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Report: #119653

Complaint Review: Focalpoint International - Las Vegas Nevada

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  • Reported By: Toronto Ontario
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  • Focalpoint International 5740 S. Eastern Avenue Las Vegas, Nevada U.S.A.

Focalpoint International Ripped off Canada - now USA Las Vegas Nevada

*UPDATE Employee: Grave error

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If you are thinking of buying a Focalpoint International franchise - you should read this and carefully consider all the information before you spend your money.

We have dealt with these gentlemen and have paid dearly. You don't have to.

The three main characters (The Three Stooges) involved in Focalpoint are:

1.Richard Verkley
2.Francois Perreault
3.Steve Thompson

As far as we can establish, Brian Tracey's only involvement is to lend some credibility to this operation.
By using such a well known name, the Three Stooges hope that nobody will dig and find them behind all this.
We have no information about Brian Tracey and make no allegations as to his character!

The company is registered in Delaware with the only officers being Verkley and Perreault.
Delaware is an offshore haven - onshore !! Very difficult to sue.
The Three Stooges hold their shares through front companies - more difficult to sue.

The Three Stooges owned the master license of the Action International Business coaching franchise in Canada.

There are currently (Oct 04) three lawsuits filed against the Three Stooges and their company Action International Canada Inc.

1. By the Master franchisor from Australia

They accuse them of violating a non-compete clause in their contract, of using Action International's material in Focalpoint and of renewing their license while all this was going on.The case is ongoing and will probably be settled out of court. This is public information.

Although they have not been found guilty of anything - yet, you don't need to be a lawyer to know that you cannot buy a franchise and then go and open exactly the same franchise next door.

If they do this to their franchisor, what will they do to you - their franchisee?

2. By 6 franchisees - in two cases

The main accusation is that they lied to their potential franchisees in order to entice them into a contract.

In their Disclosure Document they stated that not one franchisee has left their system since inception, for whatever reason.

The fact is that to date at least 26 franchisees have failed and left the franchise. Thats 26 out of about 70 franchises sold or 37%

So they deliberately lied because they knew that nobody would buy into such an unsuccessful franchise. The law in Canada unticipated this and hold every officer of such a franchisor personally liable, both to return all fees and for damages.

Are they lying to you?

Action International Canada

The Three Stooges bought the master license for Action International for the whole Canada 5 years ago.

They sold about 70 franchises for $70,000 each. The monthly franchise fee is $1,500 plus 5% of revenue for the marketing fund.

Thats about $5 million plus $100,000 a month !

Franchisees were told they should make $12,000 to $20,000 per month. That "Nobody has ever failed at this"

Problem is - all this is untrue.

The average coach makes only $3,500. After the royalty of $1,500 and marketing fee it leaves less than $2,000 per month before expenses. Not close to $12,000, right?

That caused at least 26 coaches to abandon the franchise.

The collapse

With 3 lawsuites against them and most coaches unable to survive, it bacame impossible to sell more franchises. (like all Ponzi schemes)

So now they are trying to do the whole thing in the USA.

They created Focalpoint International Inc. on January 20, 2004.

Then, in April, they convinced the Action International master franchisor to renew their license for Canada for 5 more years.

Without telling him they are in the process of setting up a competing business coaching franchise in the US (in contravention of a non-compete clause in their contract).

This venture was launched on a franchise show in May as Focalpoint International.

During this time they spend very little time on managing their Action International business and concentrated on developing their new venture.

Some of the personnel were redirected to Focalpoint
The sales team was dismissed.
No marketing was done (there never had been)

John
Toronto, Ontario
Canada

This report was posted on Ripoff Report on 11/24/2004 09:03 AM and is a permanent record located here: https://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/focalpoint-international/las-vegas-nevada-89119/focalpoint-international-ripped-off-canada-now-usa-las-vegas-nevada-119653. The posting time indicated is Arizona local time. Arizona does not observe daylight savings so the post time may be Mountain or Pacific depending on the time of year. Ripoff Report has an exclusive license to this report. It may not be copied without the written permission of Ripoff Report. READ: Foreign websites steal our content

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REBUTTALS & REPLIES:
0Author
1Consumer
0Employee/Owner

#1 UPDATE Employee

Grave error

AUTHOR: J Z - (Canada)

POSTED: Saturday, March 31, 2007

Fellow Action Coaches, Master licensees, and Action Employees.

The following details the recent Judgment in the lawsuit between Richard Verkley, Stephen Thompson, Francois Perreault, Action Canada (AIC) and Action Australia PTY (AIPL).

The reason I am sending this today is because I have just recently become aware of the facts behind this lawsuit by receiving the actual final court judgment and I believe we should all be aware of the injustice that has been done.

I am sending this email as well because I am ashamed of the treatment that was given to Richard Verkley, Steve Thompson, Francois Perreault and the AIC staff over this affair. I say this because I believed the lies that were told by Brad Sugars and Vic and others at AIPL that these individuals had broken there contract and had acted illegally. They were also falsely accused of inappropriate use of the Canadian marketing fund by AIPL, and a few Canadian coaches, and especially Jim Argue who's main interest was to discredit them so he could gain control of AI Canada for a fire sale price. These made up allegations have now also been proven to be unfounded. .

