Pattie and Seeram Ramjit are working seven days a week to pay for a bitter lesson they learned from franchisor Reza Solhi.
They paid him $128,000 for the right to run a pizza-and-wings shop on Yonge St. back in 2000, but Solhi managed to take the shop back by withholding rent money and forcing the Ramjits’ eviction. He kept their money and re-sold the franchise again and again.
A judge called Solhi “deliberatly dishonest” and ordered him to pay the child-care provider and factory worker $154,000 for their losses, plus punitive damages and legal fees.
But Solhi never paid the total of $365,000, or judgments in several other cases. He and his family have moved on to new franchise enterprises, where they are facing another string of lawsuits.
Meanwhile, the Ramjits, parents of two children, have spent their savings and added $70,000 to their mortgage. They still have their lawyer to pay.
The man they sued owned 3 for 1 Pizza & Wings (Canada) Inc. of Toronto, which once claimed 90 stores. But it has collapsed under the weight of competition, staff turnover, internal turmoil and publicity over lawsuits, court orders and fraud charges.
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