Sam Cohen hits back

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In the 12 July 2010 edition of ‘Nine to Five’ magazine, Mr Sam Cohen placed one of his regular ads, saying that I, Jonar Nader (which he spells Joner Nader) as JK had come into his office and caused a commotion. Here is what Mr Cohen wrote in his full-page ad (which also appeared in the ‘Negotiator Magazine’ and later in the Epoch Times in Chinese): [UPDATE: A new set of illegal ads started to appear from May 2011. Here is that story.]

‘In September ’08 a customer enrolled under a false name “JK”. Signed our Legal & Binding Agreement, photographs and other relevant papers under the same false name. Did not produce his doctor’s prescription as required for the ‘regular’ treatment’. Came back in August ’09 and demanded a refund on the spot. He sat in my ‘Consulting Room ‘for 4 hours’, causing a commotion and loss to my business. I finally had to call the Police. 2 Police Officers came and removed him from my office.

‘A few weeks later he created his own website under his real name as ‘Joner Nader’ to vilify me and my business with tons of untruth and false accusations. PLEASE DO NOT BELIEVE HIS VEXATIOUS UNTRUE STATEMENTS. IF YOU HAVE DOUBTS, PLEASE COME IN AND DISCUSS THE TRUTH WITH ME. In my 40 years in hair with honesty and integrity, I have never come across someone so obsessed like him or anything like this. He must have preplanned this with a vicious agenda from the very beginning.’

I am thrilled that we finally have a statement from Mr Sam Cohen, after ignoring me for eleven months. It is wonderful that he can finally tell us his version of events.

Those two paragraphs from Mr Samuel Faraj Cohen are charged with hidden-agenda. Notice how almost every word has so much more behind it. Also note that News Limited has allowed him to place this ad, when News Limited had refused my ads. More on that side of things is explained if you click here.

IN A NUTSHELL

Below I will respond to Mr Cohen’s accusations. For now, here it is in a nutshell. Please click on the blue links for details. In my opinion, IHRB is a scam. Mr Cohen charges people around $4,900 and promises a money back guarantee. Then he locks them into his dangerous treatment to buy his useless products and cheap shampoos that his own pharmacist says should not be used!

1) He is not authorised to be selling Schedule 2 and Schedule 4 Products. Yet he acquires them, tampers with the labels, and sells them. This is illegal. And any pharmacist that supplies them to him, supposedly for you, is also breaking the law.

2) His Minoxidil treatment has nothing that he invented. You can go to your own GP, obtain a prescription for what your GP thinks you need. For example, if you need 7% Minoxidil with 0.025% Retin-A, you can then go to one of dozens of compounding pharmacists yourself and have it filled for $80. IHRB charges $350 and says that he has special Indian Curries. Sam Cohen also has a price list that shows a product for $900. This exact product is available from my local pharmacy for $70.

3) Ask him to show you the ingredients for his Indian Curries. They do not exist. This is the core of his alleged scam. His pharmacist would neither confirm nor deny their existence.

4) He tampers with dosages and never gives you the warnings and side effects.

5) He suggests dangerous medications whose side effects he never reveals.

6) All of them have side effects that are shocking yet he never tells clients.

7) Mr Cohen’s IHRB ads break the TGA Advertising Codes. He was sanctioned by the TGA, and he still ignored their warnings to pull the misleading ads. He defied the Department of Health.

8) IHRB has been warned not to make false claims, yet it still does.

9) Mr Cohen lies about dangerous medications, putting people’s lives at risk.

10) The entire IHRB is a medical malpractice.

11) He locks people into a contract to force them to buy at astronomical prices. What can be purchased at $80, he sells for $350 (and he sells 15% Minoxidil at $900 when my local pharmacist sells it at $70). And you are obliged to buy from him. That is the most amazing contract ever! And why would you do this? Because he says that he has a special formula, which does not exist!

12) Sam Cohen mixes products that the AMA (Australian Medical Association) and experts say is dangerous and ‘outrageous’.

