SUBWAY Franchise Complaints

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• My wife and I owned two stores for about 8 years. We were there for the Jared craze and the start of the 5 dollar footlong thing. We were the perfect operators and had the cleanest most productive stores around. They changed our field person about every 6 months and the last one we had broke the camels back. We had enough of the Subway system and sending us their newest "young Gun" who wanted to make a name for himself. I had a heart to heart with him and told him I didnt like his delivery system and we had been doing ok prior to his arrival. I reminded him we started with Dr and ASSociates back when he probably got his first zit back in high school. We had enough of his "crap" and put our two stores up for sale. We had never been found out of compliance in 8 years and once we found an approved buyer there was an untimely monthly check from our "young gun" field guy. He found a kid that evidently didnt wash his hands after handling money and gloving up. I couldnt find it on our security system so I took his word for it. At this point I could have cared less because we were about 4 weeks out from selling our stores according to Dr and ASSociates people. One week prior to close and another inspection????? Guess what the guy finds us out of compliance on the same situtation. Really a kid didnt wash hands after handling money???? OK. A Fedex letter two days later advised us our sale had been placed on hold pending a payment of fine or I could go to arbitration in Connecticut. WOW! I was floored! They had placed us on probation due to this supposedly happening although I had video footage to prove otherwise. Now the remedy according to the legal department was to simply pay a $5000 penalty and they would reinstate the closing and it would go off without a hitch. Otherwise I would have to get an attorney and bring my video to Connecticut in a month or further and state my case in arbitration. I had a 6 week vacation already paid for on the week to follow our closing so Ill let you guess what I did. I paid the Dr and ASSociates the $5000 by Overnight Official Bank Check and closed on who I consider probably the worst organization you could ever want to do business with. If this is the same that happened to any owner out there lets start something and file a class action on these people because if they did it to me I am sure they are doing it to others. I have yet to eat at a Subway since due to knowing that DeLuca gets 12.5 pennies of every dollar I spend there and I cant stand the man or the organization. I hope he reads this but doubt he will be touched by my experience. Way to screw people Dr. and ASSociates. Love ya!

• Was being a Subway owner very profitable for you, or do you wish you had invested your money in something else?

  My local Subway owner has relative that puts on his gloves and then takes one off to collect the money. Puts money in his one gloved hand. When finished he puts a glove on his other hand and goes back to making sandwiches.

  I don't go to that store anymore after seeing him do this at least twice. All I can think about is how many people he can give the runs or worse just to save one glove..

  I went to the Subway due diligence meeting but my calculations led me to think I would clear less than $25,000, if lucky. Not enough for the hours opened.

• I think you can see with my entry above that I am not a happy camper when it comes to Doctor and ASSociates. I feel it was very unfair what they did to us and although we did learn the food business a little better I also learned how NOT to treat people. It is an organization out of touch with its franchisees out to make more and more money. They dont care how saturated they become they keep adding in new stores to infiltrate what customer base you have built for them in a certain area. They are very uncaring and you will see once you become part of their organization. If you are not a multi unit owner then you are not treated as well either. Pick another franchise or go it on your own. We may have cleared 8 percent if we were lucky on a 500K store.

• Thanks. I will do something else. With all of the saturation, I don't see how multple stores are possible now. Theft would really worry me if I tried to operate multiple stores. Lots of cash involved.

  This is a good website. I tried in many different ways to get a better idea on Subway .

  I will also say that 8 percent on 500K probably means I was right on the possible stores in my area. Talked to owner about one in the $300K range and owner and husband worked night and day, so they had 2 people working (them) and not 3 .

  They sold it and moved out of state. New owner took over and was closed in less than 6 months. New owner told me he was'nt making any money. I tried to get in on that location but the area developer/manager did'nt call me back. My blessing! Found out he either quit or was fired.

  After a long time ( about 4 months) store was resold to a multi unit owner.

• My hopes is to find other ex Subway owners that have had the same experience as we did with having to pay a $5000 fee rather than go to arbitration just short of the sale date. They know that people are planning a vacation or whatever to celebrate their freedom of Doctors and ASSociates so they do it that way. What are you going to do? Pay the $5000 or cancel your sale, trip, vacation and fight them in arbitration in Connecticut? Thats why I paid their ransom and were done with them. We were very very good operators with awards for sales , etc. Too bad they are only in it for the money and oversaturating the market with Subways. They will come to the same demise as Curves, Quiznos and others. Good luck in whatever you choose to do. I don't mean to come off as a pushy Christian but when one door closes another will open and you will be led the right direction if you just pray about it with your spouse. I did and I am much happier for it.

