College Pro Painters
Reviews and Complaints

I completely agree, as someone that worked for CP (after working for a much more respectable painting company the previous year), I can tell you that there is no time allowed in the budget for things such as:
-Prepping well enough
-taping so that your lines can have a straight edge
-taking time out for safety
-doing a job well enough so that you don't have to go back and fix light spots

Hopefully at least one college student reads this and decides not to take the plunge that is working for CollegePro. Putting your ### on the line on 40 foot ladders is not worth 7.50.

Same experience here. We're in Denver.

First, they quoted 3 days and it took two weeks. Second, there were cigarette butts all over the yard everynight when I came home - even after pointing them out to the 'manager' and asking him to have his crew clean up. Third, we paid for roller and they sprayed - getting paint on light fixtures, trees, killing grass etc.

There are runs. There are bugs painted into the paint. Things were prepped.

Now, less than a year later there are bubbles and the paint is peeling in place due to the bad prep job.

We got them to knock $700 off the price, but what a hassle. I didn't want to negotiate for $700 off, I wanted to simply pay some to paint my house professionally and have it done in a reasonable time.

My wife chose these folks cause she thought she was helping a college student. Apparently the students get scammed too. I knew I should have done my own research.

Of course, they say it's structural and environmental. Yeah right.

DO NOT USE COLLEGE PRO PAINTERS. Just hire real Pros. Sorry college students.

College Pro does NOT prep the surface prior to painting and then claim the warranty doesn't cover decks or steps. The paint has almost completely peeled off of our front steps - the entry to our home – and our deck. I called to complain about the painting and was told I would get a return call. One month went by and, of course, no call. The salesman will give you the biggest line you have ever heard – lots of empty promises about making you happy with their service. I would never, ever use their service again!

College Pro hires college student to be managers not painter, the painters can be anyone the manager sees fit (it is up to them who they want to hire. Their goal is to give student entrepreneurs exposure into what it is to run a business. it seems as though the guys you worked for lacked in effective leadership skills and you can't blame CP for that, some people just aren't cut out for it. It's just my hope that they realize it while working with CP than later in life when they are putting their own capital at risk to start a business which will certainly fail if they continue on the same path.

I was a franchisee for a few summers in univeristy and actually had an amazing experience with it.

To start, this is not for everyone, by far. It honestly isn't a job, there's no employment contract. You are a business owner, and CP is your consultant.

Of course there's risks, thats how business works. But that's how there is the potential for high reward! Yes, you pay for everything. It's your business, but College Pro lets you pay it back later, so you don't have to front all the money. From there it's all up to you to hit your goals every week. It's a lot of work, for sure. So is every new business, but the beauty here is the support from the GMS allow 90% of franchisees to be successful, as opposed to 10% of independent business! That's an amazing stat! This is not a job, it's entrepreneurship with better odds than going at it on your own.

I learned a lot for this experience, in all the hours I put in, and problems I had no choice other than solve.

I am sorry to report that I was also one of the many naive college students that got sucked into this company. I will admit that I learned a whole lot about business and such but, it was definitely not worth it money wise or should I say negative wise. I think it is funny how poltpeime said that "college pro uses students as their advertisement" because that is EXACTLY what they are doing. This company told me that I was going to make a ton of money in a short span of time. Those words immediately left my mind soon after I realized just how evil this company really is. My general manager or (GM) would constantly tell me things like, you will be making fifteen an hour as long as your working on your job site. Guess what? I never saw that money. Not to mention, I was also told in the beginning of this scam that I would only have to worry about being one grand in debt because I will need to pay for the business kit, crew kit, and the equipment. LIES, LIES AND MORE LIES! My GM forgot to mention all of the other fees that you are going to have to pay. If you are the type of person that is interested in going through all of your savings, stressing out so much to the point where you are constantly seeing a doctor to see what is wrong with you and yet they do not have an answer, falling asleep at the wheel because you are overworking yourself and not seeing any green, and overall being in tons of debt to a company that strongly believes in false advertising, go ahead and be apart of this horrid company. Twenty year olds like myself should not be stressing out so much at such a young age. Please do me a favor by NOT joining this EVIL! EVIL! EVIL! company. For if you do, you will realize just how much of a mistake you have made.

college pro only cares about their own profit, they use student as a part of their advertisement, misleading the customers thinking they're actually helping the students, in fact the people who actually earn money from the program after paying off their debt to college pro are the people who work like 60-75hrs/ week(production and marketing from 7-9 weekdays and estimate 8 hrs a day on weekends). but ppl like that can earn WAYYYYYY more and get much better experience working any where else

I had a similar experience with Tuition Painters! I was the "Team Leader" back in 06. Our whole crew got screwed, but the worst off was my supervisor who had invested his own money into it.

This was my experience that summer. I was motivated to write this because some kid I know was thinking about getting a painting job for the summer at Penn State.
http://www.mattbible.com/tag/tuition-painters-scam/

These companies prey on college students and promise them false hope. I know, I was suckered in. I had all sorts of wonderful offers, from making "$17/hr" with Cutco to making $10, 000/month for 3 months selling books door to door in San Diego, and so on!

