My centre closed dec 29, 08 - i emailed US and this is contact info i recd.
>>Diet Success Corp.
>>351 Spinnaker Way, Suite 5
>>Concord, ON L4K4N4
>>
>>Phone: (905) 889-7864
>>E-Mail:
[email protected]
my luck with phone, voice mail was full so i emailed them and this is answer i recd.
___________________________________________
Dear Lucia,
Mr Shneer has forwarded on your email to him and asked me to respond to your email.
We will attempt to explain the situation as best as possible. Our company, Diet Success Corp is a franchisee of a U.S. company. Our U.S. franchisor is called L A Weight Loss Franchise Company. We buy all of the products that our clients use from our franchisor. We have no supplier other than them. The owner and President of L A Weight Loss Franchise Company is Mr. Harold Katz.
In June 2007, Mr. Katz vowed to the franchisees that under no circumstances would he allow any L A Weight Loss markets to close. However, over the past few weeks, Mr. Katz began to close approximately 200 of the centres he controlled. This included centres all over the U.S. and also approximately 24 centres in the Greater Toronto area that he also controlled.
As these closings began across North America, Mr Katz and his company did not inform its franchisees that it was in process of closing centres. It was done without any disclosure. These closings were in complete contradiction to the vow that they had previously made to the franchisees. Then very recently, our franchisor informed us that not only were they closing the centres they controlled, but they were also closing L A Weight Loss Franchise Company as well.
So we have closed for one and only one reason. That is that our franchisor is in process of closing and in doing so, they have breached their Franchise Agreement with our Company. We do not know all the reasons that they have decided to close and we do not know why they have broken their commitment not to close any markets. While we donąt want to give you a run around, we would suggest you direct your inquiry to Mr Katz himself. You can ask him why his company, as our franchisor, is closing. He can be reached at 1-866-525-0422. Hopefully he will provide you with a full explanation.
We can understand that you are very angry, upset and disappointed. We share in those sentiments. The owner of Diet Success Corp has lost his business and livelihood, and all the employees of this company have also lost their jobs.
We have heard that in some similar circumstances, that some of our competitors are willing to honour your remaining service time with us. We would recommend that you contact those local competitors and see if they would be willing to extend services to you.
In terms of a refund, if you paid by credit card, we would recommend that you contact your credit card company and see if they will refund your money. Our company is not in a position to know if it will be able to pay any or all of the refunds that may be requested. We will have to see over time how many requests are received and then determine if the company has the financial ability to pay those refunds. Given that our company is has closed, we would say that it is extremely unlikely that we will be in a position to provide refunds. But we wonąt know for sure for some time.
So our recommendation at this time is for you to seek a continuation of your services with one of our local competitors and/or if you paid our company via credit card, to request a refund through them.
We are truly sorry for this situation, and while it is probably of no comfort, we hope you can appreciate that it was not of our making. We deeply regret we have been put in a position in which we are unable to continue to help you achieve your weight loss goals.
Yours truly,
Customer Service Department
Diet Success Corp
__________________________________
Any lawyers in our forum? Is there something we can do as recourse? Maybe as a group?
Lucia