Ypsilanti, Michigan; - Peeved at the use of its official adverts and it name interchangeably by a business entity in Guyana, the world’s leading pizza franchise, Dominos Pizza Enterprises says that a Guyanese restaurant advertising that it is offering Domino’s Pizza to the public would amount to an openly bogus operation.
As such, the company is cautioning Guyanese consumers to be mindful of the Georgetown based company since it cannot be selling genuine “Domino’s Pizza”.
Trading as Domino’s Pizzeira, and marketing its products on local TV, the print media and Facebook as Domino’s Pizza in Guyana, the restaurant, which is located on Sheriff Street in Guyana’s capital city Georgetown, even regularly runs pirated versions of the original Domino’s Pizza ads on local television.
However, Tracy Stephenson, a Media Relations Executive at Domino’s Pizza, told this publication that the company does not have a franchise in Guyana.
“As Domino’s Pizza Enterprises we hold the master franchise rights ….. but Guyana is not one of them” she said.
An official from the company’s legal department has since promised to investigate the use of its adverts, trade name, trade mark or even variants which may cause the Guyanese public to think that they are actually buying pizzas from a legitimate Domino’s franchise.
Domino’s Pizza are of the view that the Guyanese authorities are adding to the skepticism of potential international investors, by allowing local entities to unlawfully generate income by abusing the good name of multi-national corporations.
Efforts to contact the operator of the local Domino’s restaurant has proven futile, but an employee indicated to this publication that her impression is that she is working at a legitimate franchise of the U.S based company.
Guyana is an English-speaking South American country that is culturally aligned with the Caribbean. For several years now it has been struggling with an uncontrolled influx of pirated goods and pirated brands that are then passed on unregulated to local consumers.
News items and complaints about bogus products that find its way into the mainstream media are often dismissed by corrupt Guyanese officials whose hands are often greased to look the other way.
Only a few weeks ago another company next door to the bogus Domino’s Pizza in Guyana, which trades as Electronics City found itself in hot water after a communications assistant at Samsung revealed that the Guyanese company was selling fake Samsung products that were replicated by a named company in China.
However, the Guyana National Bureau of Standards (GNBS), the agency tasked with investigating such claims, openly defended that company, while ignoring information that one of its executives are directly connected to the entity that was selling bogus branded phones.
A subsequent video recording (using a cell phone) during a conversation with an Electronics City employee has since identified the name of the official at GNBS that is associated with the company.
In that recording, the Electronics City senior staff was captured dialing the GNBS official’s cell number, calling his name, and then discussing the problem about a fake Samsung phone in the presence of another (undercover) local journalist, who had also recorded and archived the conversation.
