Gansler
BALTIMORE (Legal Newsline) - Maryland Attorney General Douglas Gansler announced a preliminary injunction on Thursday enforcing a prior cease and desist order against Medical Alert Buyers and its owner, Glenn Chumley, for allegedly preying on elderly customers.
Gansler's Consumer Protection Division enforced the cease and desist order because Medical Alert Buyers and Chumley allegedly sold consumers emergency alert devices and one-year service plans promising to connect them to an alert center if they fell or had emergencies. Chumley and his company allegedly failed to deliver when customers needed help.
The division entered the order on Dec. 6, requiring Chumley and his company to stop billing consumers unless he could give them the emergency alert services they purchased and until he posted $20,000 in security with the division. The defendants were also ordered to pay restitution and to notify consumers if the business could no longer provide services. Under the terms of the order, Chumley had to recommend another emergency alert service provider to the consumers.
The division filed a complaint against Chumley and his business in the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County last week. The defendants allegedly violated the division's order by not posting the compulsory security and continuing to bill consumers for emergency alert services that were not provided.
In addition, Chumley allegedly did not inform customers that they needed to locate other emergency service providers.
The court found on Monday that consumers were being irreparably harmed and issued a temporary restraining order against the defendants. On Wednesday, the court replaced the order with a preliminary injunction, barring the defendants from selling and offering emergency alert services without providing the division with a $20,000 letter of credit, bond or cash payments. Addittionally, Chumley must send his customers the notices required by the original order.
The injunction will remain in effect until a hearing on the division's allegations is completed and the division enters a final order resolving the allegations. A statement of charges is now pending before the Maryland Office of Administrative Hearings.