Friday, March 19, 2010

Brican America

Hey,

Man I am in a bad mood. I am telling you that things are really ticking me off today.
I am not going to write the things that are on my mind today because I am too hot about it, and the AGD says I can't cuss. I promise to write the topic down, and we will talk about it next week.

But also I am hot because my Gators lost. Did you see this? They lost in double overtime with a bunch of chances to win the game. Well the season is over, mercifully.

I know you were all watching.
Speaking of watching, did you know that you can watch every game of the NCAA basketball tourney on your computer LIVE. It is incredible.
And at the top of the screen is a BOSS BUTTON, so when people are watching it at work and they hear the boss coming they hit this button and instantly work comes up on the screen. My hats off to the CBS people.
But for people like me, who are the boss, I need a STAFF BUTTON. My staff comes into my office and says, "What are you doing back here?"
"Oh, I am writing up progress notes and that lab script you needed".

I wanted to talk to you about a company called Brican America.
Anyone heard of this?
Well a year and a half ago I had a "buddy" refer me to this rep.
Here is his shpeel.
We have a 42' Samsung LCD TV, along with the TV is a computer and a monitor.
Now what we agree upon is he will put the TV in my reception room.
And he agrees to put the computer anywhere in my office that I wish.
He will give me a DVD to run on the computer, and it plays in the reception area.
The DVD is educational clips. One would be about sealants. One would be about veneers. One would be about orthodontics. One about perio and on and on.
There are probably 50, 10-20 second clips , to choose from.
You can choose which ones to run in succession.
Now that you have put your sequence of clips together they run in a loop on your brand new 42' Samsung in your reception area.
The one caveat, they run an ad for a company that they partner with one every ten segments.
So dental clips 9 times, some laser eye clinic 1 time.
We do this for 5 years and at the end of the 5 years I keep the TV and the computer and the monitor.
No big deal.

Okay here is where it gets kind of shaky.
I agree to pay Brican for the running material and the marketing company agrees to pay me.
At the end I have officially pay nothing.
Okay so a couple of things are running through my head.
First and foremost, IT IS FREE.
Second thing, I get an awesome TV and computer for FREE.
Thirdly, a couple of my "buddies" have already done it and were getting paid back.
I just have to make my payments for five years to Brican (who sold the contract to a financing company) and the marketing company has to pay me for five years.
So after I made some reference calls to existing accounts I pulled the trigger.

Things were going great until this week the marketing company didn't make the payment to me.
And unbeknown to me the marketing company has failed its end of the bargain to all of its people.
They have appeared to have gone bankrupt.
I found this out because I got an email from an attorney asking me if I wanted to get in on the Class Action law suit against Brican America.

Man the poop is really hitting the fan on this one.
See over the life of the contract now with this finance company I owe $29,000.
And they don't care that I am not getting money from the marketing company. They care that I haven't made my payment. And they are not being nice about it. If you miss one payment you will be in default. And they claim they will send you straight to collections. And then it goes on your permanent record.

So the lawyer claims that they are at the early stages of the suit. But if you want to get in there is a retainer fee, blah blah blah. It is going to cost about $3000 to get in on it.
But until the lawyers get somewhere on the case, I still have to be making payments to the financial company.
Are you sweating yet? Because I am.
I told you I was in a bad mood and now you know why. But I haven't cussed yet.

But who is to say that the law firm isn't just another step in their diabolical plan.
Like I give the lawyer $3000 and then once they get 100 dentists they split too.

I am in a real pinch, and I don't know how to get out of it.
I think I have to go to the AGD's attorneys on this one.
Anyone have any suggestions?

I called my financial adviser and he say, "Sometimes you have to skin your knees a couple of times to realize you have to stop riding fast on your bike."
Thanks a lot a-hole (oops there I go)

This might be a $29,000 knee skin.

Hope your weekend is better than mine.
john

8 comments:

Connie said...

Turn off the TV and don't run the ads. Or let your patients watch CNN. Or move the TV to the back and watch basketball on it.

gatordmd said...

I would have to watch a lot of basketball to make up for the $29,000 loss. But I like how you are thinking.

john

Anonymous said...

Just wait. The ADA and FDA are getting involved. Stick with your association. But you should know better. If sounds too good to be true it usually is. I believe they owe 38 Million or so.

You should never have to pay up front for a class action suit. The lawyers will get their pound of flesh when they win the case and you get paid little or nothing.

Have a good weekend.

Connie said...

Yeah, no joke. You could have bought 10 TVs at Best Buy for that. You got totally screwed.

Is this financing "secured" by the items? They can have them back.

I'm pissed for you.

Anonymous said...

Don't feel too bad the optometrist are in the same boat. About 2000 offices I think in all.

Anonymous said...

Just like Connie, I am pissed right along with you. That's horrible what Brican has done. I don't know what the best course of action is in this case but for future reference before doing business with any outfit like this do a google search. Put "[name of company] scam" (without quotes) into the search box. I just searched for Brican America scam and got over 10,000 hits. Sometimes a little research ahead of time will yield valuable insight into the shady operations these guys run. I feel for you. I hope you and everyone else that's getting ripped off can get this resolved to your satisfaction.

Anonymous said...

And keep in mind, after spending the fees for the attorney, the case may still be lost. Then the leasing company will want their legal fees paid, too.

Regarding the comment about not having to pay up front for a class action suit...that's true if there's money coming to the winner of the suit. But in this case, there's no money coming back. Victory in this case is not having to pay the lease payment and getting to return the TV and computer.

Anonymous said...

http://www.bricanviso.com/

You are not alone Doc.
Check out this link - thousands of docs were ripped off.

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