381. Bankruptcy assets, staffing decisions, attorney general inquiry

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
All right, well, two updates for today.
Well, I guess three.
So the trustee for thebankruptcy courts, as well as an
attorney general complaint forthe state that we're in, as well
as what was the final item.
Oh yeah, hiring and firing kindof things.

(00:21):
So HR stuff.
So first let's start with thetrustee.
So she asked that we deliver acheck and some valuable assets
to her office to close out ourbankruptcy process.
So my wife is doing that todayand delivering a check to close
everything out.
So looking forward to closure.
In that I'm really really gladthat's near the end.
The second item was over theweekend I got a random text from

(00:45):
the new owner asking me aboutadditional context for former
staff that have worked with me.
So reasons why they got hired,reasons why they got fired or
reasons why people left, justany context for some particular
individuals.
And at the end of the day,there's no benefit to me

(01:08):
personally if I provide context,if the person did a great job
or if the person did a poor jobor anything in between.
I don't want to have influenceover someone else's employment
situation.
I don't want to be accused ofdoing anything hurtful on that
side of things.

(01:28):
So give her a kind of a genericresponse saying hey,
unfortunately I'm not at liberty, I don't feel at liberty to
discuss that.
Here's the franchisor repcontact person.
They could probably help withany like staffing decisions that
you may want to do, becausecorporate helped me with my
staffing decisions.
And so, unfortunately, that'skind of the answer I gave,
because I don't want to beliable for any decisions they

(01:51):
make that could harm someone andI don't want to be the reason
that someone else got hired.
I want the owner to make thosedecisions without me telling
them what to do.
So that was kind of a surprise,but realizing I want to do
things as kosher as possible.
And then, like 10 minutes ago, Igot an email forwarded from the

(02:12):
studio.
It was basically a member madea complaint to the attorney
general's office.
They said that I closed thestudio knowing I would never
open it again, said that Iclosed the studio knowing I
would never open it again andthat harmed many consumers by
doing so.
And they included a copy of theemail as well, and rightfully

(02:34):
so.
I'm assuming that all messagingand communications I send out
will be blasted out into theworld.
It'll be screenshotted, it'llbe printed and nothing is going
to be like a closed conversation, that it's all going to be made
public and so, for better orworse, it's just kind of like a
paranoid way to live.
I don't like having to thinkthat way, but in this case it

(02:57):
actually is working out okay.
So the person made the complaintand that they weren't able to
get their $110 refund for themembership which they should
have been paying $160.
I don't know how they werepaying $110.
And then they include a copy ofthe email saying the studio is
closed indefinitely and all thatstuff.
And so basically what I do nowI'm reaching out to my

(03:21):
bankruptcy attorney trying tofigure out what the heck do I do
with this?
But ultimately this is why itwas helpful to have in writing
that the franchisor said theywould handle refunds.
I sent them copies of here's ascreenshot of my bank, my
business bank account.
Here's what I have.
I will send you every dollar Ican, and in writing I want you
to say that you're going tocover refunds and in this case

(03:44):
I'm actually glad I was thatdocumentation-oriented.
This person is the person whosubmitted the complaint to the
attorney general.
I don't know if they're listed.
Well, they list my name, nathanPlatter, as well as the
franchise name, as folks thatare harming consumers and so

(04:08):
like the brand and the studiolocation.
And so if the attorney generalsays, hey, nathan, what's gives
what's going on, and say, well,I had to close the business.
Everything was on auto draftthat got turned off by the
credit card processor a few daysafterward, here's a list of
members that issued chargebacksso they got their refunds.

(04:30):
Here's where I'm glad I did this.
Here's where I can point to themessaging I had with my
franchisor.
I'm saying they would coverfuture outstanding refunds and I
don't remember the values,we'll just make up some numbers.
Say they're like $20,000 inrefunds and I had 7,000 in funds

(04:53):
.
I would wire them 7,000 andcorporate said they would cover
the remaining 13.
And so whether the corporateeats that cost themselves or
they pass it along to the newfranchisee, I have documentation
that I don't have the funds tocover that.
And so, whether I did the rightthing or the wrong thing,

(05:15):
either way, there'sdocumentation saying someone is
said they would takeresponsibility for such actions.
And so grateful I did that,grateful I covered that actions.
And so grateful I did that,grateful I covered that.
And yeah, just sitting therelike working on some morning
work and then realizing, andthen getting an email from the,

(05:36):
forwarded from the MinnesotaAttorney General's office.
It's always a little spooky,but then realizing, okay, like
this isn't, I'm not going tojail today, I'm not losing my
job today, I'm not losing mykids today.
You get into this fear-basedsituation and you don't need to

(05:57):
think that way, especially ifyou've been intentional on how
you got to where you are today.
Interesting developments,definitely a hassle.
And this particular customerfortunately their name out of I
don't know, we'll just say like50 other members who were named
by name by the credit cardprocessor on how the refund is

(06:19):
going to be handled and all thatgood stuff.
So this particular person,we'll get them taken care of.
The other members we know atleast who could submit a
complaint.
We know how the complaint canget handled.
They move on with it.
At the end of the day, customerswant to be made whole.
They don't want to feel likethey got taken advantage of.
Attorney General wants to makesure people aren't out there
just hurting individuals andbusinesses just don't want to

(06:42):
get dragged into expensive dramathat is not needed.
So that's where we're at now.
That's where we're going tokeep going.
So, man, my nerves definitelytightened up when I got that
message.
So that's where we're at,that's where we're going.
Bankruptcy is nearly done, thestudio is nearly behind us and,

(07:03):
at the end of the day, I thinkpeople are just mad at me
because I disrupted theirday-to-day life and I can't fix
that.
They're mad at me, so I'm goingto keep going about my day job
and keep going about day-to-daylife.
That's where we're at.
That's where we're going.
Let's rock and roll.