May 21 is the day Reckless Ben posted his first video about the company. Part 4 premieres in a Los Angeles theater on November 4. In between, BAM’s November newsletter told owners the numbers “give us good reasons for confidence.” One owner asked the CEO and the COO by name how the 82% was derived and called it “misleading data analysis that is being presented as a success story”; the others posted what their own registers show: a store “down considerably since May 21,” tickets up 23.4% before mid-May and 1.89% after, stores that are “up” on “a horrible year” and “still not breaking even.” One wrote: “The only people profiting from my store are BAM Franchising Inc, my Employees, my Landlord, and my Vendors.” No officer has responded in the thread as of the publication of this update.
PRIMARY SOURCEA section of BAM’s November 2026 newsletter to franchisees, and an owner’s question in the #forum_operations channel of BAM’s Slack with the posts and the thread that followed, reconstructed below. Owner identities, store locations and exact times are withheld; officers are named.
AS STATEDThe 82% is BAM’s figure, for “reporting stores” over the year to October; the section the owners were sent does not say how it was derived, and the owners asked. The owners’ numbers are their own, for their own stores, as they typed them.
CONFIRMEDReckless Ben’s first video posted May 21, 2026; Part 4 premieres November 4 (as reported). The disclosed numbers the owners’ claims sit against are on this site: the FDD’s average and median store revenue, the corporate store’s share of BAM’s income and the $44,306 Labor Commission judgment.
The section of the newsletter’s executive message the owners were discussing runs four paragraphs. Each is below, with what an owner wrote in the company’s own Slack within hours of the first question.
The results we are seeing through October give us good reasons for confidence. 82% of reporting stores are showing positive growth for the year (YOY). Helping more stores share in the ongoing improvement remains a priority.
I absolutely agree about top vs bottom line but this is a more fundamental issue of misleading data analysis that is being presented as a success story. I know exactly where that 82% number comes from but I think it’s important to hear it from the source.
We are also seeing stronger gains in new customer acquisition, more frequent visits from existing customers, and customers returning after extended time away. After the disruption and negativity of late spring and early summer, these are encouraging signs of renewed momentum.
Being up on last year isn’t something to celebrate for me. 2025 was a horrible year. Sure, we’re up on last year but still not breaking even. It’s fine as a pulse check - even if the pulse is weak and sporadic - but not an indicator of success. However, if we can be up over a really bad ’25 in a ’26 PR dumpster fire then I at least have some hope for a better ’27.
The everyday work in our stores is making a difference. Great customer service is giving people reasons to come back. OneShop reminders are helping bring customers through the doors more frequently. Positive community outreach is creating meaningful connections, both locally and on social media. Customers want places where they feel welcome, find something they love, and connect with people who share their interests. Our franchisees are delivering those experiences every day.
Trust me I understand being up YoY isn’t something to necessarily celebrate. For me it just means I am losing money slower, and my ramp to bankruptcy is longer. The only people profiting from my store are BAM Franchising Inc, my Employees, my Landlord, and my Vendors.
We are also continuing to advance our legal efforts to protect the brand and have secured significant resources to sustain that work. This includes existing matters and, where warranted, actions addressing harmful conduct by former franchisees as they exit the system. Our focus remains on protecting the brand, upholding the agreements that support our system, and supporting the businesses you have worked hard to build.
BAM is suing Reckless Ben in federal court. In a second federal case it has subpoenaed the identity and information of the Publisher of The BAM Map, and a federal magistrate judge has stayed those subpoenas (as reported). The former owners of the Salem store are suing BAM and both McNeffs personally in Utah’s Business and Chancery Court (the legal case). A $44,306 Utah Labor Commission judgment against BAM, docketed in 2024, showed no payment on the court docket as of October 28 (as reported). What the significant resources are, and where they came from, the newsletter does not say. The May 31 balance sheet in BAM’s September disclosure amendment showed $568,188.43 drawn on three credit lines, against $130,779 at the year end; in February the company pledged everything it owns to Hillcrest Bank (as reported).
