FOX 8 Defenders: Attorney General’s office investigates Metairie clinic

NEW ORLEANS (WVUE) - The Louisiana Attorney General’s office launches an investigation into a former Metairie clinic that some local men say promised results for a problem they long kept hidden. In this FOX 8 Defenders report, the men say they’re out thousands of dollars as we uncover why this may be more than just a Louisiana problem.

Across New Orleans airwaves, commercials targeted men struggling with erectile dysfunction. The commercials touted a medical clinic in Metairie. Spring View bought commercial time on FOX 8. The clinic advertised a potentially life-changing treatment.

Two men who reached out to the FOX 8 Defenders, who don’t want to be identified say they now believe the clinic was nothing but a waste of time and money. One other person we also spoke to agrees.

“I found that as I was going through the treatment, it really wasn’t doing anything,” one of the men said.

The other adds, “I kept telling them after about the 5th treatment that I wasn’t feeling anything.”

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These men and two others filed complaints with the Louisiana Attorney General’s office about Spring View Medical Clinic.

“We’ve received several complaints that they have taken money and basically ran,” said Mike Dupree, the head of the Public Protection Division of the Attorney General’s office.

The complaints prompted the Consumer Protection Division of the A.G.’s office to launch an investigation.

“Anytime you get a myriad of complaints from consumers that are alleging the same thing and then the company appears to be gone, and they’re not receiving treatments or they’re not receiving what they’ve paid for, that’s certainly one of the red flags,” Dupree said.

Dupree explains that anytime the office opens an investigation into a company, it reaches out to that company to try to offer mediation with the consumer. But in this case, he says his office never heard back from Spring View Medical Clinic. That might be because in June, Spring View Medical Clinic closed. Yet the men we’ve spoken to receive bills for treatment still say they’re not receiving. In fact, one of the men even applied for a loan to help pay for the $4,600 cost of the treatment.

The Better Business Bureau of Southeast Louisiana is also investigating. Spring View Medical Clinic has an “F” rating on the BBB website.

“The consumers said it was a very negative experience,” said Cynthia Albert with the Better Business Bureau.

But this isn’t the only part of the country where the Better Business Bureau is looking into a company like this.

“From what we understand from some of the complaints, it may be going on in other states as well,” Dupree said.

In St. Louis, Missouri, the BBB there, gave Pine View Medical Clinic an “F” rating. Pine View offered the exact same treatment that Spring View in Metairie did, acoustic wave pressure technology to treat erectile dysfunction and it’s commercials even featured the same spokespeople that represented Spring View. Like Spring View, Pine View now appears to be closed.

Dupree comments, “As you look into it and you discover it may be going on in other states as well, the website is shut down, those are the kind of things that we go, wait a minute, something doesn’t seem above board here, let’s take a closer look.”

We wanted to know if there were more clinics like this across the country and more unhappy customers. Remember the commercials that aired across New Orleans airwaves? In order to air those commercials, the Spring View representative sent an email last October with a link. Clicking on the link, pulls up a list of 42 different medical clinics. When you click on each individual medical clinic, you find the exact same commercial. The clinics are located in cities across the country from Seattle to Tampa to Riverside, Rhode Island. The only difference, the banner across the bottom of the screen, with the name of a different city and different phone number for viewers to call.

We showed our findings to Mike Dupree.

“It’s certainly something, provides us an avenue to ask more questions and find out exactly what’s going on, certainly,” Dupree commented.

By digging into public records of the various clinics, we also found that many have the same mailing address. It’s an address in Utah for an attorney’s office. So, Spring View in Metairie, Pine View in Creve Coeur, Missouri, which is just outside St. Louis, Coast Side Medical Clinic in Sacramento, Valley View Medical Clinic in Pleasant Hill, Iowa and Pine Grove Medical Clinic in Greenwood, Indiana, just to name a few, all have the same home address on official state documents, in Cedar City, Utah. Many of the clinics also have the same people named on those official documents as company officers or managers.

Mike Dupree says investigators will consider all of this information as they determine how to proceed. The goal, he explains, is to make whole, the Louisiana residents who believe they’ve fallen victim to a scam.

“We’ve received four complaints, we’ve noticed a pattern so now we can go in on behalf of the state and say hey, company A, are u engaged in unfair and deceptive trade practices? If so, we can file a civil lawsuit against them and try to get penalties and restitution for those individuals who may have been scammed,” Dupree explained.

Dupree warns, it can be a long process. In the meantime, the two men we interviewed wonder what they should do as they face thousands of dollars in bills for a treatment they say never worked and no longer receive.

“Nobody likes to be scammed,” the one man said.

The other adds, “At all, I know I don’t.”

We reached out to the attorney’s office in Utah, the one whose address is listed as the home office for many of the clinics. We asked to speak to the owners of the clinics but never received a response.

The Louisiana Attorney General’s office says it’s investigation could take some time but individuals like the men we interviewed could always file their own lawsuits against the clinic, to try to collect damages.

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