CAREPATROL Videos & Commercials: STILL Misleading?
CarePatrol is a franchised elder-care referral service that has, according to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), made false and misleading representations about its services.
(UnhappyFranchisee.Com) CarePatrol and its franchise owners earn referral fees from assisted living facilities and senior care service providers. The FTC alleges that CarePatrol misrepresented the extent to which it actually “patrols” elder care facilities and exaggerated both its investigative efforts and its geographical coverage.
In 2012, the FTC issued a complaint and a Decision and Order prohibiting CarePatrol from representing, either directly or indirectly, that “It or its franchisees monitor or evaluate the care history or state violations of any number, portion, or percentage of assisted living facilities in a consumer’s desired location, or that “[CarePatrol] or its franchisees evaluate assisted living facilities based on a review of information, including state surveys, or any other records detailing the performances of these facilities.”
The 2012 FTC complaint specifically characterized these statements by CarePatrol as false and misleading:
…CarePatrol’s local, Nationally Certified Advisors… monitor each community’s care history and state violations so we can recommend: The Safest Options For Your Loved One
At CarePatrol.. We Grade Each and Every Facility From “A” to “F” Based On Their Last State Survey. Our Local Senior Care Consultants also Pre-Screen every home we recommend…
Is CarePatrol Violating the 2012 FTC Order?
CarePatrol continues to promotes its services with hundreds of videos on several YouTube accounts, including CarePatrol, CarePatrolVideo and Chuck Bongiovanni.
We have found numerous active CarePatrol promotional videos that contain representations that seem to be (in our opinion) the same or very similar to those prohibited by the FTC.
In fact, CarePatrol CEO Chuck Bongiovanni’s own YouTube account currently displays videos with the original representations (see screenshot left).
Some of these videos were posted before the December 3, 2012 FTC order was issued, but several have been posted since the Order took effect.
What do you think? Are these CarePatrol videos and commercials violating the Federal Trade Commission Order?
We are also inviting CarePatrol, CEO Chuck Bongiovanni and the FTC for their opinions, comments, insights, clarifications an/or rebuttals.
Title: CarePatrol National TV Commercial
Published: Oct 14, 2013
By: CarePatrolVideo
Excerpt: “CarePatrol researches the care and violation history of every community in their network BEFORE they recommend them to you”
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Title: CarePatrol 30 Second Commercial
Published: Oct 14, 2013
By: CarePatrolVideo
Excerpt: “They pre-screen and pre-view the care and violation history of every care option in their network.”
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Title: Senior Care Options
Published: Mar 31, 2014
By: CarePatrol
Excerpt: “CarePatrol not only knows what options are available for your family, but they monitor the violation and care history of every provider in their network so they can recommend only the best to you.”
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Title: CarePatrol Senior Placement Service
Published: Jul 13, 2009
By: Chuck Bongiovanni
Excerpt: “Only CarePatrol grades every facility from A to F based on their latest state survey and their experience with the home.”
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Title: CarePatrol Assisted Living Search
Published: Feb 18, 2011
By: Chuck Bongiovanni
Excerpt: “CarePatrol pre-screens and monitors assisted living violation records, their care history, and continues to monitor them to refer only the best.”
* * * * *
Title: Why Use CarePatrol
Published: Apr 19, 2010
By: Chuck Bongiovanni
Excerpt: “We grade every facility from “A” to “F”… We know which facilities are having problems.”
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PLEASE NOTE: Some of these representations may NOT be violations of the 2012 FTC Order.
CarePatrol, Inc. MAY have proper documentation and substantiation of these claims.
However, UnhappyFranchisee.Com is exercising its constitutionally protected right to question whether CarePatrol is in compliance with the FTC mandate, and to invite others (including the company and the FTC) to share their opinions as well.
Videos and images are the intellectual property of CarePatrol, Inc., and displayed here for editorial purposes.
CAREPATROL Investigation & Discussion Links
CAREPATROL Investigation: Documents & Links
CAREPATROL Investigation: FTC Complaint Press Release
CAREPATROL Franchise Complaint – Updated October 11, 2010
CAREPATROL: Franchisees Praise the CarePatrol Franchise October 14, 2010
ALSO READ:
FRANCHISE DISCUSSIONS by Company
ARE YOU FAMILIAR WITH CAREPATROL OR THE CAREPATROL FRANCHISE OPPORTUNITY? SHARE A COMMENT BELOW.
