Is the Novus Glass franchise opportunity a “total scam”?
“NOVUS has been awarded more U.S. Patents for windshield repair than the rest of the windshield repair industry combined.”
Novus Glass claims that it provides dedicated support to all Novus franchise owners.
The Novus website promises prospective franchisees that “The NOVUS staff of management, technical, marketing and research specialists will support you in the beginning and as your business grows.
“This means you are never alone and help is always a call or a click away. NOVUS’ more than 39 years of experience in the auto glass industry and the experience of our franchise network provide our franchisees with best practices to help their business thrive.”
However, we received an email from a person who claims that his experience as a Novus Glass franchisee was a disaster.
He has numerous Novus Glass franchise complaints, including:
”Novus Franchisee” wrote:
Novus Glass franchise is a total scam.
Their holding companies compete with franchisees through 800 numbers on their websites (which were way better than the franchise network website that they provide) and then subletting the work to some local guy in that area.
They have this attitude that they trained us and gave us their name and logo so we are really stupid to be asking for help. Their regional manager would never call or return calls and will only answer our calls after 3 or 4 days of our persistent calls to him.
They never tell us what is working for successful franchisees so we could implement the same in our areas but would continually give us new untested and unproven ideas on a whim that sometimes would send us on a wild goose chase.
Auto glass business is mostly dependent upon receiving referrals from insurance companies without which you are doomed to fail. They give us all the information to be able to become part of the insurance network but there are so many companies on it that you receive 1 or 2 referrals a week from them if you are lucky.
Their [FDD] does tell you that the company is showing a loss on their tax returns but when I had called other franchisees before buying,
most had positive things to say about them because they have a vested interest but there was 1 that talked to me for over an hour, kept engaging me in a lengthy conversation… After I became a franchisee… a lot of things suggested that he night be a shill who was actually receiving jobs through them.
READ: NOVUS GLASS FRANCHISE DISCLOSURE DOCUMENT (FDD) 2011
ARE YOU FAMILIAR WITH THE NOVUS GLASS FRANCHISE? IS NOVUS A SOLID OPPORTUNITY OR A FRANCHISE SCAM? SHARE A COMMENT BELOW.
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Novus Franchising Inc., which sells Novus Glass franchise, is a complete fraud and scam and they make money by selling a business model that does not work in this day and age and then suing the poor and hardworking franchisees when they fail after giving it a good 2 years of their life alongwith their life savings.
Please Google search "Novus Franchising Court" and you will know. Going deeper, you will also find that they had lost a legal battle with their "esteemed" inventors and founders whom they purchased this company from.
Here is the link: http://www.ca8.uscourts.gov/opndir/96/12/961223U.pdf
Please do yourself a favor and spend time on research and keep in mind that the successful franchisees you speak during due diligence might even be a "SHILL".
Discuss the FDD with lawyers before you decide to part with your hard earned money! Understand your rights and do NOT waive them by just signing on the agreement.
Facts are still facts.
True or False: NOVUS has been in business since 1972 (40 Years)? TRUE
True or False: NOVUS has over 1,700 locations worldwide? TRUE
True or False: The founder of NOVUS was the inventor of Windshield Repair and NOVUS continues to hold more patents than any other glass company in the industry? TRUE
True or False: NOVUS lists all franchisees along with their phone numbers in their Franchise Disclosure Document as required by law? TRUE
True or False: Anyone interested in the NOVUS Glass Franchise Opportunity has the ability to call any and all franchisees in the system to get their opinions? TRUE
True or False: NOVUS uses "Shills" to help them sell Franchises? ASK THE FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION AND SEE WHAT THEY HAVE TO SAY or in other words FALSE
"NOVUS uses “Shills” to help them sell Franchises? ASK THE FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION AND SEE WHAT THEY HAVE TO SAY or in other words FALSE"
NOVUS FDD: I just contacted the Federal Trade Commission like you said to.
They said "Why the F--- are you asking us? We don't check to see if franchise companies are telling the truth or using shills. No one does. It says so right on the front page of the FDD. What fool told you to ask us 'bout dat?"
I'm confused? Why did did you say to ask them?
Why was there a $700,000 judgement against Novus Franchising anyway?
"they make money by selling a business model that does not work in this day and age and then suing the poor and hardworking franchisees when they fail after giving it a good 2 years of their life alongwith their life savings. "
NOVUS FDD: I just read the Novus FDD and it does look like Novus sued a few failed franchisees.
Why would you sue a franchisee who invested in your franchise and lost their investment? Why would you sue someone when it was YOUR job to help them succeed? I don't get it.
"Why would you sue a franchisee who invested in your franchise and lost their investment? Why would you sue someone when it was YOUR job to help them succeed? I don’t get it."
Well said, Guest!
