Sam Cohen exposed on TV

Sam Cohen exposed on TV

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Sam Cohen’s alleged scam and shonky dealings were exposed across the country on Channel Seven’s Today Tonight by veteran reporter David Richardson. The segment aired from Sydney to Perth, and as far away as Tasmania, warning consumers about the illegal operation that is IHRB, also known as the Institute of Hair Regrowth & Beauty. We will be posting a full report for you about the recent Police Raids, meanwhile, if you click here, you can read about the Permanent Prohibition Order that was slapped on Sam Cohen by the Authorities. To watch the video below, if your internet connection is slow, please press play, and then press pause, and wait for it to load completely, then you can press play again to avoid any video delays. By the way, I apologise that the video is out of lip-synch at this stage. (A full transcript can be found at the bottom of this page.) If you are using an iPhone and can’t see the video below, click on this link for the YouTube version.

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If you do not have the bandwidth to watch this video, here is the audio only.

[audio:Sam_Cohen_Today_Tonight_24_Nov_2010_Med_Qlty.mp3]

The last words Sam Cohen uttered to camera were, ‘Wow, I think I’m famous now’. How sad. Mr Cohen’s print advertisements (that would number in the hundreds) contain headline text that bags his competitors by saying that his competitors’ unethical conduct has been ‘documented on Today Tonight, A Current Affair and in newspapers.’

Sam has been pointing the finger at others who have been exposed. And now he joins their infamous ranks. He, too, has been exposed, and as I have said before, every warning that Mr Cohen has made about others, really applies to him and IHRB. This investigative report by Channel 7 completes the shameful cycle of finger pointing. Now Sam Cohen HAS been featured on Today Tonight, in the same way that his underhanded competitors have been exposed. Now he is a bird of the same feather.

Anyway, this TV segment on ‘Today Tonight’ is but the tip of the iceberg. A better way to say it is, ‘We have not even scratched the surface’. There is more to come. The Channel 7 TV report focussed on the medical aspects. We will soon have to address the consumer-affairs aspect of the scam.

What baffles me is how a human can continue to spin the lies even after being shown that he has been rumbled. After all this exposure, the 66 articles of evidence on this site, and a police raid (more on that later after certain legal hurdles have been cleared) and on-going investigations (more on those later), Mr Sam Cohen cannot, for one microsecond, say ‘Yes I was wrong, yes I have lied, yes I have given out prescription medications without a prescription, yes I conned people, yes there are no Indian Curries…’ Why oh why can’t he just realise that we already know? I really am fascinated by this human condition. It is bemusing and gripping, psychologically and strategically. A liar can get away with it when no-one else knows. But we all know. The evidence is clear and simple. Additional lies just prove to us all why IHRB must be shut down! But the shutting-down will not be the end of it. It will be the beginning. Mr Cohen still has to make-good. He has to pay back the money he has scammed and the expenses he has cost me and others in chasing him to honour the absurd money-back guarantee that he plasters everywhere. Why offer a guarantee when he has never paid up. He abuses people and swears at them and in my case, threatened to smash my ‘effing face in.

I used to feel a little sorry for the man. But after attending hearings and seeing all the evidence and watching how he treats me and his clients during legal proceedings, I am appalled at his disregard for other people’s life, sanity, money, health, and justice. Not a scrap of scruples. Not a single shred of remorse. Anything that does not suit him can be covered-up with lies and fabricated documents.

There are other avenues. The engines are running. The alarm bells are ringing. My team and I shall not stop until Mr Cohen starts to tell the truth. The more he lies, the more we are determined.

P.S. Note that David Richardson, the investigative reporter, asked Mr Cohen, ‘Are you licensed to dispense pharmaceuticals?’ To which Mr Cohen replied, with cameras staring him in the face, knowing that he is going on public record, on national television, ‘I am authorised to.’ Sam Cohen has just said that he is authorised to dispense pharmaceuticals. I can bet London to a brick that he is not authorised in any shape or form. This is an example of how bold he is on national television. Imagine the other lines he spins to poor unsuspecting clients in the privacy of his office! I know it first hand.

TRANSCRIPT OF TODAY TONIGHT’S TV SEGMENT

Host: More than five million Australian men suffer hair loss and worry that they’re going bald and many spend thousands of dollars on remedies to stop or reverse the process but it leaves them a target for rip-off merchants. Here’s David Richardson with an exclusive investigation that led to police raids to shut one operated down.

David Richardson: Mr. Cohen, good morning. David Richardson Today Tonight, wondering if we can ask you a couple of questions please about your business.

Sam Cohen: Yes.

David Richardson: Are you licensed to dispense pharmaceuticals, sir?

Jonar Nader: I think he ought to be shut down. He’s a danger to society.

David Richardson: It will hit more than half the men in this country; more than five and a half million. In women, more than two million will have major problems. And the billion dollar industry that’s sprouted up promising miracle cures and restoring self-esteem is full of shonks.

You’re dispensing product …

Sam Cohen: No, I’m not.

