Deceptive business practice

[sjorgenson]

Joe,

Thank you for your comments and I agree with you 100%. The report I wrote in Word was a good report and looked very professional. I use the same tools that you use etc. The instructors we had in VT also used NCR forms and worked in Word. It may be that out there in the east those methods are acceptable to the real estate professionals. Here, they are not. Perhaps a difference in the market.

Real estate in Montana is in demand and the people who are buying it think nothing of paying $500K for the adjacent lot just so they can have their driveway the way they want it. The realtor's clients demand digital everything because they don't have the time or want to take the time to read anything but computer accessible reports and they want those reports in a certain format. These clients, for the most part, are out of state or out of country.

As for our school, all of the printed literature and training materials we were sent depicted classrooms with computers at every work station, a modern training facility and professional instructors. Even our attorney said it was certainly the impression that he got from the information. Everything we were told sounded professionally done..........until we got there.

The trouble is, you're required to sign a franchise agreement and put your money down before you learn the truth. Everything is operated on a shoe-string budget. The marketing support consists of two color copiers in the office. The materials we paid for contained literally hundreds of misspellings. There are no less than three misspellings and an incorrect email addy in the 1000 + brochures we paid for. I think they've never heard of Spell Check!

Our clients don't know that our brochures are printed in Vermont and that we have nothing to do with their quality and professionalism yet those brochures represent us and our business. To quote something that I may have found right here at NACHI....., "If you are just starting your business, the cost of using something that is not professional looking might cost you your new business."

In class, one of the students mentioned a misspelling and America's #1 Home Inspector replied, "You know what Ed, I don't give a s_ _t"! When we announced that we wanted out of the franchise and mentioned misspellings etc. he told us that they wanted us to bring those things to their attention so they could fix them. Quite a different attitude from the one he had in class.

So it's not that you can't do a quality inspection without high tech tools, it's just that in my particular market I have to be able to compete for a share of that market or I may as well not be in business. The real estate professionals are fast moving and are used to having things a certain way for their high tech clients. It's compete or disappear.

The sloppines and unprofessional attitudes I talked about above are other reasons I just want to warn people to be very vigilant when they get online in search of home inspection training. The one we attended may have trained us for a rual community in the east but it actually set us back about three months out here by leaving us almost totally unprepared.

They kept telling us that they want us to succeed because their success depends on our success yet they failed to even mention to us the home inspection expo in Las Vegas last month where we could have networked and learned what others are doing around the country to be better inspectors and better business people. This month, #1 is having his own conference in Sarasota, Florida for his own organization (ASPREI). Not exactly centrally located for those of us in the western states. Why do you suppose that is?

I apologize, I'm starting to vent.........

I'm very happy that I finally got hooked up with NACHI and I look forward to a long and rewarding relationship with you fine and professional people.

Steve

[sjorgenson]

Mario,

The course went 9 am to 6 pm each day. A couple of times we started earlier and/or finished later. It was 10 days straight, no weekend break.

Steve

[lcapaul]

For your initial investment, you'll receive . . . go to previous >> next

Ten days of award-winning start-up training - Every franchisee attends our award winning start-up training program taught by Francis X. (Rich) Finigan, America's #1 home inspector, and his team of industry experts. Our expert instructors will teach you how to masterfully perform every one of your home and environmental inspection responsibilities. You'll also be trained to market your new business using AHI's proprietary marketing system. The capstone of your initial training is a visit by one of our industry experts to tutor you in your territory. You'll have the opportunity to watch your expert mentor in action and you'll have the rare chance to have your training significantly impact your start-up as your mentor helps you market your business and perform your first inspections!>>>>

Could this be the Guy? and the Franchise begins with All_ _ _ _ _

[sjorgenson]

Lewis,

That's the one! The photo does NOT depict our basement classroom. Like this photo, everything was created to produce an image in our minds about what we could expect. After we signed and paid our $24K it was one disappointment after another.

[wforsyth]

They use alot of the same type of false graphics that IBSWOW does/did. They are for decoration only!

Fortunately we didn't get taken for as much money with IBS, however there might be about that much in lost revenue.

I hope things get better for you.

[Blaine Wiley]

A quick search on the internet would have had me question a lot before every paying a nickel. Wow!

