A self-styled “doctor” who made a fortune from dodgy impotence remedies and lurid billboard advertising has been sent bankrupt
A self-styled “doctor” who made a fortune from dodgy impotence remedies and lurid billboard advertising has been sent bankrupt by legal costs from his battles with the consumer watchdog.
Entrepreneur Jacov (Jack) Vaisman was subjected to a sequestration order in the Federal Court this week after he failed to pay more than $3.6 million for the ACCC’s costs for court proceedings launched in 2010.
“We took action against Mr Vaisman and his former companies for their roles in unconscionable conduct and use of unfair contract terms in promoting or supplying male sexual dysfunction products to vulnerable consumers,” ACCC Commissioner Sarah Court said.
Since the companies, Advanced Medical Institute and NRM, are no longer trading, the ACCC enforced the costs order against Mr Vaisman alone.
In his 2015 judgment, Justice Anthony North said: “It is immoral to seek to harness the fears and anxieties of men suffering from ED [erectile dysfunction] or PE [premature ejaculation] for the purpose of selling medical treatments.”
Using telephone sales and billboard ads, Advanced Medical Institute took almost $150 million from patients in the three years to 2010, selling impotence medications at inflated prices, the court found.
The ACCC seized millions of phone recordings which showed the company’s doctors failed “to meet the standards of proper practice established by the medical profession” and put the company’s commercial interests before their patients.
