CUPPY’S COFFEE SEASON PREMIERE: King Morg is Returning! I’m in Disbeglief!
October 1, 2008 by Sean Kelly
Filed under Business
(Franchise Pick) If you have not been following the Cuppy’s Coffee saga, my apologies for not including a summary*.
I am just too overcome with a powerful emotional cocktail of glee and disbelief.
Let’s just call it disbeglief.
This very day I have coined this new word (disbeglief) in honor of the great one: Robert “Morg” Morgan.
Yes, the man who masterminded the cloud factory that is Cuppy’s Coffee – the visionary leader who recruited 300 franchise investors (or more!) to deploy their bank accounts for the great cause of Drive-Thru Caffeination – is returning to lead his people out of darkness, disappointment and despair!
The dream of free daycare is not, alas, dead!
In our darkest hour, word of salvation miraculously appeared like franchise stigmata in the comment section of Unhappy Franchisee.com.
According to Cuppy’s Coffee franchisee and true believer Nick Sayin:
The rumor is true. Morg and Brian are in AL to take the company back from Dale.
Yes, Morg has made many mistakes and one of them was selling the company to Dale. Dale convinced him he could turn the company around in six months, but instead he ran it into the ground. We have all lost a lot of money since Dale took over the company.
Morg may not have been the best finanacial manager, but at least stores were opening, vendors were being paid, and liens were not being put on our shops. I had many issues with Brian during Dale’s tenure, but realize now the issues were due to Dale tying his hands.
Dale potrayed Morg and especially Brian as the bad guys, he told us many stories about them which are NOT remotely true. They are trying to salvage the company and start helping the franchisees.
The only reason they are trying to take back Cuppy’s/Elite is to help people, not to sell the company’s assets and flee to Mexico. Brian has been helping us to get our store open; with the funds we have left, we could not do this without his help.
At least there are a few good people out there to help us. It seems to me that Morg’s biggest failing is that he wanted to provide the best working environment he could for his staff, as well as helping the franchisees, and didn’t know how to balance this out.
Two weeks ago, I drove 13 hrs to confront Dale after Eden pulled out of my store and spent 11 hrs with him the very next day. Result – he cried about not having any money. Where is the money that we have all forked over since Dale took control? I wired Dale $78,850 on August 7th and many other franchisees sent him money as well. He hasn’t opened one store, is not paying the vendors, he’s not even paying his employees!!
Morg and Brian have been trying to figure out since Monday where the money is or went.
Hopefully they will be able to salvage the company.
It’s time for an Irish Coffee… with extra Irish!
Let us raise our cuppies high and toast the man whose only fault (indeed) was caring too much.
WHAT DO YOU THINK? SHARE A COMMENT BELOW.
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* New to the Cuppy’s Coffee Franchise Saga? Read up here:
CUPPY’S COFFEE, Java Jo’z, Elite Manufacturing, Medina Blogliography
Cuppy’s Coffee, Elite Manufacturing Franchise Complaint on Rip-off Report
Cuppy’s Coffee Overview/Interviews (Unhappy Franchisee)
Does Cuppy’s Coffee or Elite Manufacturing Owe You Money?
CUPPY’S COFFEE: Attorney Rudy Harper & Assistant Desiree (Reportedly) Resign
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Cuppy’s franchisees are organizing a suit to be filed by a well-known Florida franchise law firm. If you are interested in joining, please email me [via unhappyfranchisee[at]gmail.com]. Include your name, address, phone number, and potential civil claim against Medina and related companies.
Great!! Geesh and here is me sitting here still broke from the refundable deposit I never got back. If ohly I had known I would have worked ten times harder and not paid my utility bills so he could again get my savings.
Hold the coffee and keep the Irish.
Cuppy’s franchisees are organizing a suit to be filed by a well-known Florida franchise law firm. If you are interested in joining, please email Sean [via unhappyfranchisee[at]gmail.com] and give permission to forward your contact information to me. Include your name, address, phone number, and potential civil claim against Medina and related companies.
One of the lessons of this thread is that you need to be careful about who you speak to. There are indeed some people who think that Morgan and Hayes are not crooks and/or are getting in line for a piece of the pie.
To speak with an attorney is fine. To speak with a fellow “franchisee” is to take the chance that everything you say may be relayed back to –Morgan/Nabors/whoever really owns SBT—
And to send sensitive information to a mystery man (or woman) who implies they can help you is just stupid.
If Zarco or some other firm is going to commence litigation, then contact that firm. But don’t say anything on the Internet, or to a fellow franchisee, or to an anonymous email address, which you don’t want repeated.