I know now from reading the final Judgment available E&Ys website
that none of the things that these men were accused of were true. I also know that AIPL provided no evidence in the trail and never had any evidence to substantiate any of there claims against them.
(Clink link below or paste in browser)
www.ey.com/global/content.nsf/Canada/Action once there look under the heading
OTHER COURT MATERIALS: Reasons for judgment dated November 9, 2005

The following are the key issues and accusations that were leveled by AIPL against AIC and the gentlemen above.

That AIC had breached its contract by not disclosing its involvement with FocalPoint. The Judge ruled there was no evidence to support AIPL's assertion that AIC had breached the contract on this point. The judge also ruled that even if AIPL had provided such evidence this would still not have resulted in a breach of the contract as the contract did not in actuallity allow for such a breach based on a plain reading of the contract, so even if AIC had done what it was accused of it still would not have breached the contract as told to us by AIPL, Brad and Vic.
See page 7 lines 6-27 of the attached Judgment.
See page 8 lines 1-19

Also it was clearly pointed out that even if AIC had been DIRECTLY involved with FocalPoint there would have still have been no breach of the contract or the need to disclose.
See page 8 lines 16-22

The court also states there was no fraudulent behavior on the part of AIC therefore it was AIPL that would have to live up to there contractual obligations or basically, it was AIPL not AIC that was not honoring its obligations.
See page 8 line 27
See page 9 lines 1-3

Next AIPL attempted to rescind the AIC's renewal agreement, they attempted to do this by claiming misrepresentation yet they had no actual information to substantiate their claim. Once they had actually gained the all of the information from all parties it was clear that there was still no misrepresentation yet they pressed ahead anyway with a claim that was unsubstantiated.
See page 9 lines 4-26



The courts final findings were that:
1. AIPL's claims against AIC were dismissed
2. That the Master License agreement was valid and binding.
3. That AIC would catch up the royalties it had stopped paying once the lawsuit was launched by AIPL See page 10, lines 3-16
4. That the CCAA or insolvency was essentially caused by AIPL
See page 10, lines 20 and 21

A substantial penalty was meted out to AIPL by the court due to the frivolous and unsubstantiated nature of AIPL's lawsuit. This penalty is uncommon in this type of hearing and therefore costs were awarded to AIC and MFIT because AIPL's claims were so unsubstantiated.
See page 10 lines 17-26

Once again I am ashamed that I believed the lies that were spread about these men the true facts are that they were great supporters and pioneers of the Action system they developed many of the tools and processes that we all use today. They shared freely of any advancements they had created with the entire system, while Brad took credit for their work and sent out their materials and systems as if they were his own.

They gave us the new logo, professional marketing pieces, the twelve week post training program, group coaching, a coach's website which was still better than the one we have today and many, many other improvements to the system. They truly lived with abundance.

When Action USA was struggling they fought for the Masters and Coaches to get proper support from AIPL and in the interim they volunteered to help anyone in need, Masters and Coaches. They spent countless hours coaching, training and supporting Masters not only in the USA but Mexico and Europe they encouraged their coaches as well to help when Brad and AIPL would not send any support and they created a real culture in Action of helping one another. They did all of this at their own expense because they believed in the Action culture statement and actually lived it.

Any of us who attended a Canadian conference knows how genuine AIC was, everyone wanted to emulate their model except AIPL. When the FocalPoint opportunity presented itself they offered to share their good fortune with all of Action once again showing their abundance. Vic and Brad promptly turned them down. AIPL's answer was scarcity in the form of frivolous lawsuits to cause purposeful harm to them and their character.

So what has been the result - Action has lost their soul. They attacked honest men and turned all of those whom they had helped against them by spreading vicious rumors and lies. AIPL was aided by the weak who did not stand up for the very men that had stood up for them. Many coaches took advantage of the lies and situation created by AIPL and refused to pay their royalties. They were abandoned by almost everyone who new them in the Action system save a few that refused to be swayed by the lies. Their reputations have been smeared and many incorrect or scandalous things have been written about them based on AIPL's lies. Their families have been damaged and they have lost untold sums financially because of these lies.

My only way to atone for my shortcomings and behavior is to make sure the Facts were told. I also know when my renewal comes up I will not be rejoining Action. I will be looking for an organization that lives its own culture statement and that has leaders who live it themselves. I will do this in hopes of continuing my coaching career and living the culture with people who actually know what it means.

So what are the ultimate results, what goes around comes around, go to www.franchise50.com you will see the top franchises as voted by the franchisees themselves, you will see that FocalPoint is 11th out of 50 and Action is 39th, culture is everything in our business.

I encourage any of you who were once their friends to let them know, that you now know the truth, better late than never. We have obviously lost out because of the lies and scarcity shown by AIPL and its top Management. See the FACTS go to
www.ey.com/global/content.nsf/Canada/Action once there look under the heading
OTHER COURT MATERIALS: Reasons for judgment dated November 9, 2005

I am sure that there will be many excuses and denials as to what has been said here but the facts are in black and white in the Judgment for all to see. The end result will be, someone else will be blamed, and this is what you would expect from a leadership that lives below the line.

I suggest a review by AIPL and its leaders on these following points of Culture as they seem to have been forgotten or not understood.

# 2 Ownership, # 3 Integrity, # 5 Communication, # 6 Success, # 10 Fun, # 13 Gratitude, # 14 Abundance

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