College Pro Sucks! The Canadian comment is probably a general manager trying to make them look better...They lie and decieve and coerce kids into signing contracts. They need to be sued and put out of business!

Several Dollar figures in this article are inaccurate, like any company, the wrong managers can weasel their way into a franchise position. There may be flaws in College Pro because of it's size, but individual divisions are responsible all the way down the the managers hired, how they're trained and even the painters that are hired underneath them, the company as a whole is not at fault. There are two sides to every situation, and this rant is extremely exaggerated. Not to mention the part about the quarter million dollar manager who walked away with $10, 000. They need to learn alot about business and customer service, and even more about work ethic and money management.

I applied to work for this company, without checking and knowing (until now) what people thought of College Pro. I'll ask in a moment but first, I'd obviously like to know people opinions; Is it even a good idea to work for College Pro Painters - Door to Door marketing?

In advance, thanks for your support and will take under advisement before acting.

College "pro" are rude children NOT professional at all.
I contracted in June for my trim to be painted.I was told it would be done no later than the first week of August.

The College Pro crew finally showed up the last week of August. I was apparently the last job of the summer. Their brushes were completely useless and stiff as a board. I did a lot of painting while in college myself as a summer worker for an oil company so i know what is good work and what is not.

The College Pro crew did not even bring the tools to do the prep work that was contracted. They painted over peeling paint, broke the clips off my storm windows, smeared paint on my pickup truck, left paint on the glass of all the windows, painted over mud, etc. When i pointed out the problems, I was told that school starts tomorrow so that is all you get; pay now. I have been wrestling with them ever since.

The upper supervisor (Jeremiah Noblitt) said they would make it right but i have not heard from him again since. The rude "child" (Heath Norton) who was supposed to be supervising this particular job waited till the weather turned (rain, wind, and COLD) to demand that I now rearrange my life and vacate so they can repair the work at their convenience. The job was not a large one so i simply asked for a refund so i can get a real pro to do the job. It has been a major hassle dealing with these increasingly rude kids and i regret ever contracting with them.

They expect payment for "professional work" but, in the words of my neighbors, it looks like a 5th grader did it.Their work is terrible and they are shameless!

I can suggest trying www.newcollegework.com for $19.99 you can enrol in a
course that teaches you everything you need to know about running your
business. It takes more work because it's self directed, but no one is
Making commission off of you. Running your own business is still a great way to make money, but don't let a bad experience get you down. Some of the most successful people in the world started off with a lot of failures. Take our course and learn how run a landscaping business. It's a lot of the same training you'll find elsewhere but we won't make you pay huge commissions off of your work.

Check us out at www.newcollegework.com it's $19.99

- Newcollege Work rep

We had an estimate done by college pro painters, and gave a cash deposit. No one showed up on the day scheduled day to complete or start the work. Our phone calls went unreturned for months. After filing several formal complaints within the company we did get one phone call with a "promise" to return our deposit. 4 months later we still have not received our money back and again cannot get any phone calls returned. would not recommend this company.

I WAS REFERRED TO THIS ORGANIZATION BY A COWORKER AND UNFORTUNATELY IT HAS BEEN THE EXPERIENCE FROM HELL. LUCA SALVADOR THE AREA FRANCHISEE WAS EXTREMELY RUDE, NOT KNOWLEDGEABLE BY ANY MEANS, HAS NO REGARD FOR CUSTOMERS TIME, VERY INEXPERIENCED. BASED ON HOW I WAS TREATED I DO NOT RECOMMEND ANYONE USE THIS ORGANIZATION FOR ANYTHING. PAY A LITTLE MORE AND YOU CAN AT LEAST GET QUALIFIED PEOPLE WHO ACTUALLY ENJOY WHAT THEY DO. WHAT A COMPLETE WASTE OF MY TIME.

COLLEGE PRO IS THE BIGGEST WAISTE OF TIME- TO ANY STUDENT LOOKING TO GET INTO IT, DONT!

this place is a joke DO NOT WORK FOR COLLEGE PRO. DO YOURSELF A FAVOR, value your time on this earth, and cherish your hard earned dollars. working for McDonalds would be a better option than becoming a franchisee

I was (am) a franchisee. Business risk is meant to be limited to your initial investment (through the use of corporations). College pro, using a franchise model, is able to (according to my GM) sue the franchisee personally, damage their credits, etc.. The only reason I ever signed a contract was because my GM told me (before signing) that I wouldn't owe any money if I failed to perform (as opposed to quit). Well, the $5k I lost this year disagrees. And college pro MADE 5700 from me. Starting the research on grounds for class-action. Also, in my division this year there were 3 franchisees that hit their sales goals. I don't think a single person made actual profit. For working >1k/yr, I don't care if this is a business or not: as I said, using a standard C or S corporation I would have been able to liquidate the assets of the corporation to pay back creditors and that would be it. This company preys on college students because they're 1. old enough (barely) to sign a contract, and 2. naive enough not to know to talk to someone knowledgeable (parents don't count: I mean a lawyer). With roughly 20% of the franchisees actually profitable (20% hit their sales goal on a company-wide basis, though that doesn't ensure profitability), this company stays in business purely by its franchise structure.