And if you are someone who has sensitive communication which could be subpoenaed and/or create questions of privilege, then you would be well advised to… ahem, “review your document retention policies” as Frank Quattrone tactfully put it.
Aldrich Ames:
Good point.
I learned that not too long ago.
You can never tell where the next knife in your back will come from.
If you don’t trust the suggested route of contact, please contact the firm directly although it was requested otherwise.
Is this “the” Aldrich Ames —the famous mole — who wants Cuppy’s franchisees and cheated depositors to remember as they go to ” keep their eye upon the donut and not upon the hole.”
If you don’t trust the suggested route of contact, please contact the firm directly although it was requested otherwise.
We just have a policy of not allowing people to post email addresses in the body of comments. We will forward on mutual request.
Feel free to post the law firm’s URL.
When I worked at Langley everyone thought I worked for them. They told me lots of things which I then told to my real paymasters in Moscow. So it was not an issue of a knife in the back, it was that I was secretly working for someone else.
Carol, if I ever slip back I will stop by for some apple pie. But I have to say that you have no skin in the game, and it tells us something that you are more upset than the MorgManiacs who got fleeced and today await the return of their shearer.
50 years later and despite the evidence, people don’t want to believe that Ethel & Julius (no relatives of Billy) were guilty. So to someone in my profession, it is no surprise that Cuppys franchisees don’t want to believe the truth about Morgy.
Morg would have made a great handler for the Agency. Our mutual friend Sean, on the other hand, tends to be a bit impetuous and rather like my buddy Vladimir he is unwilling to have that social networking flexibility and detached objectivity necessary in field ops.
I have to go now. I hear that once Morg is back next week that he will start selling franchises again, and I want to get the Georgia territory. And if I don’t get Georgia, I will have to ask Vladimir to take Georgia for me.
According to BMM, Dale Nabors told those who called that the banks were going to turn the spigots back on.
He said he will be calling everyone. Just wait by the phone.
I just ordered “Groundhog Day” on netflix. Hope it gets here before Dale calls.
Three new Cuppy’s Coffee interviews posted. The Herbers, Mirandas, Suarez & Schneider each entrusted Cuppy’s Coffee/Elite Manufacturing with significant sums of money. Each were promised repayment. Each received a token payment or two before the payments stopped and their calls were no longer taken or returned:
CUPPY’S COFFEE: Interview with Franchisee Mike Herber
CUPPY’S COFFEE: Interview with Franchise Owner Joshua Miranda
CUPPY’S COFFEE: Interview with Franchisee Daniel Suarez & Jaime Schneider
Read their stories. Share a comment. Spread the word.
Read how Cuppy’s Coffee / Elite Manufacturing have taken and spent tens of thousands of dollars from the retirement savings of a disabled Vietnam Veteran and former police officer, David Morgan:
CUPPY’S COFFEE: An Interview With Franchisee David Morgan
Latest Update…. The sky has fallen on Dale Nabor’s Dream Team in AL. Dale has finally gotten up enough nerve to meet with the employees that followed him up to Muscle Shoals, AL and told them he can NOT get the money to pay them. But he wanted to know who would continue to work for him for FREE. Has he lost his mind totally? He also told them if they would not stay and work free he did not want them to blog him. WTF????!!!!! He’s an arrogant sh it!! So… now there are NO employees at Cuppy’s/Elite/Medina! Dale is still trying to sell Elite contracts to Brian Hayes. But remember franchisees… Brian Hayes/SBT or whatever name they go by these days is overcharging you for buildout and equipment. Your best bet is to take whatever loss you have now and sue Morg/Dale/Medina/Fransynergy and try to recoup your deposit moneys. Cuppy’s is dead! Even if a franchisee let SBT continue to build them out, I would NOT call it Cuppy’s. Cuppy’s has an awful name and I don’t even think God himself can raise that dead franchise. Franchisee please listen up… you need to join together to get justice. There are more people out here willing to help you get that justice than you may think. Good luck to you zees and to the employees that followed Dale to AL and had work for 2 months without pay. I wish you all well.
Maj wrote
“After paying more than $25,000 over what we had agreed with Cuppy’s, SBT who did a sloppy job on our Cuppy’s Coffee shop in Columbus, OH, has now placed a lien on our property. Also, their sub-contractors who didn’t get paid have placed additional liens. We have paid an attorney who tells us, according to the law, they can foreclose on our property. Where is the justice in all of this? Can you tell me?
