I was the manger of Glitzz Teeth Whitening, at the Battlefield Mall, Springfield, Missouri. Things started getting "odd"; I am a former police officer, and started investigating.
1st, the rent at the mall wasn't paid, yet we were sent "gift cards" to sell. The cards had no way to track the amount they were sold for, or anything to ID them... They just said "gift card", didn't even say "Glitzz" and had a picture of an RFD chip (?) on them. There was no way to record the sale of the card for tracking purposes.
2nd, paychecks were arriving late, and the excuses were blatantly phony - like they were sent in a Fed Ex Ground Envelope, and the truck had to come back to the office, etc. There's no such thing, FedEx can't send letters like the post office, it's against the law.
3rd, Movers showed up to give estimates about removing the business, but the corporate office assured me that there was no plans to move out. I was told not once, not twice, but three times to call the police if these phony movers showed up. The mall had been informed that Glitzz was moving out.
4th, The last paychecks did not arrive. Various (phony) reasons were given; then sarcastic reasons (only one person could sign checks, and she was busy picking her kid up after school, and it was unheard of to call someone on a cell phone under such circumstances, and it would take her "hours" to drive the child home). Finally, Juan Alana was very rude, rambling about the size of his "dick" and telling me how sorry I'd be, and how he will pay how much, to whom, and when, he feels like, etc. If none of this makes any sense, sorry, all I can do is repeat what was said.
City enforcement officers came by b/c there was no city, county business license; no health dept permit; I checked and there was no sales tax permit (state) and, despite deductions being made from checks, no Unemployment Account (state).
I checked the Pennsylvania and Delaware locations, same story. (These are corporate owned, also. Simon Malls is the principal outlet).
At this time, no employee has received 100% of the pay due, and I was told other employees of closed locations face similar dilemmas; yet they continue to operate, and, according to Nicole and Liz at the main office, take "3 hour lunches". One of our employees was working to support her disabled mother; I was very ill and needed an infection removed from my jaw, they were aware of this and just didn't care.
I checked out the "safe" LED lights; they are in fact rated as lasers, and operate on an unsafe wavelength. Yet our location, with to teeth whitening stations, only had 1 set of goggles that we were told were not needed except for people with unfounded anxiety problems; besides, the "walls" weren't tall enough to avoid passers by getting light shined at them.
I called about the Georgia locations, and they had merchant licenses - just not for teeth whitening! - which is regulated by the Georgia State Dental Board.
I could go on and on about what I found upon investigating; I have been asked not to at this point by other entities that are investigating them. It is really sad that Simon Malls would allow a business to move in and do procedures such as this, without even so much as showing a merchant's license. I feel sorry for the people I sold gift cards to.
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