The other thing I love that happened to me when I was interviewing was that the GM I interviewed with went through the required disclosures of profitability on past franchisees and said "that -2k? Yeah, that's just from all the tax deductions we're allowed to take. He likely actually made about 4k profit after taxes." "10k? Oh, with all the deductions he was able to take he prolly made 20k."
Umm... wtf? NOT TRUE! Anyone for a good class-action suit?

I just quit working for college pro as a painter and i can tell you I worked hard, I hated the job and I can imagine how pissed people feel after getting college pro to work on there house because as a painter it is a terrible experience. We can work our ### off and do an amazing job but if we go over budget we stop getting paid. As a painter I started off never paint before and was put to work on a house shown how to do a cut line and then sent up on the ladder to start. They do not train their painters on how to paint peoples houses or they will train one person how to paint a deck, one how to do windows, one to do railings and so on. So right there is probably the reason most of you are having problems with the paint jobs because the painters are most likely doing there best and working hard but they are only doing what they have been trained to do. As well once you stop getting paid for work, it becomes hard to want to finish the job. As well we get paid minimum wage and not even for the whole time we work. And for some reason apparently it is always the painters fault, I can personally say that there have been 2 times that i missed a spot and yes it was my fault, I got distracted stopped and never went back but it was an easy thing to fix. Although I only made two mistakes I have been yelled at punished and written up for numerous mistakes that were my managers fault or even other painters faults. The system college pro uses is if there is a mistake fire the painter and hire a new one. Which doesn't work because they always have new inexperienced painters and the reason the mistake was made is usually because the manager didn't train the painter or the manager told them the wrong thing to do. My manager showed up to a site and started rolling a persons cement deck. Turns out it wasn't suppose to be painted but he blamed the painters and eventually all of them were fired. It just shows how little they are for the people working for them. And if the managers are trained to treat the painters that way then I can only imagine that the general managers would be treating the managers pretty badly too. Painting isn't a bad job but I suggest you don't work for college pro. It will not be a good summer

"something as easy as a paint job" wow I can tell that youve never been a professional painter much less ever painted in your life. I dont know about you but I don't think I'd want a bunch of fresh unexperienced college kids handleing something as complicated as painting my house. Also as a professional painter I find it funny that you hear nothing about college pro ever pressure washing before painting, sounds like a shotty scheme to screw people over.

another bullcrap manager trying make the bullcrap of a company look good! lol college pro sucks. PERIOD!

is this college pro company only in US or is it in Canada as well?

If this actually happened word for word, I am appalled. I hope you didn't sign off on the contract stating that you were satisfied with the work as well as handing over the full payment.
I have heard horror stories of incompetent managers and their customers. It is hard to believe that someone can mess up something as easy as a paint job. I can tell you that even though your experience was terrible, our national average is %95 customer satisfaction. My franchise (2 yrs so far) has operated in 2 different states and I have achieved %100 on the 74 projects completed. There were some bumps along the road, but College Pro teaches delivering what you promise and part of that promise is a Sign off and Rating. I don't take payment or allow the customer to sign off on the work complete form unless they are completely satisfied.
You can fix almost any problem regarding a paint job, all it takes is constant communication and proper expectations set up front.

My experience with College Pro...
My contract states that they will do a full scrape to remove all loose and peeling paint, prime all bare wood, replace any missing and damaged caulk.

What I got was the manager and his helper changed my paint colors and changed the paint finish without telling me! Can you believe that! I caught them with the house paint color ready to be rolled on.

They did not scape all loose paint(which I pointed out twice before), some areas had not been scraped at all! They had no primer with them and no primer was applied to my house. How can they be ready to paint?

I wish they hadn't caulked anything. The caulk was applied next to the gap and not smoothed out. So now I have several lines of caulk next to the gaps.

I caught the manger in a few lies. I asked him if the paint color was colored matched. He said yes. I had previously called the paint store and their color matching machine was broken. The paint could not have been colored matched. He also couldn't tell me if he bought my porch floor paint, if it was the color of the paint chip I gave him, where he bought it, or if he had it with him.

I complained to the company and was told the manager would call me within 24 to 48 hours. You guessed it. No call.

I worked for college pro as a painter and I saw my manger get other painters to forge signatures for him. On the forms he sent into college pro to say that the job was completed and to give him a 10 out of 10 as a manager. He claims to be the best rookie in Canada. He is terrible

Hmm, that sounds terrible. However that's not the College Pro I know. I had work done by them and had a problem at point with getting a hold of the manager while they were doing the work for me, long story short, the college pro phone service got me in touch with their general manager the day I called and was able to help me. If I were you I would get in contact with the general manager of the area, mention the franchisee manager who would be responsible for your warrenty work and see what can be done, they're pretty helpful that way, good luck.