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Inches-A-Weigh Stay Away From Inches-A-Weigh. You won't lose pounds, you will lose dollars!! Westlake California
Scott Simcik is charming and quite helpful to the potential franchisees, however he doesn't really intend for them to succeed. He is advertises on potential franchisee sites a low ball start up cost that clearly doesn't even begin to cover the enormous costs of running this type of franchise. Some centers have closed after being in debt well over $100,000 and never received a salary. He stresses that is is better to lease the equipment, rather than buy (you need your cash flow) and he has the person to make that happen. I'm sure he is getting a kick back from the leasing agent on every franchise he sells.
He has people to help you secure a location, but these people can't possibly know every location, so if a bad location is picked and you fail, too bad. He has individuals who offer their service to hire candidates and you can pay a fee to the recruiter. Again, he gets a kick-back from the recruiter. You can hire someone on your own by placing an ad and using your common sense, therefore no additional fee.
He has a compelling and professional website with all sorts of information and has traning seminars throughout the year and for a additional fee you can come and learn. At these seminars, there are tons of documents, that are virtually useless for running a salon. He does provide software (QuickBooks) for them to run their business and even offers training on that of course for an additional fee. There is no assistance on how to secure a bookkeeper which is very important to running a business, nor to obtain the necessary forms to get a license and all the other red tape to running a business.
Here is an industry that doesn't require prior knowledge, in fact you don't have to know anything. It is implied that if you follow the business model, you won't fail. Well people have failed and a lot of them!
If his business assistance was half as wonderful as his website, the franchisee's might have a better chance of succeeding. He has never visited any of the open salons and doesn't seem to care if the brand is tainted or not. If this one happens to go under another sucker will pay him the royalty fee (at least $30,000) and perhaps take the same location to save money on buildouts, financing, etc.. So Scott actually benefits when a salon fails. He gets another franchisee fee rather than the weekly royalty fee that a salon must pay for the privledge of being a franchise.
He clearly doesn't pay his people what they're worth and has gone through 4 administrative assistants. There was one that was really good, she was there almost a year and now she is somehow gone. My guess is she wanted more money and to be treated with respect. He can be very tempermental (maybe bi-polar) and CHEAP! I stay because I am older and have a good deal going since I work off site. One other girl received a raise, but not as much as she deserved. If she abruptly quit, the whole business would suffer since she and I have a direct relationship with the franchisees. We solve their problems, not Scott. We don't know what he does all day, but he gets a large salary.
Lucky Old Broad
Chicago, Illinois
U.S.A.
3 Updates & Rebuttals
shackcrack
United States of Americafranchise growth partners
#4UPDATE Employee
Thu, May 10, 2012
Update: I was admiring Scott Simciks bio again at his new hustle called Franchise Growth Partners. Gone is his claim that he was a "millionaire by 1983" and Inches is now simply acquired by a Canadian firm. Are you getting email updates from ripoff Scott? Obviously, he's distancing himself for the ultimate demise of the Inches-A-Weigh franchise because his credibility to hustling entrepreneurs looking to sincerely franchise would suffer. Who wants advice from someone who was franchising as a scam? I'm also surprised he doesn't claim he actually sold the Inches -A -Weigh company for real money. "Aquired " sounds nicer than it simply "died a unnatural death." Scott actually told me he closed his Birmingham Inches -A-Weigh centers so he could focus on. "helping his franchisees." We all knew Scott was not making any money. No Inches -A -Weigh centers were. But when they started losing money Scott decided to quietly close his and go all in on milking the francisees. He even hired extra staff to go to locations with the highest sales and attempt to audit, I mean squeeze, more money from the owners. Good times. I actually liked the "millionaire " reference. I remembered him mentioning it with a straight face several times.
shackcrack
United States of Americafranchise growth partners
#4UPDATE Employee
Thu, May 10, 2012
Update: I was admiring Scott Simciks bio again at his new hustle called Franchise Growth Partners. Gone is his claim that he was a "millionaire by 1983" and Inches is now simply acquired by a Canadian firm. Are you getting email updates from ripoff Scott? Obviously, he's distancing himself for the ultimate demise of the Inches-A-Weigh franchise because his credibility to hustling entrepreneurs looking to sincerely franchise would suffer. Who wants advice from someone who was franchising as a scam? I actually liked the "millionaire " reference. I remembered him mentioning it with a straight face several times.
shackcrack
United States of Americashacker
#4UPDATE EX-employee responds
Wed, May 09, 2012
Hi I too experienced the Inches-A-Weigh Scott Simcik con tactics. The corporate Inches team knowingly lie to sell the franchise licenses to primarily hard working people who end up losing the bulk of their savings. Many file bankruptcy. When a franchise in Arizona became profitable thesee franchisees financials where illegally shown to prospective new owners by Scott. These victims where told that this was typical Inches numbers. The truth is that the Arizona owners where experienced high pressure timeshare sellers who where also getting special treatment from Scott to continue this part of the con. Scott would say that Inches was a typical franchise in that 1/3 of the locations where highly profitable, 1/3 where doing "okay," and 1/3 where in "transition." And in "transition " always meant because of personal reasons ; not because of a flawed business model. What wasn't told was that Scott had already sold hundreds of franchises and during this "heyday " there was usually only about 30 locations active because as several new ones where sold each month an equal number would quietly close. This happened before the days of internet and information was difficult to verify. Most where stunned at the level of deception. Thousands of licences have been sold with the plan to be bigger than Jenny. What typically happened is an owner would bring up the fraud and Scott Simcik would let them know that he would resell the license to another pidgeon. The owner would get a fraction and sign a "no tell the truth " contract and Scott would make another sale. The owners other option was to go legal only to learn about the unfavorable "mediation " clause in the original franchise agreement that would cost them the small fortune that Scott had already liberated. What also becomes obvious after you have your own Inches is that your clients don't lose weight because the program is stupid and never honestly researched. The machines where out of the 60's and downright silly. The products are selected purely because they were the cheapest available. The manufacterer of these will slap any company name on the label; they are not proprietary. I personally believe that Internet communication has hurt the Inches Scott Simcik con because it was so dependent upon keeping the real numbers hidden from prospective new franchisees. This was Scott's bread and butter; not continual revenue from failing locations. I pulled up the Inches site and have learner that they are down to a handful of locations. Scott has moved the address to a drop location outside Vegas. I ' m sure he would still sell a franchise license to some who has no Internet access. The Westlake CA address on the above ripoff report is Scott's home address. Too funny. What I now see is he is the CEO of Franchise Growth Partners that is also superhyped but makes their money as cheap home rental property managemt. Check out his bio on the FGP site. Scott brags he was a millionaire by 1983! He also explains how Inches was acquired by a Canadian investment firm. Whatever.... All I really know is that what comes around, goes around. See ya in millionaire heaven Scott!