THE FALSE NAME

The names JK and J Nader are immaterial. I gave Mr Cohen the name JK because when I first entered his office on the 11th of September 2008, I saw his office plastered with testimonials showing photos of people’s scalp — most unbecoming. And during my first and every other meeting, Sam Cohen would open files left, right, and centre, and reveal intimate details about his clients, boasting about his success, while showing me photos, people’s names (other information was wide open such as date of birth, address, etc), while telling me the most private and most intimate of information about people’s sexual dysfunction, occupation, problems, sexuality… all tasteless and unprofessional behaviour. Mr Sam Cohen is now claiming that he had Model Release forms. I have done my homework thoroughly (with lots more to go) and I know that some models were paid-in-kind, some had their testimonials completely changed, while some were given pro-forma testimonials to emulate, and some had no idea that their files have been used and abused. Here is a link to show you how identical his suspicious testimonials were becoming. Mr Cohen would suggest to his clients what to write, and some just followed the general template, whereby many testimonials sounded the same and followed the same rhythm.

Being sensitive about these matters of personal privacy, I gave Mr Cohen the name of JK simply because I did not want him at any time to mention my name to people. Not a single person other than my friend who picked up my remaining bottles that Mr Cohen said his pharmacist would compound for me, knew that I was undergoing the treatment. My family did not know about it. My other friends did not know. I wanted to keep the matter private. Given how liberal Mr Cohen was with people’s most intimate and private details, I did not want to tempt him. He loves dropping names of people and their respective profession. He boasts about the types of people who see him (judges, doctors, actors — and he named them and showed me their files wide open), and he would tell me who was in his office just a few minutes prior. On occasion, people would drop-in while I was in his office, and upon them leaving, he would tell me something derogatory, or intimate about them. I insisted that he sign a document to confirm that my photos would not be released or used. Sadly, during my last meeting, he showed them to people (two men whom he called into the office to help him to forcibly remove me). While I was asking him to stop, reminding him that he had signed a confidentiality agreement, Mr Cohen said, ‘I don’t care, I’m going to show everyone’.

My face is not well known. However, my name is slightly more recognisable to some business people, in view of my profession and public profile as an author. Therefore, with IHRB being in the CBD of Sydney, I just did not want anyone to know. Since then, I have had to make it all public, for the greater good of uncovering the alleged scam. But back then, it was not Mr Cohen’s business to know my name. He was paid, and it did not matter what my name was. Whatever my name, he was paid. He received his money on the spot. And he still has my money in what can only be described as theft!

DOUBLE STANDARDS

The funny thing is, in every other ad I have seen from IHRB, Mr Cohen says, ‘Ask for proof of accuracy of Mineral Hair Analysis and are they medically approved? (To check their authenticity, do not forget to provide them with 2 sets of samples of your own hair with 2 different names — the results will amaze you)’ So it seems that it is ok for him to advertise for seven years, telling people to use a different name, but when I used a different name, he found that sensational. The truth of the matter is, he is desperate to find something exotic about me. The fact that I used a different name, gives him something sensational on which to hang his story. He must have dined-out on that for the past eleven months.

SIGNING THE LEGAL AGREEMENT

Sam Cohen should be so lucky to know what it means to sign a legal and binding agreement. He offers a full money back guarantee, yet he does not honour it. Here is a link about his guarantee that is never honoured. And here is a link that shows you my before-and-after photos. I went to Sam Cohen to regrow hair, and instead, I lost more hair than ever before! It is not that the treatment did not work… it’s that the treatment backfired and created more damage.

Here is his contract, exposed to show you how the con is so clever. Read this link carefully and think of the poor clients who have been conned, and who are frightened to take him on. They call me and express their overwhelming sense of shame for having been conned. Then they tell me how embarrassed they would be if it got out into the open. They beg me not to do anything whereby their employer or spouse/partner would find out. Such people take it on the chin and move on. Gladly, just as many are ready to fight, and we are in regular contact, forming a solid action network.

This link shows you the genius that is Sam Cohen. You can see the masterstroke that voids your contract before you even leave his office. He offers a guarantees, but tricks you into voiding the guarantee! Is that a stunning con-trick or what?

