Franchise Disclosure Law and The Right To PrivacyThe Federal Trade Commission enforces franchise company disclosure rules. They have developed a policy for the uniform franchise disclosure laws. The UFOC contains massive amounts of disclosure and often is 200 pages, most of which no one ever reads. It also contains all the franchisor's present franchisee's phone numbers. The potential franchise buyers want to call all the current franchisees and want to talk. Well many of these franchisees do not want people calling them. They do not want their privacy violated as it is and now the FTC has increased and the information given in the UFOC? Most of our Nations current franchisees are great hard working families and they should not be subjected to this. Franchise buyers have a myriad of questions that can take hours Franchise buyers ask lots of questions about the equipment, etc. Some of those who call are not interested in buying a franchise as much as obtaining information as a competitor or they could just as easily be an international terrorist.
Again.. Why make it easy for a terrorist to call up franchisees and ask them questions about their businesses? In the case of a company whose franchisee's things such as; spray rigs, polypropylene tanks, inline soap injection, mixing of chemicals, spray tips, etc. I do not believe it is a good idea for any of the large service franchisors like; ServiceMaster, TruGreen ChemLawn, SparkleWash, Truly Nolen, etc. to allow this information out in public. Without going into detail on every single possible threat, why not pick up an opportunities guide such as Bond's Franchise Guide. You can buy one by clicking thru on this website;
http://www.franchising.org
and look at all the pest control businesses, car detailing businesses, pool cleaning businesses, plumbing, heating and air conditioning franchises. What about the Lawn Care franchises, all capable of spreading a bio threat. Now the FTC want our nations most powerful franchisors to send a UFOC to anyone who is or says they are a potential buyer of a franchise. An international terrorist could simply go to a government website or get a hold of a set of current disclosure documents, read the names of franchisees and their addresses, go steal a spray unit of one of the Nations franchised companies, kill the franchisees, mix poisonous chemicals and go on a killing spree. Why are we making it so easy? Why do we have so much unnecessary disclosure. Many Franchised Companies and Franchised outlets do service work for military bases, government, major infrastructure, schools, food distribution, power companies, hospitals, financial institutions, etc. Many franchised outlets deal with water, food, transportation, entertainment, etc. why on God's Earth would we want all this information out in the public, are we insane to think that such unnecessary disclosure is going to help the consumer? It could very well get them killed.
"Lance Winslow" - Online Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs/
