GEEKS ON CALL: Franchise HQ Closed?
October 14, 2009 by Sean Kelly
Filed under Business
[Geeks on Call CEO Richard] Cole said he expects the company to be cash-flow positive in 2009 and that the company will turn a profit. In other words, he is optimistic.
Inside Biz, January 12 2009
In the January 12, 2009 story in Inside Biz, Geeks on Call CEO Richard Cole stated both his optimism in the turnaround of the troubled chain, and his committment to the success of his remaining franchise owners:
…despite the recent tenuous relationship with some of its franchise owners given the lawsuits, Cole maintains that franchisees are still his priority.
“Some people don’t get this about the franchise world. We are joined at the pocketbook,” he said. “If franchisees succeed, we succeed. If they fail, we fail.”
Commenters here and on Unhappy Franchisee are not so positive. Geeks on Call news, rumors, 
opinions and comments continue to come in regarding the downward spiral of this once-promising franchise company. The comments below appeared recently on Franchise Pick blog posts Geeks On Call (GOCHE) Troubles Deepen and GEEKS ON CALL: Franchisee Geeks Squeal on Papa Geek.
(Also read Geeks on Call Franchisees Sue Struggling Franchisor & Geeks On Call Franchisees Allege Their Franchisor is Breaking Law.)
Insiders report that the Geeks on Call franchise support HQ recently quietly closed. Other comments claim that Cole’s strategy is not quite so franchisee-friendly:
On October 12, 2009, Geek Expert wrote:
Has anyone heard that Geeks on Call has left their offices of 10 years and now have a virtual office in some building while their dispatchers answer the phones from their own home? They have also co-located their IT infrastructure and customer records with some other IT company. They say they are doing it to provide better services to their franchise owners but say nothing about the lawsuit against them for not paying their rent. 2009/10/12 at 5:52pm
Om October 14, 2009 “Dick Artese” wrote:
Looks like the GOC corporate offices are no longer at their 814 Kempsville Rd location. A big moving truck came in the darkness of night and moved all the stuff out of there.
Calls to the call center and asking for a mailing address they will still provide the 814 Kempsville Rd address, but when pressed will admit that they are no longer at that location. 2009/10/14 at 10:03am
October 12, 2009, X Geek Stockholder wrote:
What has happened is that GOCA management forced these owners into bankruptcy by continuing to take their large royalties and advertising fees and did not provide the services or the TV ads the owners were being told every month they were getting.
GOCA put the owners in Phoenix, Portland, KC, Boston, DC and Chicago out of business so they could take over their revenues and all of the hard work they did in building a customer base that was loyal by using top of the line techs.
Since GOCA controlled the phone number and email addresses and our bank accounts they decided to put their largest owners out of business and to put ONforce techs in our place for what their 10Q called “a more profitable 3rd party tech model”. Instead of getting 11% royalty for each invoice GOCA is now able to pay these non certified, inexperienced 3rd party techs a small fee per call and keep the rest for themselves. Most of these Onforce techs do not have background checks and none of them have to drive company cars.
GOCA let us build the regions with our monies and sweat then forced us out of business to take over the good will and brand we were able to hold on to through their myriad of bad decisions and brand changes.
As they say what comes around goes around and the lawsuits against GOCA are not over and are just beginning once the other owners across the country find out that Richard Cole was working with one of their largest franchise owners to buy up failed franchises to keep them off of the UFOC and to hide their failing business from them and and prospective investors.
The Geeks on Call system did not work from the beginning and this was a constant concern of many but GOCA kept selling franchises to unsuspecting investors and then their stock which is selling for less than a penny per pink sheet the last I checked having been delisted. 2009/10/12 at 10:40am
ARE YOU FAMILIAR WITH GEEKS ON CALL OR RICHARD COLE? SHARE A COMMENT BELOW!
More grief for the franchisees and the franchisor?
Perhaps it is a disservice to franchisors to allow them, under ineffective regulation, to indulge in “uncontrolled growth” that does result in so much pain for those franchisees who don’t survive the rapid seeding of the franchise chains, and, sometimes, for the franchisors as well when not enough franchisees thrive to support the system.
