curves International.
While we still love the concept of Curves we feel that because of the deceptive and we believe fraudulent business practices that Heavin has allowed under his management Curves will eventually end up in the toilet so to speak. After spending many hours on the internet we have found that there are many lawsuits against this man and his company. Just read some of the post’s that are on franchisepick.com from owners concerning the new ten thousand fee if your club goes under and closes to the vitamins that were sold in Feb and March by Ideas in Action at a discount to owners without telling them that they would expire at the end of May. The lack of support and communication from Curves International that all of us owners are going through is intolerable. It is impossible for an owner to get through to them on the phone and good luck if you expect a call back in a timely manor. The fact that we as owners pay a lot of money for our advertising fees and have no accounting of where it is spent and a quite frankly we never see many ads in our area.
I have taken the time to do the necessary research to find several good lawyers who handle franchise law who are more than willing to help Curves owners who are having similar problems with Curves. I for one am going to go after Curves International and Gary Heavin in a court of law. These are not class action but group action lawsuit and if you don’t understand the difference contact me and I will explain it to you. There have been over 200 such lawsuit filed against Curves in the last several years and while some have been settled in mediation others are in the process of going to litigation. If you are a past or present Curves owner who has experienced these problems and want satisfaction whether it be monetary or revenge please contact me. We have several options that we can go and I for one am positive we will win as the other lawsuits have been successful so far and have set a precedent for ours. It is time for the owners of Curves franchises either past or present to stand up together and put a stop to Heavins’s ramped destruction of peoples lives just for monetary greed.
Thanks for reading our post and God Bless you all.
ARE YOU AN CURVES FRANCHISE OWNER OR FORMER CURVES FRANCHISEE?
ARE YOU FAMILIAR WITH THE CURVES FRANCHISE OPPORTUNITY?
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I own a curves and am too struggling to get by... I have owned for 1 1/2 now and making no profit. I would like to close the doors but don't want to dissapoint my members, but it may be my last resort. What will be the closing costs or penalty for breaking franchise contract. Please email me.
Just a lot of idle harassment and intimidation so when k you get to the closing stage send an email to Admin the moderator at unhappyFranchisee[at]gmail.com and have him forward it to me and I will give you some advise on what to expect and how to handle it. the real unhappy who is getting happier every day
Wow, after reading through so many posts, SO much needs clarification. (No, I don't work for CI). I do feel sympathy for everyone who has been screwed over, and know the 10,000 closing fee is totally ridiculous, and illegal. But still:
1) Curves smart is not manufactured in Mexico, it's manufactured in Ontario, at the same facility where you call for technical support. (Franchise owners from Ontario can back this up). The inventor is a man named Reed Hanoun, not Gary Heavin.
2) As business owners, how can you not understand that Curves is out to sell franchises? That's it, bottom line. It's a big corporate structure, NO corporation really cares about the little guy, and of course their contracts will do everything to get money out of you, just as almost any franchise does. While that doesn't excuse them from not advertising on your behalf, how could you buy into something that markets itself as "the McDonalds" of fitness, and NOT expect over saturation? Ever been on a street with like 7 McDonald's? I have!
3) If you live in a town with less than 10, 000 people, how did you expect this to go well in the long term? If the town doesn't have a high turn-over rate in the population, you have no new feed of new members. Plus you have to factor in that even so-called "potential" members may not be into fitness and will never walk through that door!
4) Mytrak makes CurvesSmart. But Curves owns the CurvesSmart name, so yes you can get the Mytrak system for other places, it just won't be called CurvesSmart, it will be called Mytrak.
5) Mytrak is a separate entity from Curves, meaning that if Curves makes it that the equipment is not adjustable, how can the CurvesSmart possibly be adjusted to the equipment? This is Curves' fault.
6) Curves is not right to pressure owners to get the CS system, however, if you did get it, it's to benefit your members, you can't possibly blame mytrak that installing CS didn't bring you more members. You fell for Curves hype.
7) Again, I sympathize, but from a business perspective, of course Curves is going to try to suck money out of you when you're failing, because if you're failing, so are they, as any business would do, they are going to try to keep money, as that member claims Robert is doing.
8)I understand the frustration and financial undoings of many people here, and don't agree with Curves, or what they're doing to their franchisees. However, when a member is complaining that they feel mistreated (whatever the case may be here) everyone gangs up on her, and says "so what, what's your piddly amount of money to people in real debt. You concerns are invalid" So how is Curves supposed to feel for you, when that's how you feel about people being hurt by your business closure? $30 or whatever may seem like nothing to do when you're in 60g's of debt, but maybe for someone else that's a few meals or something.
9) Sometimes you walk into the tiniest Curves ever, and while they're cute, would you pay roughly $30 per month for a facility like that, when you can be involved with places that offer way more for the same amount?
9) If this member was billed for the month ahead as she says, then how is it NOT taking money from her? If she is in fact mistaken on the billing cycle, why doesn't anyone clarify?
10) This is supposed to be a forum for discussion, but when anyone says anything that isn't 100% anti-curves, people are resorting to name calling!
11) Re-read Den's posts for how hydraulics work, and how you won't just plateau. ie. If a 60 year old woman can only move so fast, she would have plateau'd anyway! If you're a trainer reading this, you couldn't have expected a limited circuit to continue to help someone for all time. Eventually they would need to change styles, change exercises etc. to continue to see results.