The matter of his accusation that I signed a false name is not correct. I used my real signature. So that deflates that exciting part of the story for him. I will not post my signature here for obvious reasons. However, if you are really keen, contact me and I will invite you to the CTTT hearing on the 11th of August 2010 where you can see the evidence being presented to the Presiding Member at the Bench!

DID NOT HAVE A DOCTOR’S PRESCRIPTION

Of course I did not have a doctor’s prescription. I walked into his office, and walked out with medications which he said were safe, organic, and herbal. And then I found out that they were serious medications that needed a prescription. I had no idea that I needed a prescription. If he knew this, why did he take my money and let me leave the office without giving him his precious prescription? Why did he allow a friend of mine to go two weeks later to pick up the rest of the medications?

When his treatment was causing me more harm than good (see the rash here) he said that I should go on a higher more aggressive treatment, and this is when he asked me to go to my Doctor. However, this was eight months after I started. And my GP refused to prescribe the dangerous medications, so my GP sent me to a Specialist who also refused. This was eight months into the supposed treatment (more like mis-treatment). I am accusing Sam of giving me medications without a prescription, so he is turning that around to say I did not give him a prescription. Then why did he give me his medications? And whether or not I had a prescription, he should not be handling those medications and peeling labels and changing the dosages and withholding the information-sheets that warn of serious side effects. This is a sham. Prescription or not, it is illegal for him to conduct the business in that way. I have everything noted via an exchange of emails, which I will publish soon. Mr Cohen has all the emails, and he read the 211-page report that I prepared for CTTT. He has all the facts. I shall share them with you after the case so as not to jeopardise the hearing.

REGULAR TREATMENT

Notice that he places the phrase ‘regular treatment’ in his ad. He is trying to say that he did not give me his high-end prescription-only treatment. He says I was given the baby version regular harmless rubbish. How pathetic. I was given both low and high end. Either way, BOTH are illegal for him to sell. What a joke. As if that were not bad enough, he wanted me to go to my GP and obtain non-appoved dangerous medications at dangerous dosages for 600 days of a treatment that only had a few months to go. He wants to hoard prescriptions so that he can make up additional batches to give other poor clients who walked in. Oh this story is so long and involved…

HE CAME BACK IN AUGUST 2009

Sam Cohen fails to tell you that I saw him several times at his office for regular check-ups. He kept insisting that my hair was growing. It was embarrassing to watch him say that my hair was improving, when it was clearly deteriorating rapidly. Check photos here. He does not mention that I sent him many emails saying that the treatment was not working and that I suffered a rash etc. It was obvious that his treatment did not work. Therefore, in accordance with his guarantee, he owed me a refund. But no, dear reader, Sam became aggressive and threatened me with violence. And what does he mean that I demanded a refund on the spot? How else does anyone demand a refund? I paid on the spot! He refused to give me a refund. Full stop. Now he is saying that he could not possibly have given me a refund on the spot because he has to have all his cheques co-signed by his partner. That’s not what he said when he asked me to ‘P#ss off’ and ‘F#ck off’. He took my $3,700 on the spot. All this is academic side-stepping. He refused me a refund — spot or no spot.

He conned me and did not want to refund my money. Now he is saying that he could not do it anyway. So what? We both went to the CTTT on the 10th of June 2010, and while there, he would not agree to a refund. Not during the conciliation, not during the councillor’s support, and not when the Presiding Member asked him. So he has tricked me and taken my money. He boasts about a money-back guarantee. He said that he has never issued anyone with their money back because he had never failed. He said that his treatment works with a 130% success rate. I had a 100% failure, with rash, pain, suffering, and magnificent hair loss! His treatment not only DID NOT work for me, it caused me excess, rapid, hair-loss and other suffering, and now untold expenses during my investigations to expose this alleged scam.

