A Black Eye
NEW VIDEO! A BLACK EYE for Stanton Optical, the cheap eyeglass company with stores all over the country. Texas Congressman Wesley Hunt wants a federal investigation of the company amidst allegations of fraud. The company is fighting back, trying to silence whistleblowers. They’re angry about our Eyeing Fraud investigation.
A Black Eye
We’ve all seen the evil Empire trying to throw its weight around, but the folks we are exposing can’t scare us with lightsabers.
Instead, they are trying to force us instead to erase an eye-opening investigation of possible fraud.
“I’ve got a message for Stanton’s lawyers, from you friends here at Dolcefino Media. Trying to choke out the consumers’ right to know is not going to work, I promise,” Wayne Dolcefino told the camera.
“Hi, is Mr. Stanton here please?” Andrea Palacio asked
“What for?”
We’ve gone to a Houston hotel to see a friend of ours, this guy, Daniel Stanton, the big boss of Florida-based Stanton Optical.
We didn’t have to go all the way to Palm Beach to see him.
He’s in our backyard. Lucky for us, the Stanton folks were having a corporate event right in Houston, in the Marriott Hotel at Bush Intercontinental Airport.
“We wanna ask him a couple of questions,” Palacio said.
“Well, we’re in private meeting. This is a very private event going on with our employees, so at this time I can’t get him for you,” Rami Coppock said.
Instead, the Stanton folks wanted us thrown out.
“Whatever footage that you’ve got, I need you to delete that,” Duane Davis II said.
“No, we’re not doing it,” Carter McCormack said.
“Well, then that will escalate things to a different level,” Duane Davis II said.
Guess it’s because our eyeing fraud investigation showed you how Stanton was being accused of screwing over insurance companies, its customers, even its own franchise owners, and they had blown the whistle.
“You call this fraud?” Dolcefino asked.
“I call it strong-arm fraud. It’s bad faith, bad practices,” Ryan Galvez said.
Ryan Galvez is the managing partner of Oculus, a company that owned nine Stanton stores in the Houston area.
Nine locations that are now closed.
The monetary losses to his company are huge.
“It’s easily over five and a half, maybe even six million now,” Galvez said.
Oculus isn’t the only company accusing Stanton and its corporate owners of a “classic bait and switch con” with false promises and misrepresentations, fraudulent business practices.
“We started noticing some issues with lab costs or delays. The customer base, they’re yelling, they’re coming in. I need my glasses,” Galvez said.
Lawsuits by Texas franchises Oculus and another former franchise group, AVS Vision, gave us a good look into the alleged optical dirty dealings of Stanton.
We got video of virtual eye exams conducted by a technician in Nicaragua.
Evidence eye exams were then rubber-stamped without a serious look to see if the prescription was right.
In a trial last year in Florida, sworn testimony was produced showing one Dallas-area optician working for Stanton was signing off on up to 4,000 prescriptions per week.
That’s an average of one minute per patient prescription. Stanton’s lawyers say not true.
But imagine if you were the guy promising folks it was being done right.
“How can I sit there and tell them that, hey, you, you had a good eye exam when you know something like that, when you learn something like that?” Galvez said.
Customers were led to believe, right here on the website, that they were getting comprehensive eye exams. Turn out that’s not true.
Even Now Optics’ chief operating officer admitted two important steps of comprehensive eye exams were not being performed.
Now Optics was apparently not meeting the insurance company requirements for billing comprehensive exams, but, allegedly, they were billing them anyway.
“I know folks at insurance companies. They call that fraud,” Dolcefino told the camera.
“This is a relationship that we’re supposed to be in, and you are purposely doing this. It’s just wrong,” Galvez said.
Oculus warned VSP Vision they were getting played, one of the largest vision benefits providers in the country.
“Proving insurance fraud is tough. But you can go online to see the overwhelming customer service complaints,” Dolcefino told the camera.
It’s the really mad customers who elevate their complaints to the Better Business Bureau, and look at them all.
120 just in the past six months.
The overriding theme, glasses with incorrect or unusable prescriptions.
“I almost had an accident because I couldn’t see out of them,” writes one woman just two months ago.
“I can only see out of them when looking out of the side, but not straight ahead.”
And the complaints come from all over the country.
“It’s nine stores in Houston, but there are hundreds, and then dozens of states who are all screwed over by the same bad actor,” Tal Debauche said.
And more trouble is brewing for Stanton.
Texas Congressman Wesley Hunt has written letters to the Federal agencies requesting an investigation.
“Stanton has undercut licensed optometrists with substandard exams, risked patient health, and burdened insurers and taxpayers. I urge you to investigate this to protect Texans from further harm.”
While we wait for a judge’s ruling on the earlier lawsuits, the Stanton folks are trying to strike back, to stop the whistleblowing.
To stop us. Trying to stop Galvez and others from posting mean things about this troubled eyeglass company.
Stanton even accuses us of being part of a “public smear campaign” that leveled “false and disparaging claims” against the company.
Galvez and his partner have agreed not to post any new mean things on social media. Delete what they have already posted. Including sharing videos of our investigations.
So if you go to their pages you won’t find anything fun, but you can still come here.
“And now Stanton wants this Florida judge to disappear our video from social media,” Dolcefino told the camera.
And that’s why this Stanton get-together was a must-visit.
“Who invited you here is what I’m asking.”
“We want to talk to Mr. Stanton about the lawsuit,” Palacio said.
“Oh, I see what you’re saying. I don’t think he’s available right now.” Why does a guy who runs an eyeglass empire need so much protection?
“They’re busy with the conference, so this is not the appropriate time for that investigation.”
“Well, they are having lunch,” Palacio said.
“That’s their time off. That’s the break that they’re allowed to have.”
“I do need to ask you to go ahead and go to the main lobby area.”
We were asked to leave, so we started to.
But they weren’t done with us.
Marriott security had followed us all the way to the parking garage and Mr. Davis was still yapping.
“Step out of the way. Step out. My name is Duane. I’m the director of security here at the hotel. Got some calls that you were in our back-of-house areas walking around,” Duane Davis II said.
He is the Marriott Hotel security director. He fashions himself a real tough guy, bigger than the First Amendment too.
“Again, I’m telling you, go easy route, delete whatever you got, we call it a day, y’all go about your business,” Duane Davis II said.
“We’re not doing it,” Carter McCormack said.
Destroying video, both from the camera they saw and the one they didn’t see, would be a journalistic cardinal sin.
And because we wouldn’t delete our video, we got another dose of Biggus Dickus.
“Alright, so again, my name is Dwayne. I’m the director of security for the hotel. You guys are hereby banned and trespassing at our hotel. You are not allowed to be on our property at all. If you are, police will be called,” Duane Davis II said.
Luke Skywalker lived to fight another day, and so will we, because we know the right ending to the story.
The Force is with us.
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