My name is Lucy W,I signed a five-year franchise agreement with Advanced Fresh Concepts Franchise Corp. (hereafter called AFC) The business model is, AFC, the Franchisor, will contract the SUSHI BAR in Kroger Supermarket to me as a Franchisee which located in Saginaw of Michigan. Every month, I order all the seafood and package from AFC. And at the end of each month, Kroger Market will distribute the gross sales directly to AFC.AFC will deduct the costs of my orders and 33% of the gross sales and then send the rest back to me.
From December 10th 2008 to August 1st 2009, AFC provided me false figure of gross sales, short of USD300 to 800 each week, in order to lower the percentage of my income. For example, in the weekly statement January 3rd 2009, the true gross sale shall be $7,368, but AFC’s figure was $6,552, which is $816 less. Such kind of false statements were sent to me in each of the following weeks.
From the first statement I received from AFC in January 2009 till now, I kept contacting the relevant staff of AFC by emails, faxes and calls (I can’t go directly because of the long distance from Michigan to California.). AFC admitted that they received the Discrepancies Forms I faxed, but they refused to solve the problem by giving me the following pretexts:
1.All the representative are busy right now, we don’t have time to calculate, please wait patiently;
2.Please try to call 2 or 3 weeks later;
3.There is no IMR (Item sold/loss Movement Reports) to prove and it might be the system digital error of Kroger Market;
Not every franchisee is so lucky to be able to either see or get the IMR to get the correct figures. As most other unlucky franchisee, we have no other means to find out the figures except: the statement from AFC and our own record.
I asked help from the store manager in Kroger Market and printed out two reports: IMR and the weekly sales amount.
Surprisingly, the reports illustrate that every week AFC embezzled my gross sales ranged from as low as $300 to as high as $864. As of August 1st 2009, the total is $13372.46. Such a high amount is a shock. And it also shows clearly that there is nothing wrong with the figures provided by Kroger, which performs its duty honestly by sending the correct figures to AFC. It is AFC that intentionally and maliciously tampered those falsifications.
My supporting evidence for my above assertion is:
1.The statements of each month received from AFC.
2.The two reports printed out from Kroger Market: IMR and the weekly sales report.
3.All the emails to AFC concerning about the negotiation of this matter.
4.The contract and agreement I signed with AFC.
All the evidence support my assertion: AFC is cheating and embezzling by entitled income. According to the contract, AFC has the responsibility and obligation to provide me the correct statements. There is no excuse or reason for AFC to embezzle my money and do anything unlawful, immoral or dishonest.
Respectfully yours,
Lucy W
