DISCOVERY POINT Franchise Complaints
Discovery Point franchise complaints include a high number of failures that the company effectively hides.
Other complaints include the use of a fixed franchise royalty (rather than a royalty calculated as a percentage of sales) and allegations of franchise churning.
Franchise Churning is an industry term that describes a practice wherein a franchisor allows or causes a franchisee to fail so that they can re-sell the territory over and over to new franchisees, collecting new fees each time.
UnhappyFranchisee.Com has not verified the accuracy or veracity of these allegations. We invite those familiar with Discovery Point to share their views in the comment section below.
We also invite Discovery Point Franchising, Inc. and its associates to provide rebuttals, clarifications, refutations or explanations to UnhappyFranchisee.Com for publication, as it is our preference to provide both sides and let our readers decide.
In response to our post DEADLY FRANCHISE MYTHS: The Hot New Franchise Myth by Sean Kelly, DiscoveryPointFraud wrote:
These deadly combinations were effectively used by the childcare franchise “Discovery Point”.
Look up other resources before buying into this.
Franchisees have been ruined and those were not disclosed. Not sure why employees continue to work in the corporate.
They have seen how one after the other families have been destroyed by this child less couple mercilessly.
Discovery Point uses a fixed royalty and not a percentage. Therefore, has no interest in improving your business.
Actually they benefit if you fail.
They have effectively churned the same location to make more Millions for themselves at the cost of the franchisees and the SBA guarantees.
They are well known to take over running franchised businesses for free, be careful.
Earlier this year, allegations of multiple Discovery Point failures and bankruptcies were posted on BlueMauMau.org.
On January 29, 2013, Guest wrote:
The latest victims of Discovery Point Franchising are the Vahids of DP #36 and the Duttas of DP #57.
They were preceded by DP #11 and DP #22. All these Discovery Point franchises were located in North East suburbs of Atlanta, GA.
All of these franchisees were families with children and lost everything they had. They now have the stigma of bankruptcy on their records, but the people responsible to make that bankruptcy are enjoying vacations in their private jet.
These are hard working people, who saved to open their own businesses but fell prey to the perfected fraud of franchising.
Vahids and Duttas are willing to share their story to prospective franchisees, if they desire to contact them. Their contact information are available with the existing franchisees of that area.
On May 28, 2013, Guest wrote:
Two more bankruptcies for Discovery Point
Discovery Point #50 at Dawsonville and #55 at Fayetteville, GA went out of business last week. These were multi-million dollar loans guaranteed by SBA but SBA logs did not show that the loans were franchise related. The franchise corporate injected imaginary money from the profit to make the loans happen. There were perhaps overseas money transfers from these transactions. Each closing of these centers also had a parallel cash transfer among business entities owned by the Franchise owners and it happened in the closing attorneys office at the same time as the closing. Hopefully these discussions come up in search results so that future franchisees can make an informed decision. Bluemaumau has been blocked in primary search by this franchise. For example, if you Google “Discovery Point”, these discussions will not show up.
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If you are looking for a franchised childcare and you are a family with children, be careful because you are targeted for destruction. The owners of Discovery Point Franchise are childless but are in child related business (go figure!). They have no clue what it takes to raise a child but understand that the effort makes these families vulnerable and easy to prey upon. Past records indicate that they were after happy families with children – Craigs, Padins, Vahids, Duttas, Schuchmanns to name a few. All these franchisees were personally bankrupt under the supervision of the Discovery Point corporate.
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An exception: One franchisee was a Police Officer, who bought the Mall of GA location, and promptly rescinded the contract but did not bring these near criminals to court. The police officer should have done that to stop the destruction of so many franchisee families. Franchisees lost home, got divorced, lost retirement savings, could not support kids’ colleges because all was sucked in by the franchise and the bank. Most of these loans were made possible by Jackie Hart, who worked with the franchise to increase the center price by a Million in a few years and simultaneously helped to increased the sale volume. She also allowed false cash injection from the franchise’s profits.
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These center failures are not reported in the Disclosure document and one cannot do a thing if there are lies in the FDD. FTC does not monitor each of these FDDs, GA does not have any regulations, and one cannot sue a franchise for lies in FDD. Rogue people like these use Franchise as a license to commit financial fraud with government protection.
Discovery Point child development center was founded in 1988 by Cliff and Diane Clark, and franchised in 1990.
According to its franchise listing on Entrepreneur.Com, the number of Discovery Point franchises has fallen from a high of 58 in 2010 to 53 in 2012.
The total initial investment is listed as $2.67M – 3.34M, with a $60,000 franchise fee and an ongoing royalty of $3800 per month.
Discovery Point Franchising, Inc. is headquartered in Duluth, GA.
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TAGS: Discovery Point franchise, Discovery Point franchise complaints, Discovery Point complaints, Discovery Point childcare franchise, childcare franchise, Cliff Clark, Diane Clark, SBA franchise loans, franchise failures
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