fraud in New Zealand
Request to the BLOG OWNER
Change blog name to "GREEN ACERS FRANCHISEE GROUP LTD" please
NO way this blog is about genealogy and anyone with the surname LAPHAM
start your own blog or follow these links please to newspaper articles
GREEN ACRES FRANCHISE GROUP - Google Search
what I need is contact with other researchers in New Zealand working on LAPHAM family history - I let the comments run on because you guys seriously need a forum - but normally my interest is in ancestors and the dead not the living LAPHAM
I am sincerely sorry about your bad luck and I hope things go better for you all in 2008
Dozens caught in Green Acres franchise fraud | BUSINESS | NEWS | tvnz.co.nz: "The man behind the alleged scam is Keith Lapham who is no longer at his Auckland address in Mt Albert. His voice mail is not accepting any more messages because it is full. The message on his home office refers all inquiries to Green Acres head office.
Up to 200 unauthorised franchises may have been signed up over the past six months, raking in fees worth millions of dollars. Many believe Green Acres should have been doing more.
'We believe they had a responsibility on their part to be monitoring his activities more closely,' one man told ONE News."
posted by Hugh W @ 3:50 PM
18 Comments:
BEWARE! Not dog, accident prone, hazardous material but? "FRANCHISE GREEN ACERS" New Zealand
What a Christmas 2007, where more than 200 Families will have sorrow a grief for there hard earned money duped by one of the biggest franchise Network Green Acres in New Zealand. Allowed to grow under there arm and celebrate a CHRISTMAS PARTY HAPPLY. Millions of dollars were duped towards this Brand Name.
http://tvnz.co.nz/view/page/536641/1519373
Dozens caught in franchise fraud
Dec 22, 2007 6:15 PM
Dozens of New Zealanders face a bleak Christmas after being caught up in what appears to be a multi-million dollar fraud.
New Zealand's biggest franchise business, Green Acres, has gone to the police after one of its master franchisees signed up people for ironing work that does not exist.
Emotions overflowed as dozens of bewildered migrants met in downtown Auckland to discover why their dream business opportunity has gone up in smoke.
Many have borrowed money to pay up to $40,000 for a Green Acres ironing franchise that doesn't legally exist.
Green Acres has been mobbed by frustrated subcontractors and the company says it has got no idea how many people have possibly been duped.
"It's a wake-up call for us and certainly we will be investigating with all of our other master franchisees to ensure that this sort of thing can't happen again," says chief executive Andrew Chisholm, adding that they believe this is an isolated case.
The man behind the alleged scam is Keith Lapham who is no longer at his Auckland address in Mt Albert. His voice mail is not accepting any more messages because it is full. The message on his home office refers all inquiries to Green Acres head office.
Up to 200 unauthorised franchises may have been signed up over the past six months, raking in fees worth millions of dollars. Many believe Green Acres should have been doing more.
"We believe they had a responsibility on their part to be monitoring his activities more closely," one man told ONE News.
Documents seen by ONE News include letters pleading for payment of debts.
Subcontractors have formed an action group to pressure Green Acres and spokesman Ketan Trivedi says they want Green Acres to take responsibility.
Source: ONE News
DO NOT TRUST GREEN ACERS ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD.
GREEN ACERS are having payment problems in there other services also incl home cleaning,lawn mowing, hire a hubby,plumbing. PLS.PLS.PLS DO NOT INVEST ANYTHING IN GREEN ACERS
Beware of this scams in name of franchise business. Here GREEN ACRES is trying to get away from this but they have not monitored the situation as we were directed to Mr Keith Lapham from GREEN ACRES so they have to take responsiblity for it
Green Acres Now removed the details about Ironing Francise from their web site. Previously till Thursday it used to have the details to contact Green Acres Area Manager Mr. Keith Lapham with Address as Green Acres Ironing, 16 Ennismore Road, Mt. Albert.
Every body understood that Green Acres have appointed Area Manager to look after their Ironing Business. Nobody, none of the Franchise were told or mentioned in website that the Area Manager is a Master Franchise.
Green Acres website and call centre always tells us to contact the Area Manager for franchise and all things to do directly with Area Manager.
Green Acres can not deny thier responsibility, and say that the Franchise are not authorised , they also have given finance to most of us under Green Acres/FBL Finance.
If there is a dispute between the Master ranchise and the Green Acres they should sort out amongst themselves . All of us Have joined because of Green Acres. Green Acres should take the responsibility and sort out the issue. Green Acres CEO and all the directors are involved in this Scam with thier Area Manager Keith Lapham. I hope for some reason they are making this man Keith Lapham a scape goat.
Green Acres involved in Fraud/scam with thier Area Manager Keith Lapham.Such a big fraud not possible without hands in hands of All Green Acres Guys including Green Acres/FBLFinance
Just to come out of situation they are making a show of making complaints against Keith Lapham making scape goat.
Green Acres Franchise Group along with all their subsidiaries and affiliated companies have proved their incompetence of good management and business ethics.
They have mentioned to the Press that they have handed over the matter to the Serious Fraud Department. Till now we have not even had a press statement from them regarding their efforts to locate their Area Manager in a form of WANTED / REWARD for any information leading to the where abouts of their Area Manager.
On Wednesday 19th Dec 07, the Operations Manager of Green Acres mentioned that their Area Manager has gone under ground, then what was Mr. Lapham doing with the CEO and John (the area manager) on Thursday 20th Dec 07 at the head office of Green Acres at 10:45am?