TAGS: CarePatrol, CarePatrol senior services, CarePatrol referral services, CarePatrol complaints, CarePatrol FTC violations, FTC, Federal Trade Commission, CarePatrol franchise, CarePatrol franchise opportunity, CarePatrol franchise complaints, CarePatrol investigation, CarePatrol commercial, CarePatrol video, CarePatrol YouTube, Chuck Bongiovanni, unhappy franchisee
Dear Sir Administrator
Once again an “anonymous” compliant was given by an unhappy franchisee. That is strange, because we have no unhappy franchisees, just unhappy competitors. Sounds like another competitor
This website judges us for not being transparent when you, Mr. Administrator go under the name Iam_Franchisee@gmail.com? You are anonymous yourself, Sir?
What possible credibility or authority do you have or hold? You are probably a competitor of mine who cannot beat us legitimately or you are the guy who called me yesterday and wanted $5,000.00 to take off negative franchise information on the internet about us that you probably on the internet yourself. I told you yesterday when you called, “NO, I am not interested”, and I am not interested today, either. Who is the scam artist here, Sir?
We can advertise the truth and we do. We can say we pre-screen and monitor every community in our NETWORK because we do. In fact, Sir, the State of Washington has a law that every agency MUST look up the community violation history of EVERY community before they recommend it. We simply took the Washington law and hold every franchisee to the same standard.
I would prefer the whole industry would comply with this CarePatrol standard practice BEFORE they recommend a community to a family. However, the majority of the other agencies don’t do that. Would you rather we recommend places with many serious violations?
Yes, a few years ago we made a simple mistake and listed every state on our website by our third party, SEO administrator. When we were made aware of this by the FTC, we immediately took the required corrective action. It was completed within hours and our immediate cooperation was welcomes and the issues was in no way adversarial.
We have won the franchisee satisfaction award for 4 consecutive years and you do not do that with unhappy franchisees. I ask that this website professionally vet any and all complaints as much as this website feels it needs to vet us.
We are not aware of any active websites or videos that are still up that shouldn’t be. However, our online team is doing a comprehensive audit of our 300+ websites and 2,500 videos to make sure that everything is up to FTC standards.
A website like this has no credibility, nor does a website that automatically prints lies and hides behind a curtain of false accusations. Please follow professional standards when printing things that can hurt a company’s reputation in the future.
Mr. Bongiovanni:
You state “Once again an “anonymous” compliant was given by an unhappy franchisee.”
We did not say we received a complaint from an unhappy franchisee. An anonymous person posted a link to the FTC CarePatrol complaint and emailed us about it.
“This website judges us for not being transparent…”
We haven’t judged you for not being transparent. We’re asking valid questions. Whether you are transparent or not is determined by your response to reasonable questions.
“You are probably a competitor of mine who cannot beat us legitimately…”
Unless you run a franchise discussion website, we are not a competitor of yours.
“you are the guy who called me yesterday and wanted $5,000.00 to take off negative franchise information on the internet ”
Must be some other site with negative content about CarePatrol. We don’t take content off our site.
“a few years ago we made a simple mistake and listed every state on our website by our third party, SEO administrator.”
We’ve read the complaint and the Order. It sure seemed to be about more than listing all states on your website.
“We have won the franchisee satisfaction award for 4 consecutive years and you do not do that with unhappy franchisees.”
OK, transparency time. How much do you pay Franchise Business Review each year? If you had not paid, would you have won the award? Isn’t it a little disingenuous to act like you were given a legitimate industry award rather than a paid-for marketing plaque?
“We are not aware of any active websites or videos that are still up that shouldn’t be.”
Why did you immediately take “CarePatrol Senior Placement Service” offline?
“our online team is doing a comprehensive audit of our 300+ websites and 2,500 videos to make sure that everything is up to FTC standards.”
Weren’t you supposed to do that when the FTC hit you with the complaint and 20-year Order 2 years ago? Why now?
“A website like this has no credibility…”
We just ask questions, Mr. Bongiovanni. How you answer those questions speaks volumes to our readers as to your credibility – either positively or negatively.