• I went into Subway @12044 Plank Rd.Baton Rouge,La. at 1:00pm and ordered a steak and cheese sat down and started eatting and bit into a bone about the width of a grain of corn but about an 1/8 of an inch thick. I called for the Manager who's name was Meco,and showed her she took the sandwich and paper wrap in which the bone was on turned her back towards me and raked the bone off the sandwich wrapper and turned back around to me and pointed to a piece of lettuce and asked me if that was what I was talking about cause she didnt see anything.

  I looked around the wrap and it was clearly gone,I then told her I wasnt sure what she did with it but it was a bone on the wrapper when I reached it to her,and to look at the video tape because I was sitting under the camera while eatting. She took my name and number down and said someone would call me. I left out the door and came back in and told her I wanted my money back for the sandwich, she said she wasnt allowed to do that and reached me a napkin with the complaint hotline's number on it.

  I went outside and called the number and told them where I was and what had happen. One hour later the same manager "Meco" called me and told me she had spoken to subway and they had told her to invite me in for another sandwich. I told her this was bigger then a sandwich and that was an insult for her to get rid of the bone and that I felt like a cover-up had taken place, and she could have looked at the camera and seen the object since she was trying to make out like it wasnt there. She told me she didnt want this to get ugly so she was getting off the phone and someone else would have to deal with me.

  I called the complaint hotline back and told them what I was told and she said that they cant tell the stores how to run their business and no one had contacted them and she would email the store again and the owner would contact me in 3-5 days I told her the same manager that the complaint was against had received the first email and that she would also be getting the second one and she told me it would be sent to three different places and she was sure the owner would be getting it. I also informed her that I was thinking about seeking legal action and contacting the media and she said to please give the manager 3-5 days, I also told her That even though each franchise is independently owned this was still bad business for Subway.

  I'm going to the dentist next week because my tooth is still sore from bitting into the bone that was in the sandwich. I'm calling the local media and thinking of going hold a few signs in front of the store because this was wrong. My name is Fred Schiele [redacted]. Please help me!

• my daughter works for a subway and a customer chewed my daughter out and pointed his finger in her face after taking directions from her supervisor angie smith.when i called angie smith she said i don't know why you think this is any of your business this is o what a combo business it is not your business .I told her my daughter was my business -again she told me it was not my business.that she was handling it --the customer was upset because he said there was a roach crawling out of his sandwich my daughter told him it was highly unlikely that that could happen,but that if he brought the roach and the sandwich back that she would be happy to refund his money. she then called the supervisor and told her what happend and angie told her he was lying not to refund the money.-my daughter had to take abuse from this customer and angie smith says my daughter is none of my business.

• "the customer was upset because he said there was a roach crawling out of his sandwich my daughter told him it was highly unlikely that that could happen,but that if he brought the roach and the sandwich back that she would be happy to refund his money."

  Ugh! A customer finds a roach in his sandwich and your daughter tells him he's a liar? She and the supervisor should be fired. I hope the customer reported this to the local health department and Subway corporate.

  The supervisor is right about one thing: unless there's some kind of abuse, a parent has no business butting into an employer/employee relationship. Last thing a manager needs is to deal with employee parents managing from the sidelines. It's a job, not a soccer game.

  If you buy a Subway franchise, be aware that you'll have to deal with people like this.

• I feel so so sorry for all of the owners and some of the Owner's are just not fair at all my daughter that is only 20 years old is working ,going to College just to become something in her beautiful life and I will a sure you it Will Not be owning st SUBWAY FOR DAM SURE I can't stand what's going on now when she just works there LEAVING HER ALL ALONE FOR MORE THEN 10 to 15 HOURS and Never ever pay my daughter over TIME now that's just Crazy , So for that to go on I could just imagine for my daughter to I own 1 No Way. I told my daughter to WALK OUT and forget it my daughter is so sincere that she felt like she should give her notice and she's a 101% right but when thing are happening to her in there that's so wrong I can't see her staying there no in there. The way she's being treated from that owner is just nuts and if that what she's looking to get into not happening in this time of my life and this place is in Somerville, Mass. So I want to Thank all of you for being all real on here and my daughter WILL DO HER RESEARCH and that's Mine .... God Bless you all and I'm so Sorry .

• Usually, we do our shopping on Fridays and and before going home ,we purchase
  two footlong sanwitches to take home for our dinner. I have been retired 22 years with no increase in my pension and things are getting more difficult each year. We
  purchased our footlongs (spicy Italion) which we were willing to pay the extra $.50
  because we enjoy them so. Yesterday, we purchasd them omly to find that the
  cost for them increased by another 25 crnts ( $5.75).I supose that we will just have to curb our appotite to stop buying them anymore..

  Joseph Abrams