I too have fallen under the same type of scam by Elite Manufacturing and Cuppy's. I signed a purchase order with Elite Manufacturing and was pressured into wiring $37,900 to their bank account in order to "save" myself from pending increases in the franchise fees and increased build out costs. Elite would pay the franchise fee for me if I wired them the money to thier bank account the next day which I did.
I was given one day to wire the money which I did on 8-16-07. After working with Cuppy's on financing and was instructed by the Cuppy's finance department to enter my current salary on the financial docs and to indicate that I would be maintaining my full time job and current salary in order to obtain the financing. I did do that and after realized that I would be committing fraud.
I notified the finance company that I was withdrawing my request. I contacted a lawyer to mitigate the issue with Elite. Surprising that after 4 weeks my lawyer was able to talk with Elite's lawyer who just happened to be Cuppy's lawyer. After several months of phone tag, my lawyer was given a proposal for me to review which was that Elite would keep $15,000 for "loss of revenue" purposes and that they would refund the balance of $22,900 over 20 months.
Cuppy's lawyer indicates that they are waiting for final bank approval on many deals and they don't have the cash to return my refund. I am perplexed that any legitimate corporation persuades the public to furnish them money in the intent that a business partnership may blossom only to refuse to return money that is not rightfully theirs.
After reading one of the complaints on this website it sounds almost identical to my scenario. My lawyer was under the impression that the refund payment schedule may not be a bad idea if I could at least get my money back.
I don't know what else to do other than to sue for the refund back. The signed purchase order states it is contingent to financing which I did not get as well as within 1.5 months of providing the $37,900, Elite was notified that I wanted a full refund. My purchase order states that a refund will take place. No where does it stipulate that it would be returned in payments. It has now going on 5 months that I have not gotten my money back and Cuppy's or Elite, is still stalling on doing the right thing.
I am not a bank and should not be held accountable for funding other franchises for Elite or Cuppy's. Someone needs to do something about these corporations taking advantage of naive people such as myself.
Steve
Tierre Verde, Florida
U.S.A.