In the conventional chain organization, the growth is carefully controlled because the corporation bears the risk and expense of failure of the physical units that wear their brand name — but! in the franchise business model, the franchisor escapes this risk and expense and is enabled to “seed” and grow rapidly across several states at the same time because they don’t bear the risk and expense of the units who will fail.
This reality is the incentive to franchise a successful business, and, of course, the franchisors know that their contracts that are packaged with the government mandated disclosure document protect them against fraudulent inducement because of any misrepresentations made in the sales process OUTSIDE of the written contract.
Of course, Mr. Cole would prefer that all of his franchisees achieve success and that he could avoid all of the lawsuits. The uncontrolled growth so often destroys the entire system to the destruction of all involved.
Then, the lawyers are the only winners, huh!
I wonder what happens to the franchisee who needs to talk to the office?
Dr. Wright
http://www.wrightplacetv.com
The comments above, which may very well be from the same person under a variety of pseudonyms, are almost certainly from disgruntled franchise owner(s). While these people may have good reasons to be disgruntled, their comments about the office move contain innuendo, conjecture, and just plain falsehoods.
Geeks On Call did not move in the “darkness of night”. They moved on a Sunday evening because that’s the only night that the call center is not open until midnight. They also announced the move to their franchisees days before it was made. The address of their new offices was also announced, and a couple of franchisees have already visited them there. Since they have only a handful of full time (other than call center) staff, they no longer need the expansive digs on Kempsville Road and, with a greatly reduced income stream, can’t afford to keep them anyway. Moving the computer systems actually improved the reliability of the system since the computers are now in a facility with 24/7 monitoring and redundant connectivity and power – all of which were extremely costly to provide in the old office.
The move is the same sort of cost-cutting effort that many companies have engaged in during the recent economic downturn, which is why commercial real estate companies are hurting. It doesn’t mean GOC is closing their doors. Rather, it is precisely the kind of move that wise franchisees applaud because it keeps more operating funds focused on building our businesses than paying rent.
I’m confident that Geek Expert / Dick Artese / X Geek Stockholder will post some long-winded, manic reply to this message, but at least his version of events will not stand as the only “truth” posted to the Internet on this topic.
Sincerely,
Shep Bostin, Chairman, Geeks On Call Franchise Advisory Council
Franchise Owner and Managing Geek,
Montgomery and Frederick Counties in Maryland
1-800-905-GEEK – http://www.geeksoncall.com
P.S. Unlike the other commenters above, I am courageous enough to share my name.
Shep Bostin’s comment upgraded to a full post:
GEEKS ON CALL: Franchisee Applauds HQ Move
http://www.bizzia.com/franchisepick/geeks-on-call-franchisee-applauds-hq-move/
Comments welcome
We continue to see public posts from Geek Expert that offer many factual statements, but mostly untruthful disparaging fiction. As a franchisee that has worked in the same market with many of the franchisees who filed suit, I can only say that we are happy some of you are gone. Gone is the franchisee that had more than 20 complaints registered with the BBB. Gone is the franchisee that hired employees from existing franchisees. Gone is the franchisee that encouraged employees to market in another franchisee’s territory. Gone is the franchisee that maintained phantom techs as a means of stealing revenue from other franchisees. Gone is the franchisee that passed out business cards in my franchise with personal cell phone numbers listed. Gone is the franchisee that failed to build his business honestly by establishing recurring revenue with service contracts.
Geek Expert did not want to tell you the real reason his business was shut down by Geeks On Call. You see, there were franchise owners that wanted Geeks On Call to close their doors so they could take over the brand, trademarks, and the 800 number. So, they, along with the advice of counsel, convinced the largest franchise owners to file Chapter 11, cut off the royalty stream to Geeks On Call forcing them to close their doors and then live happily ever after running the “new” Geeks On Call. Did they succeed? Apparently not. Karma is a bitch, it is that simple.