SNAP FITNESS Franchise Complaints

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• Snap Fitness is all lies.

• The Snap Fitness in Pollock Pines Ca is a rip off.
  They will charge you for membership even after you cancel the "month to month" and then when you try to get a refund, Mark Sanchex(owner) will give you the run around!
  Its been over thirty days and still get the same story, "It's not my fault, its corporate!

  What kind of Business conducts themselves like this?

• The truth is that some people get in over their heads. People with some money to burn will purchase a license, be backed by corporate and when they spread their wings, they crash. People make poor decisions and Corporate does what they can to pick up the pieces and keep the failings afloat. All you other idiots, READ THE CONTRACT BEFORE YOU SIGN. If you need to pack up and leave in the middle of the night, then you probably should not have any sort of memberships.

• The truth is that your comment is a load of crap, there are people who do fail and invest money into snap fitness but its lying deviant franchises who portray something far different than what the investor is buying into. The fact of the matter is that these franchises (snap and ones like it) false advertise. The victims are hard working honest people who have saved a little bit of money through an entire life time of work and Peter Taunton and the Snap Franchise are wolf s in sheeps clothing who misappropriate themselves and paint a "risk free pretty picture" knowing full well that the real thing is nothing like what they are leading the franchisees on too.
  Retirees have lost there entire life savings because of what is portrayed by a commission earning snap fitness franchise sales men to be a win win investment and the truth is the only ones that always win are the Snap Franchise who profit hand over fist while most franchisees struggle to pay there note.
  There's a special place in .... for the people who do this with a clear conscious.

• To all of you with little to no factual information. I am a successful Franchisee, and there are lots of us out there. How? We do the work! We utilize the tools the franchisee gives us, and there is no shortage of these tools and customer support. Anyone who ways differently was probably constantly working against the grain. Every unhappy franchisee that I know of has bought into a system, but then they just want to do their own thing! And they expect it to work? You can't own a McDonald's without having the Dollar Menu. This is no different.
  And to respond to "Guest" with what your trying to display as a fact based list.

  Why do Snap Fitness franchises fail?

  1. Inaccurate representation of potential financial success by corporate
  ---I actually read our FDD every year, and the numbers have changed drastically over the years. They are without question accurate. What's not accurate is the "HOPE" of potential franchisees.
  2. Factual statistics about financial health of current franchisees “not available”
  -----With every franchise you have individual owners, this isn't a Wall Street business publishing results every quarter. However, any potential franchisee can and should pick up the phone to call as many Franchisees as they wish. And I promise you the owners will give honest responses. Some good, some not so good. And again, the ones with success will tell you it takes work, the unsuccessful ones will point at Corporate and play the blame game.
  3. Weak business model
  ----Any business model is only as strong as the operator. But in general you will never find a business model with such high potential revenue, and costs that are basically fixed. This is not a bar where the more beer you sell, the more beer you need to buy, profits based on %. Once you hit breakeven the rest is basically profit, and you know that breakeven going into it.
  4. Inadequate support provided to franchisees by corporate
  -------Without question you are clueless on this. Snap Corporate is literally amazing when it comes to corporate support. I have a direct contact at corporate, as does EVERY franchisee. There is absolutely nothing they won't help you out with. Where the misconception lies, is that the unsuccessful owners that exist, don't always like what they are being told--which is that they need to follow the system, and the reason they are failing is because they are trying to reinvent the wheel.
  5. “No contract” memberships become a liability in time
  ----"No contract" is a huge selling point. We can offer 12 month contracts, and we do in my clubs. But to have the option available is great to make people feel comfortable walking through the door, knowing we won't pressure them.
  6. Billing, software and technical equipment continually have issues
  -----The only issues that typically exist with billing are operator caused. The system itself is as close to 100% as possible. People who have issues with their card working at the door are usually caused by declined billing, and those people never respond to a club's attempt to collect the payment, so the card is turned off, just like it should be.
  7. Requires turnover of staff to keep costs low. Revolving door employees.
  ------Again, you have no idea what you're speaking to. Turnover is almost always caused by an owner/manager, not our system. I have had the same manager in one club for 6+years and running, another club had a manager for 5+ years-she left to open her own clubs, one former employee of 1 year left and came back, another lasted 4+ years and only left because of relocation. You can easily keep employees in this business.
  8. Return on investment, if any, is scant and unjustified for the amount of risk
  -------I will take my return on investment against any other investment you can come up with.
  9. CORPORATE IS MAKING HUGE PROFITS WHILE FRANCHISEES ARE WIPING OUT
  ------Absolutely corporate is making money, and they SHOULD!! And so are a lot of franchisees! Nobody goes into business without the intention of making money, but you can't go into business thinking it won't involve work. And Peter Taunton works his a** off, and has for decades.
  --Nobody can become that successful without someone pointing a finger, making accusations, and getting blamed for others failures. All of you on this site are just the "professional complainers" of the world, unwilling to take responsibility for your own actions and decisions, unwilling to take the time to read all the fine print until after the fact, and even then you blame others because they didn't read it out loud for you.

