LIBERTY TAX Illegal Franchise Earnings Claims?
Liberty Tax is making illegal Franchise Performance Representations (FPRs) by claiming to have created hundreds of millionaires, according to Anon Source. What do you think?
(UnhappyFranchisee.Com) According to our reader Anon Source, Liberty Tax is making false and illegal claims that it has created hundreds of millionaires.
It’s not the first time that Liberty Tax has pushed the boundaries of good taste… if not legality.
UnhappyFranchisee.Com once reported Liberty Tax to the FTC for the prohibited practice of using employment websites to troll for franchise leads.
They stopped for a while, then went right back to it.
While the claim of creating 800 millionaires and promising low costs and high margins may fall into the grey area short of an outright, illegal Financial Performance Representation, we think Anon Source makes a good point.
As a supposedly respectable financial services brand, Liberty Tax has never been accused of avoiding crassness… as evidenced by some of its more unsavory Lady Liberty “wavers.”
We welcome rebuttals and other viewpoints, which can be shared below or by emailing us at UnhappyFranchisee[at]gmail.com.
What do you think? Share a comment below.
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To Whom It May Concern,
Liberty Tax is making illegal financial performance representations in their marketing materials as well as telling prospects this and other FPR’s that they have consistently used over the years.
John Hewitt claims he has created 800 millionaires which is not true.
They are currently distributing the attached flyer along with the Wall Street Journal all over the International Franchise Expo in New York that says:
This man has created over 800 millionaires, will you be next?
Discover what John and Liberty Tax can do for you.
Close them down as they are using deceptive practices to entice franchisees. Investigate them. You will be surprised what you will find out.
What the ad should have said is that were 500 store closings last year and over 5,000 franchisees who have lost money and closed in this scheme over the past 15 years.
They are continuing to make these false claims of making millionaires that are as clearly illegal Financial Performance Representations in Google ads as well as right on their homepage of their franchise sales site.
You can go to Liberty Tax Franchise and see on their homepage that they are claiming to have created hundreds of millionaires which is 100% not true and 100% an illegal FPR as it does not say that in Item 19 of their FDD.
Additionally, they have produced little if no millionaires so it is false advertising.
The majority of their existing franchisees are losing money, you can see this in their financial statements filed with the SEC and you can look at their Item 19 which is purposely made to be confusing and hide the failures.
At Liberty Tax Franchise Complaints you can see thousands of comments about how much money is being lost and yet they are continuing to lead prospective franchisees down a path thinking they’ll be profitable (which most aren’t) and even be millionaires.
You need to stop them.
5,000 failed franchisees over 15 years at approximately $50,000 per franchisee is 250,000,000 is lost money due to this scam.
These are hard working people who invested their life savings with John Hewitt who is a convicted felon (many years ago in upstate New York).
Just look at how many terminations they have every year. They use all the sleazy tactics in the book at their sales seminars as well as their salespeople.
You can search for the following keywords in Google and see the ads which I have attached here as well:
- Tax Franchise
- Best Franchises
- Starting your own business
- Starting a small business
- Start your own business
- Businesses for sale
- Business Opportunities
- Best Business to Start
They actually are advertising on Google for over approximately 1,400 keywords with these ads generating 3,600 or so people going to their website from that traffic source alone each month.
They spend approximately $14,000 per month on this source of advertising alone.
Plus they are getting traffic from other sources so many other people are seeing these illegal financial performance representations.
– Anon Source
Also Read:
LIBERTY TAX SERVICE Franchise Complaints (4500+ comments)
LIBERTY TAX Franchise: Earned Income Tax Fraud? [NEW]
Tax Franchise Owners Say Don’t Buy a Franchise!
LIBERTY TAX Franchise Warning Part 1
LIBERTY TAX Franchise Warning Part 2
LIBERTY TAX Franchise Warning Part 3
Are LIBERTY TAX SERVICE Franchise Owners Happy?
