HUNTINGTON LEARNING CENTERS Franchise Complaints

9 thoughts on “HUNTINGTON LEARNING CENTERS Franchise Complaints”

• Last year I reached out to the Huntington Learning center in Patchogue in hopes of helping my daughter with school in general. They promised me that they would get her skills up to grade level, improve her organization and studying habits, and gain confidence overall. I spent thousands of dollars and wasted hours having my daughter come in to the center. They told me we would meet with the teachers and counselor as well as ongoing communication with the school. Not only did I never get the meetings but my daughter was never happy aside from meeting with one of their instructors and her grades dropped significantly. My daughter is at this time failing all subjects in her first year of high school. I’ve shared my unhappiness and all they offered was for my daughter to come back and possibly get her started in another assistance program. I honestly wish there was a way to get my money back and I don’t recommend their services to anyone.

• You are being WAY too generous with your assessment of Huntington Learning Centers. I closed my center in the 2007-2008 timeframe. At that time, they had over 400 franchised centers plus another 40 or so corporate centers in NJ. At this point, there are 225 centers plus 19 NJ centers (not sure how many are corporate owned). At that time (2007-2008), Huntington was in a strong growth mode and that meant that the support that they provided new franchisees was pretty much non-existent. I could never even reach my Operations Manager. If I had questions and contacted Corporate (at $90/hour), I would get different answers from different people. I never understood how if they had a successful system that I was supposed to implement how I could get such diverse answers to the same questions. And none of the answers ever seemed to work for me, so I was basically on my own to figure out how to run my center and I don’t have an education background. With the exception of their reading program, their programs don’t work. In fact, I could never figure out how to use the programs the way they said and that was after spending countless hours on the phone with Corporate (at $90/hour) trying to figure it all out. My center had a very successful SAT/ACT program mostly because we didn’t follow their program at all. In fact, the most successful centers I knew were established centers that were run in a way that was nothing like how Huntington said to run it.

  When I finally was completely exhausted, I decided to take the financial hit and close the center. Huntington claimed they would help me find a buyer in exchange for a waiver of any claims against them. After several months after signing the agreement with no potential leads, I closed the center despite Huntington’s encouraging me to stay open just a little longer. Within a week, they had someone sign a new franchise agreement for my location. I think that had they convinced me to stay open longer, they would have simply directed that new franchisee to another location. I managed to liquidate my furniture and curriculum so that I could use those funds to reimburse parents. Huntington actually tried to prevent me from selling my curriculum, insisting that I needed to leave that for the new owner, even though I wasn’t getting paid anything for that location. I purchased and assembled my curriculum myself for about $25,000. At the time I closed, Huntington was requiring new franchisees to purchase the curriculum from their own mandatory vendor for a cost of $50,000. I had heard from other franchisees about how Huntington was starting to make opening a franchisee as expensive and difficult as possible.

  Huntington had a program that they pushed on franchisees and potential franchisees for using 401K funds to finance the purchase/running of a center. The SBA loan figures, while bad enough, don’t take into account franchisees such as myself who self-funded or those who were foolish enough to sacrifice their 401Ks for the cause.

  Huntington is fabulous at the marketing but they are nothing but a complete scam and are very good at blaming franchisees for any problems. Purchasing a Huntington franchise gives you the worst of all worlds. You have the added expense and headaches of a franchise with none of the support or experience that could be a benefit. Instead, you are still left having to use trial and error to figure out the best ways to have a successful business. I understand that at one point many years ago that a Huntington franchise was a good investment. Now it is just a scam and they will take your money and run.

• I almost bought a Huntington Center , because I teach at a medical school and was interested in getting something for my daughter to run. I felt like it was trendy like a yogurt franchise, so I bailed.
  This was recommended to me by a private business owner. I bought a rental property that makes far less money. That’s was close one. I also have to give kudos to Joe Libvia (sp?) The fRanchise Kings Course.

• james day:

  Glad you did your homework and made an informed decision.

  Glad you were helped by Joel Libava, the Franchise King (http://www.thefranchiseking.com/).

  Joel is a straight shooter and a good friend and supporter of UnhappyFranchisee.Com.

  He is no doubt hurting this morning after the loss of his Cleveland Indians (a franchise) to our beloved Chicago Cubs, so this shout-out may make him feel a little better. Indians were a class act and played a great series, Joel, but after 108 it was our time.

  Sorry for the tangent… now back to non-sports franchises…

  ADMIN

• Hey Sean,

  Thanks for the mention….

  I am bummed out about the Indians. But I have to tell you; the Cubs are a class act. They played better.

  The Franchise King®

• In September 2018 I brought my son to a Huntington branch to get help. When I got the ladie got me a lawn for almost $8.000 she tolls me she will meet with the school then she charge me for an additional money for ACT/ SAT everytime that I went to pick up my son I ask did you go the school to meet with the school she keep telling me next week, or next month she will go she never meet with the school she keep lying to me everytime also the county that I left asking for a portfolio package for my son for them to review she lies to me said she send it she ‘s not.

  Until now is February nothing done anytime i set up a meeting with her she cancel the meeting at the last minute one day I set up another meeting with her whe I get to th place another person told me that she left without call me to let me know that we can’t meet today she just left. When I text her she take couple days to answer me back finally she texted me said my hours are complete without meet with the school no SAT/ACT DONE.

  Finally she told me that she sold the place to another owner she is not even tells me what to do, there is no way to complaint for this owner. Any one of Huntington that I called tells me different things they keep telling me that I have to call the of the place she’s not even answer my text my call because a personal phone she does not have phone in the office. Obviously Huntington is something else, the problem is how this Huntington work everyone is own there own place no headquarters for this business those owners out there making money on people.

  The funders of this business need to figure out what’s going on with those people who say they out there to help but they not doing anything instead of taking advantage for those who is looking better for ther kids. Somebody please heeeeelp. It’s not right. The center that I use is in md Gaithersburg the owner is Deanna. Please I really need to get somewere that i can get help with this situation. Please help help help help help help because what is going on is not right.

• I owned a HLC franchise for three years. This was quite possibly the worst investment decision of my life. Their curriculum and methods, operating system, and marketing strategies are archaic. They force you into their model which is way behind the times. The cost of startup is much higher than they quote you. I went through training with five other franchisees. One was still in business after three years. I was lucky to *sell* my business… I used the term “sell” loosely because I basically gave my business away Just so I could get away from them. It was sold again a year later, and then closed a year after that. Please do not ever consider opening one of these franchises. They will suck you dry. Kudos to Mr Lieberman for standing up to the blood sucking Huntingtons.

• It really pays to do your research on a prospective employer or job opportunity. I had a similar disaster working three years for Global Resources out of Chicago as an analyst. Their business model was to prey on small businesses offering solutions that required hundreds of hours of onsite consulting at $200-400 an hour. Stay away from them as well.

• this really is a horrible franchise – if considering you need to look @ monthly revenue….it’s skewed w/ a few really big centers in major cities and many making <$300k annually (losing money). Go on owners FB site and look at the complaints from owners…HLC will continue to take from you and you get little in return. Met one owner who needed to get out and they prolonged the process and lied….also – the program is outdated and all they want you to do is pull money from parents. I have a lot more I could say – bottom line, run from this as fast as you can!