GreenACRES ARE JUS MAKING STORIES HOW CAN THINGS LIKE THAT HAPPEN UNDER THERE NOSE WITHOUT THERE KNOWLEDGE. KEITH WAS THERE AREA MANAGER WHAT EVER HE HAS DONE IS THEIR INTERNAL PROBLEM WHY SHOULD INOCCENT FRANCHISEE SUFFER. AND ACTUALLY ITWAS GREEN ACRES HEAD OFFICE REFERED US TO KEITH LAPHAM TO BUY THE FRANCHISE SO WHY THERE ARE TRYING TO GET OUT OF IT.
Be aware of that "r said", payment problems also happened to their other services, obviously there is such a big mess in Green Acres Head Office's management. Today this problem likely happened to us (the Ironing service) first, but no one can guarantee that this might happen to the rest other Green acres services soon. So what do you think?-- waiting for this tragedy happen again or all Green Acres subcontractors joint together to fight with them?
HI, All,
Its all about Green Acres company, they can run away from the entire resposibility. we only know their area manager- keith hwo was authoried to deal with the sub franchisees.
planning of A massive legal campigne is underway,
Green Acres is trying to divied victims by saying that there are illegal franchisees. but truth is sub franchisees could never imagine that there are illegal.
That is not our problem, we know green acres that is the bottomline.everybody has got gree acres contract and other materials.
We appealed to the members of the public to join our movement fwhich will be one ofits kind in the frude history of NEW Zealand.
Another thing is company is describing victims as immigrants,or migrants , I have objection to that most of them are citizens of this counry and we should be adress respectfully
think over.. continue to write....
ketan
LABOUR govt. must do something to sort out the issue and help TAXPAYERS
Hi, All
Rmember , green acres has removed all the documents from Area managers 's office . so far there is no police action .
I hope that all the documents wold remain safe and legitimate, as Green Acres's top bosses are runing away with their resoposibilities. they would make their side safe first.
All the victims be vigilant to very move and keep everybody informed.
Ketan- Ironing watch
GREEN ACRE MEANS FRAUD, Do not belive them, They saying now, they don't know who is Keith Lapham, and what is Ironing busines.
CAREFUL FRIENDS, they will tell you may be tomorrow about your Franchise also, if you are taken a franchise from them ( may be lawn moving , carpet cleanning car valet or any other one....)
TAKE YOUR PRE-CAUTION
Hi All,
Please read below email sent to John Cawliashaw,Keith Lapham and cc to me from the staff of GREEN ACERS on 12/12/07 at 2.15pm which clearly shows HEAD OFFICE doesn't want to take responsibility.
Mr Shah
Has bought a franchise off you and has not received payment for 20 weeks, he got very angry and it is getting rather frustrating that we get our ears blown off for a problem that is not ours, please sort this out
It’s not nice when they threaten to sort legal advice, he had a meeting with you 2 weeks ago and has not heard anything since.
Please call him on xxxxxxxxxx
Thanks
Rebekah Emmett
Franchised Businesses Limited
■ DDI: (09) 306 0655 ■ Fax: (09) 377 2778 ■ PO Box 37 281 ■ Parnell ■ Auckland ■ www.fbl.co.nz
Request to the BLOG OWNER
Change blog name to "GREEN ACERS FRANCHISEE GROUP LTD" please
Green Acres has broken their business ethics on every sense of the word. They failed to listen or investigate the fault when it was first reported to them over four months ago. Their inaction lead me to believe they are also party to this fraud.
Secondly Green acres mentioned on their meeting on 22nd Dec that Ketih Lepham confessed to them on 18th Dec. So my question is why the head office did not get him arrested before he fled the scene.
My wife and cousin has lost over $11,000 to this fraud and lost total confidence in NZ business and legal system and I don't blame them...
My husband and i bought a Green Acres franchise and were let off levys due to not meeting their "guaranteed income" once in the year that we had it. Also because of the many hardships we suffered in the year including two close deaths me breaking my leg, my husband having an opp on his toe, and our town flooding thus flooding alot of our lawns. Also the franchise we were sold was one that had been split in two not leaving enough clients to mow to get our guaranteed income. We were making no money to pay fees and Green Acres had no lawns for us to mow as they are suppossed to dish out lawns to frachises by fax.
We called Mr CHisholm and told him we would like to sell, he siad he would find us a buyer. Three days later we recieved a letter stating our contract had been TERMINATED and our $16000 business was now null and void! We had three small children at the tim and were left in devistating financial trouble, and yes we are still paying off the loan for the business! We could no longer get hold of Mr Chisholm and our lawyer could not make contact with him or any of his people. They had us cornered and they won!
We lost out to some very cold and nasty people. Mr Chisholm or Mr Sears would not talk with us or our lawyer and completely screwed over a very hard working young family.
The worst thing being this - Mr Chisholm led us to believe he was selling our franchise just long enough for us to imform our clients that we were selling and that they would be looked after by another G Acres franchise. We are still paying off the loan and back working for others.
If you read this Green Acres all we would like to say is KARMA IS SWEET!!!
Happy holidays from us and our three small boys.
sarah - sounds like a tall story to me - maybe you can confirm if the real story is that you may have been the people who actaully had to be relieved of your franchise as your were caught commiting theft from your customers - i do know down your way someone got a visit from the police - was it you?? i will be forwarding your piece of correspondence to the NZ Police as such salacious and slanderous comments really should not be posted
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