Except for moving her business to the neighboring town of Woolwich, Rent-A-Husband franchise owner Darcy Siverson says nothing about her business has changed.

While Rent-A-Husband founder Kaile Warren has been bombarded with negative stories of unhappy investors in recent USA Today articles, Siverson says she’s happy with the results of her investment in the company. She opened her business six years ago on Water Street in Wiscasset.

"I haven’t talked to him in awhile," Siverson said Tuesday, referring to Warren, "but I got all my money back and more." Siverson said she thinks the collapse of what was expected to be a lucrative deal with Ace Hardware is what has prompted Warren’s recent money problems.

A resident of Windham, Warren founded the company in 1996, and began selling franchises in the next decade. He built a national reputation for himself and his business by appearing on local and national television shows, including the CBS Early Show for ten years and appearing three times on the Oprah Winfrey Show.

According to an October 22 article in USA Today, "Warren persuaded dozens of people to invest at least a total of $4.5 million in his business, which was more than $3 million in debt."

An October 22 broadcast by WCSH television carried a statement from Warren defending his reputation and his business: "I have never misled an investor. Matter of fact when investors sign on to invest in the company they sign a disclosure form that said this is a highly speculative investment with a substantial degree of risk."

Siverson said she distinctly remembers being told "it was a high risk investment."

"I think people are probably pretty upset that it didn’t happen as soon as they expected," she said, referring to their expected return on their investment. The WCSH interview also included a reference by Warren to the Ace Hardware deal that never materialized.

Warren’s recent troubles were profiled in an October 30 issue of Lakes Region Weekly, which circulates in the Gray, Windham, Raymond, and Bridgton area, by editor John Balentine. According to this article, Warren is being investigated by the Maine Office of Securities in relation to charges of fraud brought by four local people; two of them have filed a civil suit against him in Cumberland County Superior Court.

Lakes Region Weekly columnist Lane Hiltunen, who invested $10,000 with Warren in January of 2009, is one of the four people the state Office of Securities has interviewed, according to the article.

The Rent-A-Husband website lists the corporate headquarters as Riverside Street, Portland, with three franchises in Maine, including Siverson’s (still listed as Wiscasset), one in Wells, and one in Raymond. The website lists one in New Jersey, one in Massachusetts, three in Vermont, three in California, and three in Texas.

Siverson says in the six years she she has been in business, she has put together "a great team" of people to help out homeowners, including plumbers, electricians, carpenters and cleaning people.

In addition to being very busy in Wiscasset and Woolwich, Siverson said, "We are doing all of Lincoln County." She said she has also bought the franchise rights from Warren for a number of other towns, including South Freeport, Brunswick and Topsham.

Asked how her business has grown, Siverson said although some of it has come from the corporate website, "Most of it has come by word of mouth."

A description of the business, on the company website, says "RENT-A-HUSBAND^® was created to define a new standard in home maintenance, repair and improvement. To do so we have to revolutionize an industry that could certainly use it. There is no reason you can't have the same expectations for quality, timeliness, and professionalism when it comes to taking care of your home that you have of your physician when it comes to taking care of your health. So we've created a very special, value-driven and customer focused company built around our RENT-A-HUSBAND^® vows of - quality, respect, honesty, professionalism, and humor."