FETCH! Pet Care Franchisee Feels “Suffocated, Strangled, Trapped!”
Franchises are sold to those seeking freedom & autonomy. Too often, they find themselves imprisoned by onerous agreements, deceptive brokers & unscrupulous franchisors. This Fetch! franchisee invested more than $100,00 & moved from France to Florida. He claims the franchisor lied about “profitability, costs structure, the opinions of former or existing franchisees, and the “support” from the corporate to run the business (under the managed service or absentee mode I chose).” He claims Fetch! Pet Care ruined him financially and left him “suffocated, strangled, trapped!” by Sean Kelly
(UnhappyFranchisee.Com) See: FETCH! Pet Care Franchise Complaints (Index)
The comment below was submitted to the FTC in response to its invitation for public comment on franchise regulations and practices.
It was submitted by “Anonymous” & posted by the Federal Trade Commission on Oct 10, 2024 (Docket Document FTC-2023-0026-2219).
SUMMARY:
I’m a French Fetch Pet Care [franchise] owner of two outlets in Florida (DBA: Fetch Pet Care of Miami Gardens) and I’m seeking for rescission and total refund of fees engaged in the franchise since I joined in April 2024.I would like to cancel my contract and recover my initial franchise fees, along with other startup costs, royalties…
I realize the corporation and the broker fooled me from the beginning about profitability, costs structure, the opinions of former or existing franchisees, and the “support” from the corporate to run the business (under the managed service or absentee mode I chose).
I don’t even know if I should continue to pay the fees (Marketing, royalties…) with no/insufficient booking. I’m afraid of losing everything.
I invested all my savings, time and energy in Fetch…I feel suffocated, strangled, trapped!
DEVELOPMENT:
I’m a French owner of 2 Fetch! Pet care outlets in Florida since April 2024.In my search for profitable investments, a broker who works with Heather introduced me to the Fetch franchise which would offer good profitability (this from the 3rd month of activity), this in addition to the “managed servicing” [agreement].
He also promised me a turnover of at least $120,000 per outlet in the first year ($240,000 for my 2 outlets).
He had given me the contact details of former franchisees who could reassure me that the business was a good opportunity; and I’ve never succeeded in reaching them.
To top it all off, he convinced me that with his partner, he’s also a Fetch owner of several outlets in Florida too; this reassured me.
It’s once after I signed and started the business that I realized via the forum ASKFPC and the Franchise Times that many owners were facing the same situation like me and are unhappy. This broker and the corporate told me things that are not happening.
I invested $100,000 as an entry ticket for the 2 outlets. And since then, it has been a succession of costs: franchise fees (which are taken every week without me having booking), insurance, and to top it all off, the famous marketing costs…
In June, the unilateral decision that ‘they changed the Marketing service provider, and I was charged twice in the same month…
Also, I noticed recently that only the equivalent of [one] outlet was functional from the start, and I had to send emails so that both outlets are restored.
I was wondering about the real profitability of this business when the article came to confirm my suspicions: it will be impossible to become profitable with Fetch’s fixed cost structure.
This business is certainly unprofitable and is starting to ruin my financial life.
The team tells me all the time that they are there to support my business, but in reality, nothing changes.
The lead sitter who is supposed to do local monitoring to support the regional manager for Florida is non-existent.
I have to boost posts on social media and follow up on my own.
An interview must be carried out every week with the regional manager, as well as reporting weekly delivered; these are only done sporadically, because nothing is happening at the business level.
I don’t know what to do.
About Fetch! Pet Care & Phoenix Franchise Brands:
Livonia, MI-based Phoenix Franchise Brands was founded & is headed by Greg Longe & Maria Longe (aka Maria Shinabarger).
One or both of the Longes were previously associated with British Swim School, Martinizing International, Rooster’s Men’s Grooming Center, Zoup! (rebranded Z!Eats), & Collision on Wheels International (defunct).
Private Equity: Cybeck Capital Fund, LLC (“CCF”), a private equity fund managed by Cybeck Capital Partners, LLC of Dayton, Ohio, acquired a portion of the issued and outstanding common stock of Fetch! Pet Care, Inc. and retains a minority ownership interest in Fetch! Pet Care, Inc.
Litigation: Phoenix Franchise Brands is being sued by call center provider EagleOne Insights, LLC.
Franchise Registrations appear to be expired in multiple states (CA, MN, & IN). Most recent FDD expired September, 2024
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Tags: Franchise visas, E2 Visa, Fetch! Pet Care franchise complaints, Fetch! Pet Care franchise, Fetch franchise, Phoenix Franchise Brands, franchise complaints, Greg Longe, Maria Longe, Maria Shinabarger, pet franchises, Rhino7, Cybeck Capital Fund, LLC (“CCF”), Cybeck Capital Partners, LLC, dog franchise, Furry Land franchise, Spray Foam Genie franchise, Door Renew franchise, MedSpa810 franchise, Federal Trade Commission, FTC
I work as an independent marketer for one of the franchises because none of what Phoenix was providing made any sense to me.
I emailed them on multiple occasions asking them for stats on number of monthly calls, leads, new clients, turn over rates, etc. for our territory, and they could not give me a strait up answer. In addition, I set up a meeting with them to hire a professional photographer to photograph a Fetch Ad campaign, so they could distribute the content to all the franchise owners, (which would have given them enough content to use for the year). When we had the meeting they pretty much told us that the current images they’ve been using (which are over saturated) was essentially taken by a photographer for free, and that they didn’t have a budget to pay us for our time.
Then I saw all these fees they are charging the franchise owners, such as the $500 a month “microsites”, plus the extra fees the franchises have already been paying and it made absolutely no sense to me that they couldn’t afford to do a professional photoshoot/commercial with us. They are literally collecting a huge amount of money from their clients that the services they could (AND SHOULD) be providing are not only annual/ bi-annual campaigns, but also paying for their client’s Facebook, IG, and Google ads at least 1-2 times a week.
Not to mention, any of these Franchise owners could have easily hired a website builder to develop their own websites, with wix.com or square space for an annual fee $500.00 versus $500 A MONTH! $6,000 a year for the subpar website Fetch is providing is criminal! Wix.com at least shows all the stats of where the most traffic is coming from, (Google, FB, IG etc.) sales made per month, best performing website pages, what pages customers spend the most time on, best sellers, online booking, etc.. whereas getting any type of fully transparent and accurate data from Phoenix was a nightmare for me.
I’ve given up on communicating with them all together, and advised my boss that as soon as she gets a chance, to build her own website, and reinvest the remaining money into her employees by giving them additional hours to promote the business via in person connections and events.