Ok, this may be a little long winded.
Prior to setting up my own franchise in a small business I approached a woman who had her own franchise and I offered to work for her (unpaid) to gain some work experience to see if it was for me. I was very keen, got lots of leads, managed to drum up a fair amount of business her way etc. She was very attentive when things were going well, very encouraging etc. She is going to be winding up her business due to other commitments in August.
I have recently contacted her as 3 customers want a refund (at the training, I was told by the person training me that refunds were no quibble and offered without any fuss) which I have tried to get an answer from this woman and she has blanked me until today when she left a very curt message on my answer service saying that refunds are never given unless somebody dies (???) and that no she would not honour them.
I explained what I was told by the trainer and she said that each franchise is different and that hers doesn't operate like this. It got very heated and she ended up telling me to f**k off and hung up on me.
Well, obviously I feel like a total idiot as she has
a. taken advantage of my generous nature
b. is now expecting me to foot the bill
c. now couldn't give a monkeys about being sweet to me as her business is soon coming to an end.
d. pretended to befriend me and my dc in order to get onside
I felt I had no option other than to go directly to their head office and I told them what had happened and they said they would try to find out what has happened and will get back to me, however this woman has told me on a number of occasions that she is the head office's number one star performer and can do no wrong there. However I now know that she has not only lied to me about things but also to head office so that she could earn extra money.
I feel like I have been well and truly mugged. Surely they can't expect me to pay for this. I have worked for nothing and spent a fair amount on childcare to boot on this whole fiasco. It?s not my fault if her business wasn?t successful and I feel I am not there to underwrite her bloody business anyway
Any ideas?