12) Curves was marketed to women to run their own business with no business training. Big mistake on Curves' part (or good sell, depending on how you look at it) but even bigger mistake on the buyers parts. What made you think you could run a successful, functioning business, with no business training, on a model that markets itself as TRYING to saturate the market.....it just blows my mind over and over! Even without Curves the fitness market is largely saturated!
13) If you treat people like babies while they're working out (not allowed to chew gum??? Grade school anyone?) then don't be surprised if members don't come back. The way you treat your customers, and customer service is almost all that counts in industry anymore.
Not trying to step on anyone's toes, but before signing my life away on a contract, I would read it over, with a lawyer, and know every damn facet before I agree to anything. That being said, good luck with your lawsuit, Curves is illegally charging you closing fees, and not holding up their end of the contract, through lack of advertising, and putting people too close together despite territory rules, and making you sell things that do not benefit your franchise, but only Curves. I hope you rake them over the coals.
A Curves member is billed for $117 FIVE YEARS after she stopped working out at the club.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-thu-problem-1112nov12,0,5588073.column
Wipedout: Thanks for the link.
All: please read and comment:
CURVES: Complaints of Unauthorized Membership Charges
Here’s the Question: How widespread is the practice of questionable or fraudulent billing by desperate Curves franchise owners?
curves greed will lead to their downfall. Curves makes the mistake by being greedy and the individual owners pay for it. Franchises fail, no guarantee you will survive, BUT when corporate, out of greed sells curves franchises like 5 feet from each other how can each one survive?
yet clubs close their doors and curves fines us?
Im sorry I ever got involved with this company. First of all its a disgrace. They are all good at PR, but not much else.
What I also dont understand is why , knowing how screwed up CI is, how people can still cheer for them?? they did a hell of a job brainwashing people!
I hope Howard is taken down and pays for his greed.
Can someone also tel me why people think its ok to work the same muscle every day and not think it is overtraining??
granted they dont take the muscle to failure or fatigue, but it makes the program even more boring that much faster..
That was an interesting article you posted Wipedout and the follow up question by the Admin was quite appropriate. While I would give the owner the benefit of the doubt at this time. I would like to reserve final judgment to see if the owner pays it promptly now and would hope that there is a follow up story letting us know how it is resolved
If you click on the site CURVES: Complaints of Unauthorized Membership Charges you will see my response to the admin question shortly.
for all you curves franchisees..
i just found out from a mytrak rep that curves international never had the intent of advertising curves smart..
they dont care to advertise it so heavin lied again..what an asshole..
Does that surprise you?
I closed my club on Oct. 30th after being open for a little over 4 years. It was located in a small town and I had 27 members when I closed. My highest membership was about 150. After the first year, there was an exodus of members calling to cancel their memberships because they did not have time or had to drive too far. My now ex husband had tried to talk me into selling or closing the club two years ago, but I was hoping to turn it around and that the economy would get better. I didn't think it was doing well enough to sell. A year ago, my husband and I separated, partly due to the stress from Curves, partly due to his affair with another woman.
Before I closed, I took my franchise agreement to an attorney to ask his advice on closing curves after CI would not respond to my phone calls. He said he could only help me if I filed bankruptcy. He also said the franchise agreement was for 5 years and that CI had 180 days before the 5 year term is up to send me a certified letter asking if I wanted to renew my agreement and I would have 30 days to respond. If I did not respond within 30 days, CI would assume that I wanted to renew my agreement for another 5 years.
I have to admit, I never fully read the franchise agreement, but that should not give CI the right to hold me in bondage and not allow me to close a business for which I can't even meet payroll and taxes. I was losing $2000 a month from my personal money and I have two kids to support. CI has their money for the franchise and is free to resell it to anyone they would like. I just had to cut my losses and get out.
My ex sent me an email that supposedly was forwarded from CI but I can't believe some of the demands that were made "in order for Curve International to 'work with you.'" I had 2 options. Option 1 - sell my club. (After reading option 2, there's no way I'm going to sell to another "victim"). Option 2 - After completing a list of closing procedures, send them 10K AND then: either donate my machines to another Curves club (nobody ever donated anything to me!) or women's correctional facility, OR take the cylinders off and ship them to the company that I bought the machines from (a subsidiary of CI?) at my expense, remove the padding and DONATE it to another Curves club, and then sell the machine skeletons for scrape and send CI the receipt and money that's left after reimbursing any members for which reimbursements are owed.
I bought the machines, I didn't borrow, lease, or rent them. Those demands are so rediculous, it doesn't even warrant a response! If anyone out there is going through the same thing with closing, or if anyone wants to help me warn current franchisees of what's in store for them if the economy in their town goes bad or if they have to close for any reason, I would appreciate any help and suggestions. I can't imagine anyone in their right mind actually sending CI money and destroying their machines, as well as giving up their business rights. And then CI is still free to sell the territory again! I will probably have to go to court in Waco but if I do, whatever treatment CI gives me, they better be proud to have it made public knowledge.
I don't look for Curves to be here much longer. I think it grew too big too fast and Gary Heaven got his eyes off of Christ and started focusing on mammon. I think he did start off as a christian though. We all need to pray for him that he will come back to the Lord.