Blue MauMau reports that a group of Mail Boxes Etc. franchisees who have refused through the years to convert to The UPS Store business model have put together a three-minute slideshow on YouTube to tell their side of the story.

 

Joe Wightman, a New York City-based Mail Boxes Etc. franchisee of some 17 years, hopes the media will watch it and understand the franchise issues surrounding an upcoming trial. His beef? He thinks that after buying Mail Boxes Etc. in 2001, United Parcel Service saddled the then-existing 3,400 Mail Boxes Etc. franchisees with a new and unproven parcel delivery and copy shop business, now called The UPS Store. Most converted.

But Wightman and other franchise owner-operators are saying that the new business is far removed from their signed franchise contracts of operating a mailbox rental store. Worse, they say that they are not allowed to continue under the profitable old system. The franchisor is forcing all into the expensive new business.

Critics of the franchisor say it is sort of like having franchisees sign an agreement for a pretzel shop, only to find that their franchisor later insists that owner-operators can only continue if they invest to convert to car dealerships.

Wightman, a spokesman for the Platinum Shield Association, a group of 141 franchisees involved in a lawsuit against UPS, writes to Blue MauMau: “Mail Boxes Etc franchisees that refused to switch to the failed UPS Store business model have been in litigation against UPS for seven years.”

Read more at BlueMauMau