David Richardson: You are. You’re dispensing products with other people’s names on them to different clients.

Sam Cohen: No, I’m not.

David Richardson: I have seen them, sir.

Sam Cohen: No, I’m not.

David Richardson: This man claims he’s offering the only legitimate treatment around.

Jonar Nader: It is smoke and mirrors, but it’s more than that. It’s actually dangerous medication entering your body that you don’t know about.

David Richardson: Jonar Nader should know. Like millions of others, he’s suffering male pattern baldness. He saw a full page ad promising hair regrowth or his money back guaranteed. The ad was placed by the Institute of Hair Regrowth and Beauty and its owner, Sam Cohen.

Jonar Nader: Well, he’s clever you see. He doesn’t say, “I cure baldness.” He says, “There is no cure for baldness.” He says, “However, my treatment works all the time.” I lost $3,700. I lost at least $12,000 plus rashes and scars.

David Richardson: A former computer company executive and paid public speaker, Jonar Nader, gave Sam Cohen a false name and address [JN: correction, I only gave him a false name. He had my real address and number, and he was paid in full.] when he visited his Inner City clinic. He was suspicious of the hair institute owner.

Jonar Nader: Well actually, I walked into Sam’s office and he gave me twelve bottles of these which I later realised he should never have touched.

David Richardson: The bottle was Minoxidil, a drug used around the world to stop hair loss and promote hair regrowth, but it doesn’t work in every one.

Jonar Nader: Minoxidil over the years has been known to help 33% of people to regrow hair, 33% of other people, it only stops hair loss, and 33% of people, it does nothing at all, it’s just like water.

David Richardson: Jonar claims he was also given someone else’s prescribed medication, something a lot stronger and potentially more dangerous.

Jonar Nader: He had labels on his products that have someone else’s name on them. So, if your name is David, this might say, John Smith, and it has someone else’s doctor on it.

David Richardson: And these were the side effects to some clients, angry rashes, itchy red scalps, sometimes open sores, because the hair regrowth chemicals had been mixed with Retin-A.

Jonar Nader: The initial ones he gave me, he said, “If you get a rash or if you get itchy scalp, let us know.” But it doesn’t say that you can get fluid retention. It doesn’t say that you can get heart failure. It doesn’t say that you can have hair loss.

David Richardson: These are the warnings people should have got. For finasteride or Proscar, impotence and decreased libido, breast tenderness and enlargement, and the risk of male breast cancer, even depression. For Loniten or its generic name, Minoxidil, possible heart problems, fluid retention, weight gain, and problems with making blood cells.

Did you ever receive a warning or were you ever told that any of these things may have side effects?

John Liodakis: No, no.

David Richardson: John Liodakis paid $3,400 for his treatment, again, lured by the promise of a money-back guaranty. Did you grow one follicle of hair?

John Liodakis: I did not. Absolutely not.

David Richardson: Nothing?

John Liodakis: Nothing.

David Richardson: But John can’t get back one cent.

John Liodakis: Now, I know he’s a liar and all his claims were false.

David Richardson: Does this man have a license to prescribe drugs?

Jonar Nader: No.

David Richardson: Does he have a license to distribute drugs?

Jonar Nader: Not at all, of any shape.

Sam Cohen: I don’t approve the finasteride. I send them to the doctor and I say, “If you find them fit, would you please make a prescription?” he brings the prescription to me. We order it from our chemist and we supply them.”

David Richardson: It’s a gray area but Sam Cohen admits he refers his patients with a letter requesting a doctor to write out a prescription for the various drugs. He then has it filled with his chemist and he hands it out.

Sam Cohen: I am doing this for forty years.

David Richardson: But are you licensed to dispense pharmaceuticals?

Sam Cohen: Yes, because I’m authorised to.

David Richardson: Within days of Today Tonight’s involvement in this story, police raided Sam Cohen’s Institute of Hair Regrowth and Beauty. They seized a large quantity of prescription drugs and over-the-counter medications brought out of the building in large evidence bags and loaded into the back of a waiting Paddy wagon.

If everything was kosher…

Sam Cohen: Yes.

David Richardson: …why did the police raid your property and take away boxes of drugs?

Sam Cohen: Because of him. He said that I’m giving people without prescription.

Jonar Nader: And he also spins lies and yet he’s so clever because he’s been getting away with for years, if not decades.

David Richardson: He’s not getting away with it anymore. The Health Department has now banned the institute from dispensing any prescription drugs and issued a national health warning. Health Complaints Investigators are now also involved. Sam Cohen says he will fight on.

Thank you

Sam Cohen: Wow, I think I’m famous now.

P.S. IHRB is the name of the Institute of Hair Regrowth and Beauty run by Sam Cohen of 105 Pitt Street Sydney. It is also written as Institute of Hair Regrowth & Beauty or Institute of Hair Re-growth & Beauty.

The Health Care Complaints Commission issued this statement on its website on the 23rd of February 2011.

You can learn more here.

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