  --The case below pre-dates the formation of Snap Fitness, and is completely unrelated. But I suppose if you put "case #......fraud.....convicted", that just supports all the other non-factual information you post.
  Remember, anybody can sue anybody, and for anything. But just ask any lawyer, there's no point in filing suit against someone with nothing. But once you become very successful, suddenly you are a target.

  PETER TAUNTON = Case # 24040055, Court File # K598001371, Disposition Date 3/18/1999, Minnesota Attorney General’s Office St. Paul, Kaniyohi District Court, Theft-by Swindle-Artifice/Trick/Device or Other, Statute # 609.52.2.4., CONVICTED, Probation Sentence – 2 Years

• The comments above are obviously written by someone on payroll for SNAP FITNESS Corporate.

  The fact of the matter is I can disprove nearly everything you've had to say any Person with half a brain no's that Snap Fitness isn't in the health and fitness business they are in the FRANCHISE SALES Business they could give too s***ts about anything but selling franchises and then making profit off of every single aspect of the sails all the way down to having there people lay the carpet and rubber vs. using a local business in the town your doing business in and establishing those types of relationships.

  Above all of the things you responded to that were mostly loads of crap was the comment about the software.
  6. Billing, software and technical equipment continually have issues
  —–The only issues that typically exist with billing are operator caused. The system itself is as close to 100% as possible. People who have issues with their card working at the door are usually caused by declined billing, and those people never respond to a club’s attempt to collect the payment, so the card is turned off, just like it should be.

  I mean are you kidding me close to 100% how you can say that with a clear conscious would tell me that you have absolutely no clue about fitness business software.
  Checkfree is absolutely without a doubt the most god awful, out dated, slow functioning, and inaccurate gym software there is on the market we can't even record pictures of our members using this software and that by itself is one of the most basic functions of gym software. Something thats been around with other software for over a decade and this doesn't even touch on how inaccurate the reports are the numbers you are given are faulty and don't match any of your actual financial income even when accounting for everything else.

• I signed up as a member at the Mt Juliet, TN location and explained to them I would be exercising at the Hendersonville location. Within two weeks they shut down the location with NO notice and now will not refund my money for 4 weeks. That is poor business, while I might have signed back up if they had opened a closer location there is no way I would now.

• Snap fitness is really a pain, if you want to work out late at night. At first I wasn't having problems with snap fitness, I could go in anytime/any day (24/7 right? That's the point) and weight lift however after about 2 months I haven't been able to get inside to workout. The card would scan turn the light green but the door won't unlock.this started happening at the Robbinsdale location. I moved downtown and started going to Minneapolis one at the thrivent center, no problems at least that's what I thought over the weekend or holidays when business are closed I couldn't get past the front door it is unlocked during the day on weekdays at night the front door is closed (I have to call security) but the second door to get in works. What the hell?

• I completely agree with "don't buy what you can't afford!"
  I am not involved with snap I own an anytime fitness their competition - who use a similar business model I imagine. All of the people on this site are completely negative whiners who should have never become business owners. You cannot expect to buy a franchise and expect head office to do everything for you. it's very easy to point the finger when things go wrong and take credit when things go right. If you put the work in you can absolutely make money put of these franchises. most people are idiots and should not going into business if they are not prepared to work hard- plain and simple.

• If you cannot succeed with Snapfitness, then you are doing something wrong. Don't blame snap for your failings.