Maj ”
Steinberg wrote
“As a primer on the key players and the “Angola Love Shack”, see the previous posting “Tangled Web” on BMM and the comments below it, as well as the Sean Kelly bibliography .
As I understand, there have been credible allegations made as to secret cross-ownership between
1. Cuppys/
2. Elite/
3. Modular Buildings of Monroe/
4. Allied/
5. Superior Canopy/
6. SBT
I won’t even get into the famed “Exhibit D” (click on link and view pg. 6 of 15) but suffice it to say that there are serious issues raised by SBT placing mechanic’s liens on property where the money was paid to Elite.
Some of the scammed zees are now reporting receipt of phone calls from a female hired by Hayes, seeking yet more money to “complete” the buildout and claiming that Nabors has “transferred” the contracts to SBT.
So apparently,Brian Hayes is now admitting to being affiliated with SBT. It is likely that whatever secret agreement led to SBT voluntarily dismissing its suit against Elite last month is related to the “transfer” of the Elite contracts to SBT.
Michael Webster and Robert Purvin are 2 attorneys who have looked into this mess and have advised affected zees to pursue action including potential criminal charges. From what I have seen and continue to see, I wholeheartedly agree.
I suspect that there are a number of valid defenses you can raise against the mechanic’s liens. Even without the indicia of fraud present in the Cuppys/Elite/SBT mess , mechanic’s liens are in derogation of common law and therefore strictly construed.
A big part of the problem here is that virtually none of the zees obtained proper legal representation in the first place, and when the zees lost their money they cried poverty and refused to join in a suit against JavaJoz/Emerald/Elite/Cuppys/SBT/et cetera.
In fact, few of the people who lost their money even gave a damn sufficient to join a conference call that Bob Purvin of the AAFD tried to schedule for the zees. And when other groups of zees tried to arrange for group pricing with the Zarco law firm or with the Dady & Garner law firm , once more the zees cried poverty.
This is a long-running tale where the main themes never change: the same parties, but different corporate shell entities where the money flows freely among the zor-affiliated entities. Ryan Knoll wrote about this 2 years ago, and SBT and Brian Hayes are but the latest verse of the same song.
There are a large number of zees who have been taken to the cleaners, and some have even given media interviews . But as Sean Kelly noted, Cuppy’s franchisees are sheep who have been sheared and don’t seem to mind; they are even willing to be fleeced again.
As to your seeking “justice”–well, Justice may indeed be blind, but with all due respect the Cuppy’s franchisees were both willfully blind and willfully stupid. Of course, we all fall into those categories on occasion; the difference is that most intelligent people learn from their mistakes and get enough backbone to fight. So far, most Cuppy’s victims have shown all the backbone of a jellyfish. “
First of all as a “ZEE” I was NOT notified that there was or is a civil suit against Cuppy’s et all. Secondly, if I have heard a slight whisper about these attornys; Michael Webster and Robert Purvin or whoever , I live in Maryland and do not know any of these people. Yet you believe I should now, (after being screwed by Cuppy’s) give my money to complete strangers to pursue a law suit?! Right! Here’s the thing, I LIVE on a sheep farm, believe me I am no sheep. When Cuppy’s dropped the ball with me, I pulled myself up by the boot straps, redrew my layout, hired a contractor, shop for the best prices and found coffee support. Oh, and hired my own lawyer, whom I have known for years and trust. If a legidiment “group” law suit was being organized, said law firm would contact in WRITING all the franchisees effected with a plan and costs etc. And finally, I very much DO mind being fleeced as you say and am persueing my own litigation against Cuppy’s.
So quite frankly sir, I say to you what I tell my children, “If you are not part of the solution, then you are part of the problem!” Sounds like the veiw is good for you in the cheap seats!!!
2 of the largest and most successful Geeks on Call owners filed for Chapter 11 protection and a lawsuit in federal court on May 15. see the following link to one of them:
http://dockets.justia.com/docket/court-vaedce/case_no-1:2009cv00555/case_id-242486/
According to the docket they named 3 corporate individuals; Richard Cole; CEO; Rich Artese; COO and Keith Wesp; CFO, personally along with the corporation they own stock and work for Geeks on Call America and Geeks on Call Holdings.
For more information or to join suit with other current or former franchise owners the lawyer handling the cases is below.
Patrick R. Blasz
Law Offices of Patrick R. Blasz, LLC
11490 Commerce Park Drive
Suite 240
Reston, Virginia 20191
(703) 964-3180 office
(703) 964-3183 fax
pblasz@blaszlaw.com
If anyone has any of these actual complaints, please email to unhappyfranchisee[at]gmail.com and I will post them.
Thanks.