Fayetteville medical supply company faces complaints from across USA

FAYETTEVILLE, Ga. (FOX 5 Atlanta) - Senior citizens around the country complain to the Better Business Bureau and Medicare about a small Fayetteville, Ga. company.

Their complaint? Devotion Medical is sending them medical products they don't want and billing Medicare.

"I don't know if you can see it," said Shelley Williams via Skype from Grace, Idaho as she held up a knee brace for the camera. "OK, so there's two of those..."

Lynn Morgan and her son Jarred sat in their Vancouver, Washington home and showed off the products they also say they never wanted.

"Here's elbow braces," explained Lynn. "Are these knees? Or ankles? I don't know."

All they really know is they want the shipments to stop. Idaho and Washington state are two of the places across the country where people complained to the Better Business Bureau about the Georgia company that shipped those unwanted products: Devotion Medical.

According to Lynn Morgan's complaint, someone called her up with a surprising amount of personal information.

"They had my full name," she remembered. "My social security number. Who my doctor was."

Same thing with Shelley Williams' dad... who has since passed away.

"They go does your back hurt?" she said he told her. "And he goes, yeah, my back hurts. Do your feet hurt? His feet are really swollen and he said only when I walk on them. And that was it."

A few weeks later, the two families received boxes of medical supplies with Devotion Medical shipping labels. Even more upsetting, they say Medicare paid the claims.

"So how did they get all of his Medicare information to be able to bill him when I refused to give it to them?" asked Shelley.

Even more puzzling, each Medicare claim lists a doctor who supposedly wrote the order for medical products. One licensed in Idaho. The other in Washington state. Both the Morgans and Shelley Williams say they've never heard of those doctors.

"If I needed a medical supply brace I could have just drove down the street to the local medical company," said Lynn Morgan's son Jarred. "I wouldn't have needed to contact Atlanta, GA to get a shoulder brace."

The FOX 5 I-Team was unable to reach either doctor.

Medicare responded to Lynn Morgan's complaint of "unsolicited and unwarranted receipt of orthotic products from Devotion" by saying they are "aware of this ongoing situation, and we are working with our contractors and other stakeholders to address this matter."

Medicare went on to offer general tips, including "do not offer your personal information or accept anything over the phone."

Devotion Medical operates behind a locked door in a strip shopping center along Highway 85 in Fayette County. The supervisor who opened the door would not tell us who runs Devotion.

Corporate records show the CEO of Devotion is Simon Orobor. He also runs Durable Medical Supplies a few miles away. We tried to find Orobor there, but an employee asked us to leave.

Ten days later, Mr. Orobor called from a blocked number to say an independent marketing firm he hired was responsible for making those sales calls. He wouldn't name the company, but he insisted they were not making cold calls. Orobor claims all of those upset customers had clicked on a website ad asking for information about medical devices.

He said family members often don't know what their elderly loved one might have ordered. Not true says 70-year-old Lynn Morgan.

"I was like... how did they get all that information?" she remembered thinking. Her son's still upset.

"And since that time she's been inundated with phone calls from different companies or other organizations trying to do exactly the same thing." he complained.

Shelley Williams' dad was 81 when he passed away in June. She said he didn't have a computer or even know how to use the Internet.

"The thing that bothers me is they prey on the older people," she argued. "If there's this many people that have complained, just imagine the people that haven't."

Devotion answered their Better Business Bureau complaints saying the matter had been resolved and is offering to credit the account when Shelley mails back the products.

But these customers say they're still not pleased. How does the BBB rate Devotion now?

They give them an F.