Finigan (PDF File)
... by Francis Xavier (“Rich”) Finigan See page xx for author biography The appraiser ... Francis Xavier “Rich” Finigan Mr. Finigan ...
www.airqualityassessor.com/EstimatingDiminution.pdf · Save

Finigan (PDF File)
... by Francis Xavier (“Rich”) Finigan See page xx for author biography 1Finished Basement ... Francis Xavier “Rich” Finigan Mr.
www.airqualityassessor.com/BuildingPractices.pdf · Save
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The Herald of Randolph
... municipal government will cost between $600,000 and $900,000, Randolph Selectman Francis X. "Rich" Finigan said Tuesday night at ...
www.ourherald.com/News/2001/0419/Community_News.html · Save

Inspector Courses (PDF File)
Francis “Rich” Finigan 2097 North Randolph Road Randolph Center, VT 05061 1-800-245-9932 Fax 802-728-5534 E-mail: ...
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Indoor Environmental Standards Organization
2097 North Randolph Road Randolph Center,VT 05061 Phone: 800-245-9932 Fax: 802-728-5534 Contact: Rich Finigan Email: fxf1@aol.com ...
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Franchise Information for Allstate Home Inspections/Environmental ...
... and environmental expert, Francis X. (Rich) Finigan. Long recognized as America's #1 Home Inspector, Rich was the first to assess the ...
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AHI President, Francis X. (Rich) Finigan, America's #1 Home Inspector. Francis X. (Rich) Finigan is a regular contributor to several industry ...
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R. M. Leek Ray Henderson Rexford Erik Rich Finigan Richard Rock Richie Rosenbloom Rick Hale Rick Duckworth Riechelt, Bill Rob ...
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... bigger quarters at the old Merrimaids building, wants to prove it’s a community service, not just a store, said Francis X. "Rich"
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Two Selectboard Spots Will Be Open
On Tuesday evening Francis X. "Rich" Finigan also announced he would step down, to make more time for his growing business.
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[Mario A. Kyriacou, CHI]

Originally Posted by sjorgenson

Mario,

The course went 9 am to 6 pm each day. A couple of times we started earlier and/or finished later. It was 10 days straight, no weekend break.

Steve

Steve

The reason I asked was Yes I paid $12,000.00 but my HI course is almost 1000 hrs! and from a highly respected college.

Your course ,take away lunch and breaks is 80 hrs at the most I'm sorry I just have to ask,Did a light not go on?Again I'm sorry,but I would just like to know your thought process in determining that this org. was for you.And did you do research in terms of other schools,etc.

[sjorgenson]

Mario,

Yes and no re: researching other schools. We looked into several other franchises but could not get "our territory" from the others we researched. We never looked at schools that would allow us to be independent. We also had a book that listed the VT school as one of the top 500 (?) franchises in the country for the past 3 years. We did our due diligence with the BBB and the VT Sec. of State etc. and even called a half dozen of the franchisees and got good reports from those people.

One of the people we called in Utah gave us a good report. His new partner is one of the people from our class and the story is now quite different. We've been in touch with that classmate (who was pressured during class to buy his own franchise but didn't) and he says they are not renewing their franchise option when the time comes.

As for a light coming on..........most definitely for me. I had serious doubts after watching the first training CD we were sent. Right after I finished watching it, I called my partner and said, "......I'm beginning to wonder what we've gotten into here. This CD is pretty bad from a professional standpoint." The more CD's I watched and material I read (misspellings, grammatical structure etc.) the more concerned and disappointed I became. My attitude became negative and my business partner began to get upset with me. We had already paid our money and signed the franchise agreement. My partner insisted we just make the best of it. We did approx. 200-250 hrs of self-study before we left for VT.

In July, #1 came to Montana to deliver the, "...capstone of our initial training" as mentioned above in the posting by Lewis. During that visit, I was subjected to several minutes of verbal abuse and sworn at several times by #1. Professionals don't talk to their franchisees that way. I kept my responses to him on a professional level.

Several days later, it was my business partner who came to me (after talking with the guy in Utah again) and told me she wanted out of the franchise because she couldn't work with someone like #1. We immediately set about accomplishing that and found it easier than we had anticipated. I think #1 realized that we had seen through him and his operation for what it was and that we were in a position to do some damage to him if we wanted to. That's just my opinion based on other information that I won't try to list here.

It's been a long and expensive road for us to get where we are today. We've learned much the hard way. In October, another class went through this school and I kept thinking about those people and feeling badly for them. There should be more information for people who are looking into this industry and trying to make decisions about where and how to be trained. Franchises are attractive to people because the marketing and support is supposedly in place, tested and proven. America's #1 HI had one marketing plan that we found very deceptive and we couldn't get behind it. We found that these people in VT don't understand how business is done here in Montana. To continue with them would have killed our business early on.