The sixth owner answered the newsletter’s whole premise in one line: “I’ve talked with a lot of owners over the last couple months and almost none of them were making money.”
The thread began with one owner asking the two officers who run the company for the analysis behind the statistic. The channel is where the owners talk to each other, and this site has quoted it before (as reported).
The replies in the thread under the question are where the owners put dates on it. Nobody wrote “Reckless Ben.” They wrote dates, and every split they posted falls between May 15 and the end of May.
Four stores, four splits, all in May: a store “down considerably since May 21”; sales up 56.7% through May and 7.34% after; transactions up 23.4% to mid-May and 1.89% after; and a store up 2% through May and 6% after whose transaction count, split at mid-May, went from up 6.17% to down 5.33%. The owner with the 56.7% bought the store, already open, in 2025 from owners he says had stopped trying. On June 4 the company itself called the videos “a devastating social media campaign” and closed the Salem store over them. By November the same period is “the disruption and negativity of late spring and early summer,” and the message is momentum.
The company has heard the owners date it before. At its Q3 town hall in August, a franchisee question read to the room said “Many stores I’ve talked to have seen losses in excess of 20% due to the scandal,” and Ammon McNeff answered that “what’s harder to establish is exactly how much of every store’s decline was caused by this issue” (as reported). A survey presented at the same meeting found 54% of respondents “extremely unsure about BAM’s long-term strategy and direction” (as reported). The November newsletter does not attempt the attribution its CEO called hard. It reports the year as growth, and the owners in the thread dated their own declines.
The owners’ words have a public baseline. BAM’s 2026 disclosure document puts the average franchise store at $507,684 for 2025, with a median of $467,539 across 153 stores, down from $538,226 for 2024 and, in the earlier editions, $579,853 for 2023 (as reported). Revenue is not profit; the owners in the thread are describing the line below it. The company’s own books show where the margin goes: in the first five months of 2026, fees from franchisees were almost all of BAM’s gross profit, and its store that sells to those franchisees was its biggest source of income (as reported). The seventh owner’s line, “there is very little profit in what we sell to other stores,” is the same economy seen from the other end.
The owners also asked the question the newsletter’s wording raises and does not answer: who is a “reporting store,” and were closed stores counted? The company closed its Salem store in June and has taken others back through companies named BAMF after the city (the store). A statistic computed on the stores that are still open is biased upward by construction.
The fair reading, and its limit. The 82% is a year-to-date figure across whatever BAM counts as reporting stores; the owners are quoting single stores over their own date windows, and some of them say so. Several are up on a bad 2025, which is growth by the newsletter’s definition, and one store’s sales grew faster after May even as its transaction count fell. The second owner wrote that assuming more profit from more sales “is a fair assumption to make.” The May break the owners describe is also the harm BAM pleads in its own suit against Reckless Ben; the owners’ numbers do not settle who caused what, only when their numbers turned. The analysis behind the 82% is not in the newsletter section the owners were sent, and no officer has responded in the thread as of the publication of this update. The right of reply is open to BAM, Ammon McNeff and Matthew McNeff.
Part 4 premieres November 4. “A devastating social media campaign,” five months later. “More boring and less interesting”. The August 19 statement. Item 19. The corporate store. The Labor Commission judgment. Losses “in excess of 20% due to the scandal”. The owners’ survey. The Hillcrest lien. What BAM’s owners say to each other. BAM is hunting a leaker. The legal case.
Sources. BAM Franchising, Inc., November 2026 newsletter to franchisees, “Executive Message: Building on Our Momentum,” as circulated to owners; the #forum_operations channel of BAM’s Slack workspace, November 3, 2026, as the owners typed it, with owner identities, store locations and clock times withheld; BAM’s 2026 Franchise Disclosure Document, Item 19; this site’s earlier reporting as linked.