They seem to have access to 'super lawyers" and their cases seem to be referred to highly esteemed judges. I used to think that courts would be suspicious of franchisors who sued more than reasonable amounts of their own franchisees but in this case I am just stunned to see that these judges actually seem to favor this fraudulent franchisor.
Novus' FDD lists only 1 or 2 court cases where Novus Franchising Inc. has sued it's franchisees. They claim that those are the only ones they are required to mention in their FDD for some reason. Upon doing a Google search on "Novus Franchising Court", you will find that they sue around 10 franchisees a year!
When I had called the FTC, the lady who took my call told me that they generally look for a pattern in complaints to establish a course of action. She was not allowed to give me specifics of other complaints but told me that she herself remembered taking a few complaints herself and there were only a handful of call handlers there so she was aware of other franchisees complaining to the FTC on a regular basis against this franchisor.
The FTC does explain Franchise Fraud as Pyramid or Ponzi scheme but Novus Glass has taken this fraud a step further. Their tax returns show a loss so they don't make money through Royalties but they make money by selling a bogus franchise and then preying on the same franchisee by up-selling all their marketing material (material that is designed to promote more sales of their franchise rather than the product itself) and then finally preying on that same franchisee yet again by threatening him legally.
In these legal threat notes through them or their lawyers, the logic in their statements seems so out of whack that one might think they are actually building a case against themselves. I am not sure what their strategy is but I think they want the franchisee to sue them so they can drag it out in court.
Their parent company competes with franchisees through their website http://www.speedyglass.com by listing a fake location on their website. They take orders using the 800 or local number that routes to their call center. This part is easily proved by going on their websites and calling those numbers and placing a glass repair or replacement order. They then pass those jobs to a subcontractor in that area. I personally met one glass guy who told me he did subcontract work for them. Although this part can not be proven immediately, maybe the Novus proponent on this forum can tell us what they do with the orders they take through those fake locations?
In their FDD, there are a lot of clauses and provisions that makes the franchisee waive their rights as soon as he signs the agreement. At least get those amended through your lawyer if you just have to become their franchisee.
About patents: I could design an upside down faucet and patent it- doesn't make it better or even necessary.
Novus' windshield repair system takes the longest to perform a repair compared to most competition! Novus repair takes a good 40 minutes to do it right as opposed to 15 minutes using the better ones out there.
One major reason is that Novus uses plastic injectors which come with their resin you buy as franchisees. The competitors have far superior equipment with metal injector pumps which pulls a far better vacuum and does a superior job.
Their resins are full of acrylic acid which causes long term problems to skin and lungs. A lot of the competitors sell safer resins.
Most of the competitor companies are non-franchise and only sell kits and training but some of them have a support structure and training far better than Novus. One would think it should be the other way round or why else would anyone buy a franchise of anything.
About other franchisees Phone Numbers on FDD:
Ex franchisees are required to give up their phone numbers to Novus so one can't contact them by phone.
The current franchisees have an invested interest in the business and they are still hoping to make it so they only say positive things about the franchise.
Some of the current franchisees go out of their way to "sell" the franchise to you and they say everything you wanna hear in the way you wanna hear to the point that you unknowingly make that conversation the most important decision sub-consciously even though the numbers weren't making much sense.
Look up "Shill" on wikipedia or the web in general and you will get a broader picture.
About "Novus the inventor"
The inventors had sold the company to this Canadian company called TCGI around 1993 which owns a lot of companies including Novus Franchising Inc. as well as Speedy Glass that competes with Novus Glass franchisees.
It makes better sense for franchisors to be located in the state of Minnesota as MN laws favor franchisors so they have this franchising arm located in MN.
For starters, TCGI had lost a legal battle with their “esteemed” inventors and founders whom they purchased this company from.
Here is the link: http://www.ca8.uscourts.gov/opndir/96/12/961223U.pdf
About Number of Franchisees:
Who knows about the whole world but their existing franchisees in the U.S. is only around 250 and their FDD states that they loose about 24 franchisees a year. They probably make the same amount of new franchisees. Their older franchisees probably have an established business to be able to sustain themselves or maybe they make money from the new franchisees like in a pyramid scheme. I am not sure. Their new ones seem to fail in about 1 to 2 years time.
Do your children a favor- stay away from Windshield Repair business in general but do NOT get in to a franchise.
Buy a $600 kit from another company. Even Novus' parent company sells it with another name (so much for the exclusivity franchisee signed up for) and just practice on a windshield at home following their training DVD.
Or spend another $3000 on a competitors training if you must and they have a better support structure than Novus.
If you absolutely have to become Novus Franchisee, make sure you amend all those clauses in their FDD that make you waive your basic rights. If Novus refuses- consider yourself lucky!
If anyone is interested in reading the Novus Glass Amended FDD dated June, 2011, I have posted a link to the .pdf file in the post above, just below the blue box.