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Taylor said the elderly man had been cold-called by a man claiming to be from a company called "Coastal Vacations" asking him if he wanted to make money from home.

In return for paying "membership fees" he was told he would be assigned a website in his name through which people could book cruises around the Middle East and Mediterranean, said Taylor.

The caller said the company could not operate the websites in its own name due to some "legal requirements" in the US and that it was looking for investors to lend their names for a share of profits from any bookings made through their website.

The man could log into the "back office" section of the website that had been set up for him, Taylor said.

It appeared to show the activity of visitors to his website and purchases made through it.

Taylor said the man felt this gave some transparency to what he was doing and earning.

The man was told he didn't need to do anything to earn the $8000 as the company would do all the selling.

He paid his "membership fees" using his credit card in January, but by February nothing had appeared in his 'back office' and no commissions had been earned. 

He was told that payments were pending or that [there] were technical issues.

Riccarton-Wigram community board member Debbie Mora said she had not seen such opposition to a liquor licence application in her two years on the board.

She was worried that, if approved, it could set a precedent for other fast-food outlets across New Zealand.

Wendy's chief executive Danielle Lendich said she had not seen the submissions and would not comment until she had a chance to review them.

She previously said the company wanted guests to enjoy a beer with a burger if they chose to. Non-alcoholic beverages would still be available, and no alcohol would be served at the drive-through or for takeaway guests.

Restaurant chain KFC will soon no longer be selling Pepsi soft drinks, with Coca-Cola taking over as its official drinks supplier.

Restaurant Brands New Zealand, the country's largest fast food operator, confirmed the exclusive deal with Coca-Cola will begin in mid-January next year.

The change in beverage supplier is part of KFC's transformation programme that started last year, and includes changes in marketing and longer opening hours. Coca-Cola will soon also be taking over at Restaurant Brands' Pizza Hut stores.

Veritas Investments says it has had no success selling Mad Butcher outlets currently for sale and that the cut-price meat chain continues to face a "challenging" environment.

However, it remains on track to meet profit guidance issued in June, in which it said annual profitability was expected to rise 28 per cent in the 2016 financial year - equivalent to its earlier expectation of results for the 2015 financial year. The company said then that it expected net profit of between $5.3 million and $5.5 million in the year ending June 30, 2016, up from the $4.3 million anticipated in 2015.

Restaurant Brands New Zealand boosted first-half profit 17 percent on increased sales of fried chicken at KFC and more Carl's Jr stores.

Profit rose to $13.4 million in the 28 weeks ended September 14, up from $11.5 million in the same period a year earlier, the company says.

Total store sales rose 13 percent to $210 million, while on a same-store basis sales increased 6.7 percent to $192 million. It had a total of 180 stores across its KFC, Carl's Jr, Starbucks Coffee and Pizza Hut brands, six more than a year earlier.

People would only be able to buy alcohol with food and managers would go through training programmes, Lendich said.

'It is Wendy's view that responsible consumption of alcohol in a family restaurant setting is a positive outcome and we have every confidence that we will sell alcohol safely and responsibly,' Lendich said.

'Our principal business will remain the provision of meals to the public and we have no intention of becoming a bar or hangout where people sit all night and drink beer.'

Christchurch West Information Hub co-ordinator Kirstin Dingwall-Okoye hoped to muster 'as many objections as possible.'

'This concerns me because Wendy's is a traditional burger restaurant, usually aimed at being family friendly,' she said.

'It is often packed with school-age children after school and in the holidays. It is also often staffed by kids as an after school/holiday job. It also concerns me that this may set a precedent for family 'burger' style restaurants, not just in Hornby, but in other centres around Christchurch and New Zealand. I believe it is imperative that a strong community lead (sic) objection is raised against this.'

Increasing profits isn’t just about making more sales or cutting costs – in fact, doing just one of those things and ignoring the others can actually reduce profits. Instead, by focusing on finding small improvements in each area individually, a franchisee can make a big difference to their ultimate profitability. Here are some tips on what to look for.

Steve Anderson, managing director of Foodstuffs which owns Liquorland, New World, Pak'nSave and other businesses, said a sale and purchase agreement had been signed for stores throughout the country, which would become franchised Liquorland outlets.

"There are a number of conditions still to be met as part of the due diligence process before the sale can be finalised, and once these conditions have been satisfied we will be in a position to provide more information," Anderson said.

7-Eleven boss, Warren Wilmot, rang his fellow board members at the Franchise Council of Australia (FCA) and asked to step down from the chairman's role to focus on his day job, according to an FCA spokesman.

The decision was understandable.

The FCA holds its AGM in early October, in the lead up to its national convention. It will coincide with a meeting of both the Asia/Pacific and global franchise councils

The scam is sweeping the country, with numerous workers discussing variations on the "cash scam" theme.

For instance, a permanent resident might pay back a smaller amount than a worker on a student visa who is only allowed to work 20 hours a week under the visa conditions.

As one store manager says: "Imagine working for $12 an hour and being taxed for $20 an hour or more. I didn't think they could get more odious but I was wrong."

Pranay Alawala, a former 7-Eleven worker in Brisbane who recently confronted his boss to pay back more than $40,000 to himself and a few other workers, said he had been contacted by many workers who have got caught up in the "cash scam".

Text messages between a franchisee and a 7-Eleven employee from a Brisbane store leave no doubt that this new fraud is widespread.

The new scam will be difficult to prove and could be an additional challenge for the independent panel that has been set up by 7-Eleven to investigate underpayment of wages.

