A Burger Chain Sold 1,550 Franchises. Most Never Opened

In four years, Burgerim sold at least 1,550 franchises for its mini-burger chain, telling buyers that being their own boss was "100% attainable" and that financing was available. According to the federal government's complaint, most of those franchises never opened. The company never answered the lawsuit; in January 2024 a federal court entered a default judgment and banned it from selling franchises in the U.S. By the court's count, $57.7 million was paid in franchise fees and $9.2 million refunded. Then we checked the federal small-business loan file. Between December 2016 and November 2019, the SBA backed 104 loans for Burgerim franchises, about $33 million. Of the loans that have reached an ending, 38.5% were charged off, the fourth-worst rate among 134 franchise brands with at least 50 finished loans. Chapters 0:00 Intro 0:59 Clarksburg, West Virginia 1:33 Part 1: The Pitch 3:27 Part 2: The Ledger 5:12 Part 3: The Addresses 7:11 Part 4: The File 9:46 Part 5: Charged Off 11:18 Sources How we counted: SBA 7(a) FOIA file as of June 30, 2026, all spellings of "Burgerim" merged, cancelled loans excluded. The 38.5% rate covers loans approved in fiscal years 2010–2019 that have an outcome: charged off divided by charged off plus paid in full. A loan's address is the borrower's mailing address, so on screen we only show addresses that also appear in Burgerim's own store locator (Feb. 2020); borrower names are never shown. Refund counts differ by record: 287 (California DFPI) and 286 (federal court). Burgerim Group USA, Inc. and Burgerim Group, Inc. did not respond to the federal lawsuit; the court entered a default judgment against them. Founder Oren Loni settled separately and neither admitted nor denied the allegations. RECORDS SBA 7(a) FOIA loan data: https://data.sba.gov/dataset/7a-504-foia United States v. Burgerim Group USA, Inc., et al., No. 2:22-cv-00825 (C.D. Cal.): complaint (Feb. 7, 2022), order as to Oren Loni (Nov. 20, 2023), opinion and default judgment (Jan. 19, 2024), all on the FTC case page: https://www.ftc.gov/legal-library/bro... California DFPI, Citations and Desist and Refrain Order, Feb. 16, 2021 (archived copy): http://web.archive.org/web/2025020401... burgerim.com franchise pages (2017–2020) and store locator (Feb. 10 and Sept. 16, 2020), Internet Archive Wayback Machine SBA Franchise Directory, entry S5229 (no longer listed as of Sept. 2026): https://legacy.sba.gov/document/suppo... REPORTING Restaurant Business, Jan. 2020: https://www.restaurantbusinessonline.... Restaurant Business, Jan. 2020: https://www.restaurantbusinessonline.... Restaurant Business, Jan. 3, 2020: https://www.restaurantbusinessonline.... Restaurant Dive, Feb. 13, 2020: https://www.restaurantdive.com/news/b... KCRA 3 / Yahoo News, Sept. 24, 2024: https://www.yahoo.com/news/modesto-bu... The Burn, Feb. 7, 2026: https://theburn.com/2026/02/07/burger... SHORT VIDEO EXCERPTS (a few seconds each) WBOY 12 News:    • Clarksburg BurgerIM closing   KTNV 13 Las Vegas:    • It's A Party...In A Box With Burgerim   CBS47 KSEE24:    • Burgerim celebrates grand-opening in Fresn...   ABC13 Houston:    • Fate of BurgerIM restaurant in Houston unc...   CBS4 Indy:    • State of Indiana bans burger franchise fro...   KCRA 3:    • Modesto BurgerIM franchise owner feels aba...   PHOTOS (Wikimedia Commons, cropped, text added) Burgerim Midtown Miami FL, Feb. 2, 2023 (three photos, one also on the thumbnail) by Phillip Pessar, CC BY 2.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... Little Caesars, BurgerIM, Southern Cove Outfitters, Valdosta by Michael Rivera, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... The other thumbnail is Google Street View (Mission Viejo, June 2022). ARCHIVE FILM (Prelinger Archives, public domain) The Restaurant Operator (1946), Using the Bank (1947), It's Everybody's Business (1954), Cashing In (1935), Our Home Town: Levittown, Pa. (1954) Street View imagery © Google. Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors; state boundaries: U.S. Census Bureau. Loan tables come straight from the SBA file, without borrower names. Music and sound effects: ElevenLabs.