LIBERTY TAX JTH Holding, Inc. Receives NASDAQ Notice of Non-Compliance
LIBERTY TAX Leaked Email Exposes Sleazy Sales Tactics
LIBERTY TAX: Are Liberty Tax Franchise Owners Living Their Dreams?
LIBERTY TAX Fraud: Preparer Could Get Prison Time
LIBERTY TAX Scam Exposed by Franchise Owner
LIBERTY TAX Mascot Arrested, Jailed
ARE YOU FAMILIAR WITH THE LIBERTY TAX FRANCHISE OR JTH HOLDING INC.? SHARE A COMMENT BELOW. Contact UnhappyFranchisee.com
Tags: Liberty Tax, Liberty Tax franchise, Liberty Tax franchise fraud, Liberty Tax fraud, Liberty Tax millionaires, John Hewitt, JTH Holding Inc., liberty tax complaints, Liberty Tax franchise complaints, Nasdaq: TAX
Another opinion piece from Anon Source on the claim that John Hewitt has created 800 millionaires:
LIBERTY TAX Franchise: Earned Income Tax Fraud?
Could you be next????
If you take into consideration shareholders of LTS and JH, he probably did. Just not the ones that owned and ran the stores.
Met Hewitt once. Heard him speak at an event, too. The dude threw off some pretty slimy vibes. I always trust my instincts. The Franchise King, Joel Libava
Slime is an understatement for Hewitt.
Subway can’t answer 1 of these 20 questions. Don’t ever eat at Subway, until you see the questions they can’t answer! Is Subway guilty, as charged? http://www.franchisesthetruth.com
John Hewitt started Jackson-Hewitt and then Liberty Tax. Yes, his efforts have resulted in people becoming millionaires through those two companies. I have no idea how many. But given that employees often receive stock as compensation and the stock usually goes up significantly when a company goes public, this is certainly not out of the question. Whether franchisees become millionaires is another story, but that’s not the claim. Maybe a little misleading, but only if a person can’t critically analyze what is being claimed. Whether they are relying on people to make that leap intentionally is for people to decide for themselves.
There is no doubt he has created Millionaires, some on paper and some real Millionaires. But He has also destroyed many more peoples financial lives than he has ever helped. With Liberty the majority of Millionaires he created were either at Corp Level or ones he chose to allow to participate in the profits. Very few if any were created just by hard work and determinstion at least at Libetty.
For the majority who have gotten to know John realize that he does not like or trust Franchisees. He has created a system that allows Liberty Corp to pick and choose the winners and loosers and the vast majority of people are loosers because that is the way he wanted it.
The majority of people responsible for Libertys success never made millions it’s quite the opposite. They were destroyed and left broke and quite often Bankrupt. What I am saying is not an exaggeration or a ex Franchisee that is upset with Liberty it’s just the plain truth.
If the truth ever comes out how Liberty was created and rose to the level it is now it would amaze and anger most people. More than likely the truth will never see the light of days because Liberty is large enough and has enough attorneys that will stop anyone from ever being able to show how Liberty Franchise was really built and how so many honest hardworking and trusting individuals were sacrificed both professionally and financially to get Liberty to the point they are today. They created an ingenious system that allowed them to basicly do whatever they needed to do to ensure Libertys success and used financing Franchisees and Area Developers as the main tool to control who succeeded and a tool to destroy all others. The bottom line is Liberty succeeded because of Financing primarily not just income tax preperation. Financing and the way they designed and executed it was the number 1 factor in them succeeding. Everything revolved around financing Franchisees and Area Developers when it comes to there success. Now I cannot comment if that is still the case or not but I imagine it is still the same.
John is a likeable and smart guy. But never think he won’t use you to achieve a goal and then write you off ensuring you get little to nothing. I think the closest thing to the truth being told will probably be on this site. But there is enough information available that no one should say they were not warned.
I know so many people who have lost money, effort, and time with Liberty Tax Service. All the stress that comes this franchise. Hewitt and LTS are crooks to scam your money.