The panel, headed by former ACCC chairman Allan Fels, a fierce critic of the 7-Eleven franchise model, will kick off this week.

Mr Fels hit the headlines a week ago when he said "the only way a franchisee can make a go of it in most cases is by underpaying wages, by illegal behaviour."

Workers are invited to come forward if they have been underpaid and the panel will assess their claims, but the success or otherwise of the panel will depend on whether they are given amnesty by the Abbott government and whether the onus is on the worker to prove their case, or the franchisee and 7-Eleven head office.

The menus appeared to breach NSW food labelling laws that demand fast food outlets show the kilojoules in each product next to the price and in the same size writing.

Health groups called for McDonald's to be brought into line with the rules and the chain now says it will change its menus across the country by the end of September.

"In consultation with the NSW Food Authority we have proactively made some edits to our new digital menu boards to enable additional comparison between products," McDonald's spokesman Chris Grant said on Monday.

Mike and Lisa Keffler sold their house in Auckland and moved to Rotorua, where they and their young family couldn’t be happier. Parin Desai has established himself as part of the local community in Whakatane. John Alipate is a Dunedin man through and through and wanted to stay in the city he loved, while Ashneer and Durgeshni Datt –­ also refugees from the hectic pace of Auckland – were welcomed by the mayor and the local MP when they arrived in Invercargill. All of them found business opportunities through franchising in the places they wanted to live.

According to the headlines, business these days is all about the growing population of Auckland and the reconstruction of Christchurch. Yet the people above, and others you can read about on this website, prove that there is life outside the big cities and that it can be very rewarding indeed.

‘In fact,’ says Daniel Cloete, National Franchise Manager for Westpac, ‘I have found that in many franchise systems, some of the most profitable outlets in New Zealand are located in the regions rather than the major centres.’

The key word here is.... Read the rest of this article.

His company provides seed financing for its franchisees to create their own drinking water company designed for the under-served (read: not wealthy) people in any variety of African communities.

With sub-par water treatment, crumbling pipes, weak building codes and widespread industrial contamination, providing clean water in many African villages is a persistent, Herculean task.

Jibu places drinking water franchises approximately one mile apart, drawing water from any neighborhood source and filtering it on the spot using advanced water filtration equipment. The company acts as a fair-lending bank that offers affordable financing to its franchisees. No middleman. No dependency on donations that could dry up. Low prices. New jobs.

With seven franchises, some making more than USD$85,000 per year, Jibu’s network has distributed more than 1 million gallons of water and reached more than 10,000 people with safe, clean water.

The company is on track to launch two franchises per month throughout 2015, and has raised more than $2.4 million through private equity and grants to support its future growth—a promising record for a socially aware and ambitious entrepreneur, as well as his franchisees and their customers.

Meanwhile, a franchisee told the 7-Eleven field investigator that some staff members hadn't been paid for six weeks because they "don't care if they haven't been paid correctly as money isn't important to them".

The Melbourne-based franchisee was caught paying A$12 ($13.30) an hour to staff – well below the award rate of A$24 an hour – and was withholding the passport and driver's licence of a staff member.

The offences were handled internally.

"They constitute a breach of the 7-Eleven Agreement" and "the expectation is that you will remedy the breach by doing the following: 1. Return the passport and driver's licence. 2. Pay monies owed to your employees through the 7-Eleven payroll system so we can verify that the breach has been completely remedied."

They are just a handful of the more than 2000 extracts of on-the-record interviews conducted by field inspectors and placed on a central database at head office, obtained by Four Corners and Fairfax Media's Business Day.

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"While I do not minimise the adverse effects of Mr Heath and his family and the threat that it will be necessary to sell the family home after four to five months if an injunction is granted, sight should not be lost of the fact that Mr Heath was aware of the restraint provisions and made the decision to terminate his relationship with Mike Pero without apparently putting in place any plan for protecting his income without breaching his agreement...in this sense I am satisfied that Mr Heath has brought these consequences upon himself through his own actions," Justice Moore said.

The judge was satisfied that an injunction against Heath should be granted while the franchisees work out the dispute with Mike Pero Mortgages.

He ruled that Heath should not be involved in a mortgage broking business in Canterbury for two years or elsewhere in New Zealand for six months or until further order of the court.

Y&R NZ chief executive and chief creative Josh Moore says the campaign is the result of “perseverance, late nights and an 18-month collaboration” with the global Burger King marketing team.

“When we first tabled this idea with Burger King we knew it was a long shot – asking a global icon to take their hero product and blend it with that of their biggest competitor.

“But we’ve been totally overwhelmed by the enthusiasm and appetite for big thinking and bold ideas at all levels of Burger King. I only hope McDonald’s jump on board and make this a monumental event in the name of Peace Day. Let’s end the beef, with beef.”

A dedicated website has also been set up for the ‘McWhopper.’

Heath was a Mike Pero franchisee in Christchurch for 15 years and in 2009 won a New Zealand Mortgage Brokers' Association award. But he advised the franchisor earlier this year he would not be renewing his franchise agreement and was in the group that in April filed proceedings.

Mike Pero (New Zealand) is owned by Australia's Liberty Financial, and has 36 franchisees around this country. While it bears the name of its founder, Mike Pero, he no longer has any part in the business.

Queen's Counsel for the franchisor firm, Bruce Stewart, argued the company would be harmed if the interim orders weren't continued and said that eight of its other franchisees in Canterbury deserved protection.