Genesis hair scandal grows

By TONY WALL

A consumer backlash against an Auckland company selling "Genesis" hair-thickening products to Americans is growing as the company continues to operate from a downtown apartment building.

A former employee of Data Media Services has laid a complaint with the Auckland police fraud squad over the company's activities but no action has been taken.

The officer who received the complaint and said he was assessing it has now gone on holiday.

The company has allegedly been repeatedly charging customers' credit cards without their permission and sending out relatively cheap shampoo products repackaged as Genesis.

A worker said this week that staff had been told to get rid of all signs of Genesis from the sixth-floor offices in the Colonial Building in Queen St.

The Herald spoke this week to a California woman who agreed to a one-month trial of the shampoo and conditioner but says her credit card was charged again without her permission.

Investment consultant Jennifer Johnston said she could not believe it when the package arrived at her home by courier.

The two shampoo bottles had burst open, spreading a glue-like substance through the bubble-wrap envelope.

She had spent US$300 ($680) on the product but it looked cheap and tacky - a colour-photocopied Genesis label was stuck to the bottle with adhesive tape and did not fit properly.

Mrs Johnston said she put some of the substance on her thinning hair, then packed it up and sent it back to Auckland, addressed to Genesis, 163 Queen St, suite 605.

The package, and others like it, did not arrive.

Instead, it was delivered to an unrelated immigration company with the same name, Genesis, which is also based in a Queen St high-rise.

Mrs Johnston, a vice-president of investments for the Bank of America in Greenbrae, said her experience with Data Media Services had been nightmarish.

She had given permission for her credit card to be charged for a trial shipment only, but two months later was charged another US$300.

She called the company 30 or 40 times asking for the money to be refunded, to no avail.

She cancelled her credit card to stop any more charges.

Mrs Johnston said she was in tears during one phone call and the saleswoman, known as Brandy, hung up on her.

"One day I was transferred to the owner, Tim [Duncan]. He was incredibly rude to me. He said this was not his responsibility; he couldn't help me.

"He then transferred me without any warning to somebody else."

She had considered going to the authorities in the United States, but because the company was based in New Zealand she doubted there was much they could do.

She was considering writing off the loss.

The Herald saw another letter this week from a man in Santa Rosa, California, who asked for his credit card never to be charged again.

"This has done nothing for hair growth," he wrote.

Mr Duncan, who is in Thailand, told the Herald this week, "I have nothing to say to you", and hung up.

He has left debts across Auckland.

Chanel Eagle of Cocomedia said Mr Duncan owed her $11,250 for a series of Swing Wizard golf infomercials that screened on Sky and Prime TV last year.

Screentime-Communicado is owed a similar amount and the Herald understands that television stations in the United States are also owed money.