It seems that everyone around here is in a franchise HI business. We naturally thought we had to go the same route and that's how our search proceeded. I don't remember that we ever talked about the possibility of being independent or even knowing that we could be independent.

In regard to this particular school, one would have to read the information on the web (see the posting by Lewis above), and call the school for more information. Then one would pay, sign, and attend class at the facility in Barre, VT to experience what we did and come to realize what a low-budget, unprofessional and deceptive outfit this really is. Nine out of nine students in that class ended up leaving with the same feelings. One we know of is now suing for a total refund. We were considering doing the same but my partner's life has undergone some changes and we decided to accept any loss, end this chapter and just move forward.

This has been a wordy response to your question(s) but I really want to get the message out to people to BE CAREFUL. Learn from our experience.

S

[Mario A. Kyriacou, CHI]

Originally Posted by sjorgenson

Mario,

Yes and no re: researching other schools. We looked into several other franchises but could not get "our territory" from the others we researched. We never looked at schools that would allow us to be independent. We also had a book that listed the VT school as one of the top 500 (?) franchises in the country for the past 3 years. We did our due diligence with the BBB and the VT Sec. of State etc. and even called a half dozen of the franchisees and got good reports from those people.

One of the people we called in Utah gave us a good report. His new partner is one of the people from our class and the story is now quite different. We've been in touch with that classmate (who was pressured during class to buy his own franchise but didn't) and he says they are not renewing their franchise option when the time comes.

As for a light coming on..........most definitely for me. I had serious doubts after watching the first training CD we were sent. Right after I finished watching it, I called my partner and said, "......I'm beginning to wonder what we've gotten into here. This CD is pretty bad from a professional standpoint." The more CD's I watched and material I read (misspellings, grammatical structure etc.) the more concerned and disappointed I became. My attitude became negative and my business partner began to get upset with me. We had already paid our money and signed the franchise agreement. My partner insisted we just make the best of it. We did approx. 200-250 hrs of self-study before we left for VT.

In July, #1 came to Montana to deliver the, "...capstone of our initial training" as mentioned above in the posting by Lewis. During that visit, I was subjected to several minutes of verbal abuse and sworn at several times by #1. Professionals don't talk to their franchisees that way. I kept my responses to him on a professional level.

Several days later, it was my business partner who came to me (after talking with the guy in Utah again) and told me she wanted out of the franchise because she couldn't work with someone like #1. We immediately set about accomplishing that and found it easier than we had anticipated. I think #1 realized that we had seen through him and his operation for what it was and that we were in a position to do some damage to him if we wanted to. That's just my opinion based on other information that I won't try to list here.

It's been a long and expensive road for us to get where we are today. We've learned much the hard way. In October, another class went through this school and I kept thinking about those people and feeling badly for them. There should be more information for people who are looking into this industry and trying to make decisions about where and how to be trained. Franchises are attractive to people because the marketing and support is supposedly in place, tested and proven. America's #1 HI had one marketing plan that we found very deceptive and we couldn't get behind it. We found that these people in VT don't understand how business is done here in Montana. To continue with them would have killed our business early on.

It seems that everyone around here is in a franchise HI business. We naturally thought we had to go the same route and that's how our search proceeded. I don't remember that we ever talked about the possibility of being independent or even knowing that we could be independent.

In regard to this particular school, one would have to read the information on the web (see the posting by Lewis above), and call the school for more information. Then one would pay, sign, and attend class at the facility in Barre, VT to experience what we did and come to realize what a low-budget, unprofessional and deceptive outfit this really is. Nine out of nine students in that class ended up leaving with the same feelings. One we know of is now suing for a total refund. We were considering doing the same but my partner's life has undergone some changes and we decided to accept any loss, end this chapter and just move forward.

This has been a wordy response to your question(s) but I really want to get the message out to people to BE CAREFUL. Learn from our experience.

S

Steve

I'm pissed off for you,just the thought of people like this offering instruction for new HI'S is scary to say the least.Nice to see that you moved on.

[sjorgenson]

Wendy/Mario

Update: I just got off the phone w/ one of my classmates from the Advance Look school in VT. He's been up since 3 am doing more research on the AL franchises around the country. He's also been looking into our own class performance.

