Uh-oh if you are a franchisor or a franchisee the one thing you are in fear of is the thing you can't control. You can screen franchisees and employees as best you can but at any time the worst could happen. The sad news is, at least for the franchisor, it's out of your control. An elder care company had one of their caregivers caught stealing the client's jewelry. One took the 90 year old client's car while drinking (and while client was in the passenger seat) and crashed it into a tree.

But nothing quite smacks of distaste like the story here . Moreover, it states that "this is a good business for child molestors" according to the cops. Not helpful to other franchisors in the same industry who might run a much tighter ship, right? Well I asked one of them. Scott Novis is founder and CEO of GameTruck, the original and longest running video game theater. In fact in 2011 GameTruck was awarded a patent by the United States Patent and Trademark Office, identifying GameTruck’s unique process of entertaining people in its Mobile Video Game Theater. So they started it all!

When I asked Novis how this affected others in this industry he replied "This is terribly unfortunate. At GameTruck we do maximum background checks, not only on our franchisees, but they are required to do the same with their employees. And not just run-of-the-mill background checks, but very deep, thorough ones. After all we are an industry that caters to children. Having said that you can never control every person and every circumstance so we sympathize."

Classy answer. I heard the company involved here fired their PR firm a year ago or so--I bet they regret that now!