michael webster's blog

If you ever needed proof that there is one born every minute, please read the following:

Typically when a prospective franchisee buys a franchise, they rely upon a number of things: the sales material, what the sales pitch was at discovery day, some stories from hand picked franchisees

The State of Washington recently brought an action to shut Pigeon King down as an illegal security or business opportunity fraud. Elements of this fraud, which are crystal clear, pervade other frauds -such as franchise fraud.

Franchise Disclosure Documents: Updating, Amending, and Filing with the State: "Interview with Warren Lewis,

(The Editor of the BMM wanted me to write about ongoing ponzi schemes. This is part one of a five part series.)

From the QSR News, Lawsuit Against Dairy Queen Grows

"According to Carmen Caruso of Schwartz Cooper, "The addition of these regional associations makes clear that the forced conversion by IDQ/ADQ is a national problem, not a problem isolated to one particular region or sta

The State of Washington is a registrant state for franchising.

"Franchise" is defined in RCW 19.100.010(4) as: (a) An agreement, expressed or implied, oral or written, by which: (i) A person is granted the right to engage in the business of offering, selling, or distributing goods or services under a marketing plan prescribed or suggested in substantial part by the grantor or its affiliate; (ii) The operation of the business is substantially associated with a trademark, service mark, trade name, advertising, or other commercial symbol designating, owned by, or licensed by the grantor or its affiliate; and (iii) The person pays, agrees to pay, or is required to pay, directly or indirectly, a franchise fee. Franchisors must register their franchise offerings prior to offering in Washington, unless the offering qualifies for one of the exemptions contained in RCW 19.100.030.

I thought it would be interesting to review how many actions that Washington State took against unregistered franchise systems and whether the unregistered franchise systems were IFA members.

I was somewhat surprised by the results - more on that later.

Over at Lexblog, the other day, Rob Gotta interviewed Eugen Volokh about his multi author legal blog, the Volokh Conspircacy.

Rob La Gatta: The Wall Street Journal Law Blog has called you "one of the undisputed kings of the blawgosphere." At what point in your blogging career did you realize you had achieved such a prestigious title, and what do you think was the most important factor in getting you there?

Eugene Volokh: I can't say we merit the title, but I am happy that we've got a lot of readers, and tend to get a good many links. Why? My guess: We've been around for a long time; we have people who are expert on interesting topics; we post a good deal of stuff on those topics; and most of our posts are accessible and interesting to laypeople as well as lawyers.

FASTSIGNS International, Inc., the franchisor for FASTSIGNS® sign and graphic centers, recently held its annual convention in Colorado Springs, CO, where 57 centers were recognized for outstanding sales achievements exceeding $1 million in annual sales, and 4 centers were recognized for exceeding $2 million. Both of these numbers surpassed all previous years’ sales numbers and set a record for the FASTSIGNS system.

Illegal earnings claim or not?  Test your intutions.

What say you?

Interesting video circulating about Tom Cruise's unabashed defence of Scientology:

"Morton's central claim is that Cruise, star of movies from Risky Business to Mission Impossible, is the effective number two of the Church of Scientology, the cultish religion founded by L. Ron Hubbard, and subscribed to by other eccentric Hollywood actors such as John Travolta."

The video can be viewed here, courtesy of defamer.com