Of the nine people in our class, no one is doing anything with their Advance Look franchise. We got out of ours and one is suing for a full refund. One person was smart enough not to buy one, one bought two territories in CA but isn't doing anything with them, two are working for other inspectors, one is now broke and unlisted (he was pressured into buying a franchise I'm told), and one in Oregon who is doing nothing with his.

Two guys paid $1,700+ to train and were to be working under other AL franchise owners but I believe they are not doing that now. The other five of us paid $24K for our franchises. The guy in CA bought a second territory at an unknown cost.

ALHI made $123,400+ on five franchisees and two sub-contractors excluding the $300 we each paid to join IAQA and the additional $300 we each paid to join the technically non-existent ASPREI. Only one person asking for his money back. What a great way to make money! Meanwhile, #1 buys real estate.

My classmate also searched a number of AL franchises around the country and found many (via Google) who had set up home inspection businesses in addition to their AL franchises. I suspect they are doing the bulk of their inspections under their aliases and doing only enough business under the AL name to meet the minimum royalty payment.

We were told that AL has 95 franchises around the country. Apparently, the fed. gov't shows only 65 and a large percentage of those have secondary HI businesses attached to their names. My classmate said he's going to make some calls to some of the people listed and try to find out what's going on. Sounds to me like a whole bunch of people are dissatisfied with what they got and are finding ways around it.

S

[sjorgenson]

A second update: Prior to our class, there was one other AL franchise in OR but that one is gone now and the guy from our class isn't doing anything with his. In 2005, Colo. had three franchises and they are all gone now. Texas had 3 and they are all gone now. Of all the AL franchises listed in 2005, 20 are gone now. Some have gone into other businesses, some have become independent HI's.

My classmate says that Advanced Look seems to be losing franchises faster than they can sign them up but if those 20 franchises didn't go after a refund, #1 put $500K in his pocket.

In the Advance Look franchise agreement, it states that all AL franchises must belong to IAQA and ASPREI. Checking the IAQA data base shows that 18 Advance Look franchises are NOT members, yet the Advance Look website says they are.

There are other discrepancies, double standards etc. There is no organization to this "organization." If you made $500K on 20 franchises, would you care?

[Keith Swift, PhD.]

Steve, just another taste of life. Request demo disks from all of the well-known software companies that are affiliated with NACHI, most of which are valid training programs in and of themselves, pick the one you like, and live happily ever after.

[Nick Gromicko]

You can't lay the blame completely on them. Trade associations like ASPREI or ASHI are probably decent trade associations and if they were operating in any other industry (other than the inspection industry) trade associations like ASPREI and ASHI might even be considered great organizations.

It is only when they are held up to the light alongside NACHI do they look comparatively pathetic.

Times have changed. Evil Knievil was great... but his jumps wouldn't even qualify in today's X-games.

NACHI has taken everything to a whole new level.

[Marcel R. Cyr]

Steve;

Read your posts and feel very depressed to the fact that people would stoop that low to provide a false pretense education for the one's that have the money to dish out.

Isn't there a word for those type of people?? yes there is (connards tordus)
Unfortunately, they are amongst us and nothing you can do but stay on your guard.

Welcome to NACHI and hope we can all help you along and guide you to a better Home Inspection Business.

After reading your experience, boy, aren't I glad I was paid to learn what cost you $25K, but it took 38 years and that is conservative. ha. ha.

Best of luck in your future endeavors, and wish you well.

Marcel
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[Mario A. Kyriacou, CHI]

Originally Posted by sjorgenson

A second update: Prior to our class, there was one other AL franchise in OR but that one is gone now and the guy from our class isn't doing anything with his. In 2005, Colo. had three franchises and they are all gone now. Texas had 3 and they are all gone now. Of all the AL franchises listed in 2005, 20 are gone now. Some have gone into other businesses, some have become independent HI's.

My classmate says that Advanced Look seems to be losing franchises faster than they can sign them up but if those 20 franchises didn't go after a refund, #1 put $500K in his pocket.

In the Advance Look franchise agreement, it states that all AL franchises must belong to IAQA and ASPREI. Checking the IAQA data base shows that 18 Advance Look franchises are NOT members, yet the Advance Look website says they are.

There are other discrepancies, double standards etc. There is no organization to this "organization." If you made $500K on 20 franchises, would you care?

Steve

Did you buy a franchise? I was under the impression you only attended classes.