Theos Medical Systems and Chummie's Deceit Continues !

A lawsuit was filed against Theos Medical Systems, Inc. and it's owner Saket Bhatia on November 12, 2013 in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California for Trademark Infringement of the Malem name. The final Order and Consent Decree was signed by the Honorable Edward M. Chen, United States District Court Judge, United States District Court, Northern District of California on July 14, 2015. This Order has been reproduced in its entirety, as reported in docs.justia.com in our prior two blogs: 

MalemMedical, Ltd. et al v. Theos Medical Systems, Inc. et al PART 1   and

Malem Medical, Ltd. et al v. Theos Medical Systems, Inc. et al PART 2

It is very obvious that the Order issued went well beyond the trademark infringement, and covered what we can only describe as a variety of deceptive practices used by Theos Medical Systems, Inc. and Saket Bhatia  in describing and marketing their Chummie products, primarily on the internet, and extensively on Amazon.com. Effectively, Theos/Chummie have been legally constrained and must make major alterations in their unethical product and market claims and style of conducting business. We congratulate the Plaintiffs in the case for obtaining the necessary legal constraints on Theos/Chummie's behavior and having them alter and/or remove the false or highly exaggerative "facts" with which they have deceived the Public and parties like Amazon for many years.

Reading the constraints placed on Theos/Chummie in the Order, there is little doubt in our mind that their business on Amazon.com will suffer significantly. We do want to point out that Chummie's Amazon business for bedwetting alarms has been dramatically decreasing since the Fall of 2014, when Theos/Chummie received what we consider to be a relatively mild smack on their wrist for using a large number of fake Amazon reviews to both promote their Chummie products and degrade competitive products on the Amazon reviews. We must assume that these further constraints on Theos/Chummie's behavior on Amazon and elsewhere will adversely affect their free-wheeling and deceptive style of doing business. One alteration that we expect will be a significant decrease in the price of their very over-priced Chummie bedwetting alarm products so as to try and entice customers to purchase what we would still consider to be ridiculously priced products for the poor technology and conveniences that are offered. We have already elaborated on this and strongly recommend that the reader looks at our comparative table of detailed facts in our prior blog entry: 

Abusing and Misinterpreting Amazon Reviews: The Case Against Chummie, Dry-Knight and Lil' Jumble.

What many customers also overlook about these Chummie bedwetting alarms is how Chummie continues to "rake in the shekels" with customers buying their absurdly priced and inconvenient sensors and tape for attaching the sensors. Clever marketing  --  Not-so-smart customers!

Since we became aware of this lawsuit being filed in November, 2013, we wondered why it had been taking so long to see any results to this case. It is now apparent, by looking at the court records, that Theos/Chummie (an allegory used in place of the Defendants' long proper name of Theos Medical Systems, Inc. and Saket Bhatia) often sought delays from the Court. The case was resolved in the early part of 2015 with an agreement between the Defendant and Plaintiff, but no signed agreement was forthcoming for many months until the Judge's Order was signed on July 14, 2015

Knowing what we now know, both with respect to Theos/Chummie's business practices which we have very often complained about in this blog, and the substantiation of many of our concerns and complaints by the Honorable Judge in his Order, we can hypothesize what lies behind Theos/Chummie's machinations in delaying this Court Order as long as possible:

1.            The longer Theos/Chummie could continue to operate in its prior free-wheeling manner, the longer it could continue to promote and sell its products to unwitting customers who may withhold their business as they became better aware of true matters. This would have a much more severe effect on Theos/Chummie if it had the standing of a Court Order!

2.            The longer Theos/Chummie could keep its abusive and false behavior out of the public eye, the better its chances of making a "deal" with some other large seller. This would be much like what Theos/Chummie did to become a direct vendor with Amazon, by falsifying facts and making themselves look exemplary. Again, something that should prove very difficult to do with a Court Order detailing much of Theos/Chummie's misbehavior and ordering them to cease and make corrections!

This has become fact with our observing that Costco now carries a Chummie bedwetting alarm on Costco.com . We very much doubt that Costco would have done this if they knew the true facts about Theos/Chummie, which the Court Order certainly points out quite adequately.

Now let's look at this Costco matter a little more:
We see that the Chummie alarm sells on Costco.com for about $20 less than on Amazon.com . Any comments, Amazon? Will the price on Amazon be reduced to match Costco? Costco will take the item back with "no questions asked" if ever the customer becomes unhappy with the product and wishes to return it to Costco, and refund the entire purchse price. Costco will even take the used product back after TEN MONTHS (an arbitrary but realistic number). Will Amazon be willing to take back the crummy Chummie after TEN MONTHS and provide a full refund? If not, why would an Amazon customer pay about $20 more, and be unable to return the product as easily and with a full refund as he/she would get at Costco? In other words, any rational customer should buy this Chummie alarm at Costco, if they still unwittingly believe that this is what they want to spend their money on! 

We think Amazon and Amazon's customers have been abused enough by Theos/Chummie. Now it is Costco's turn. Let us see how long and in what manner this may continue.

More later ...