DANE COUNTY, Wis. (WBAY) – Two people have been fined for misleading advertising while using COVID-19 testing sites in Wisconsin.
The Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection reached a stipulated consent judgment in Dane County with Aleya Siyaj and Akbar Syed.
Siyaj and Syed were ordered to pay $22,500 to the Dane County Clerk of Courts.
Siyaj and Syed ran a business called the Center for COVID Control in several Wisconsin communities. Action 2 News reported extensively on complaints about these centers, including one that surfaced in Darboy.
The DATCP says that between December 2, 2020 and January 21, 2022, the Center for COVID Control “provided advertising, marketing, website optimization, a consumer call center, transportation and other support services at Doctors Clinical Laboratory, Inc. This included establishing twenty-five collection sites in Wisconsin, six of which were in Dane County, where people could provide biological samples for COVID-19 testing.”
The CCC advertised and promoted online testing services and collection sites “enhanced with Google search engine optimization, social media posts and physical signage.”
The ads promised a free “gold standard” test and that people who got results would be emailed back within 48 hours. The state says people did not receive their results in that time frame.
“Misleading ads are a common problem,” said Lara Sutherlin, administrator of DATCP’s Division of Trade and Consumer Protection. “It’s unfair to consumers when companies make promises they can’t keep, but even more so when that business involves public health. It’s likely that many people who received tests from the Center for COVID Control were drawn to their commitment to results within 48 hours. Dropping the ball on a service as vital as COVID-19 testing is unacceptable to consumers.”
A worker at the Darboy location emailed Action 2 News saying, “I know firsthand that this place does not care about safety.” Customers reported waiting more than a day for their rapid COVID-19 test results and that their results were timestamped incorrectly. The Better Business Bureau gave the company an “F” after it failed to respond to complaints.
In January, the FBI raided CCC headquarters in Illinois.
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