CONSULTING ROOMS

First he called himself an Institute. When this website pointed out that this title is pathetic, he started calling himself a clinic, and when I made sure people understood that he has no clinic, he is now calling it ‘consulting rooms’. He means his office, in which he smoked (and probably still does) while his receptionist was pregnant. So many irregularities! He asked me if he could smoke during our meetings in his office, and I said that I am a non-smoker. His office stinks of smoke, on the 5th floor of a city building in 105 Pitt Street Sydney.

As for sitting in his consulting rooms for four hours, I have not fully worked out the time, but I will agree that it did seem that long. I was about to leave, after he clearly conned me, and I told him that the matter would not rest there. I was at all times super calm and professional. When he understood that I would be taking the matter further, he started swearing at me. I did not care, except that he brought his fist and face within millimetres to my face and he said, ‘I’ll f#cking smash your face in!’ Again I did not care, except that at that instant, he called out to his receptionist to call the police, as if I had done something wrong. So I said, I would wait there until the police arrived. Knowing what Sam was like, I did not want to leave the building, and have the police arrive to hear some cock-and-bull story.

UPDATE: Upon checking my records, I now know that the meeting with Sam was scheduled for 2:00 pm. My diary shows this. Then I was running late and phoned his office to ask if that was ok. And I have phone records of this. Then I found a record to prove that I entered his office lift at 2:33 pm. The police report says that at 4:35 pm they arrived at Sam’s office. So from 2:33 to 4:35 is two hours. NOT the fours hours that Mr Sam Exaggeration Cohen seems to be telling everyone.

CALLING THE POLICE

The matter with the police is told here, so you might as well click and read about Sam Cohen’s disgusting conduct and see the rings with which he wanted to smash my face. The police officers were a long time coming, and during this time, he called two men to remove me from the office. They knew what was good for them and backed off. I was not going to leave before the police arrived. I was quieter than a mouse, literally! Sam tried to get me to raise my voice, but I knew his game, so I was whispering. He was close enough to hear it, and close enough for me to smell his ugly breath. The police took a long time coming, so I was not sure (and I am still not sure) whether or not his receptionist did call the police. Meanwhile, he met with his clients in the other rooms so he did not lose business like he is now claiming. Such a liar. So I called the police while inside his smoky den, using my mobile phone. Sam Cohen was abusive, vulgar, threatening, and he said that he would lock me in his office.

I have written to the Police Department to ask for a recording of the emergency 000 call that I made that afternoon. If I am lucky enough to be given a copy of the recording, I can post the transcript/tape for you so you can hear that I called the police. My phone logs do not record calls to emergency services, despite writing to my carrier five times, hoping they could find a trace on their computer. No matter, hopefully the Police Department will send me the audio file so we can all hear it, and then we can prove who called the police. Click here to read the actual police report that is filled with lies.

SAM’S FORTY YEARS OF HONESTY

Do you see dear reader, there is always another side to every story. And to every lie, there is a truth. Sam’s entire sales campaign is focussed on telling us how bad his competitors are. Alas, anything he accuses others of, he is guilty of it himself.

My team and I have been digging into Mr Cohen’s past. We cannot yet publish what we have until we conclude our legal affairs. Rest assured that we have so much more to share with you, so do stay tuned. There is much more I want to tell you, but it will have to wait a little while longer. If you thought that the story is incredible thus far, then you ain’t heard nothing yet!

P.S. To give you an idea of how much information we have on IHRB and Mr Samuel Faraj Cohen, we have almost filled 4000 gigabytes of data on four one-terabyte drives, not to mention what is on this site, on our server, in storage, in the archives, and off line, and not counting what is on paper or in emails. What you see here, hardly scratches the surface. As for the expenses: oh dear, this started out as a request for $3,700 refund, and it has mushroomed into an almighty waste of money and time because it has turned into an exercise of conscience, a community service, and a matter of principle that touches the core of my work: unethical business behaviour that abuses consumers and that is a blight on the corporate landscape. More about that aspect is noted here.

CONTACT ME

You can learn more about me via my official blog at www.LoseFriends.com/blog or you can also inspect my official website at LoseFriends.com.

If you have stories to share about Sam Cohen or IHRB, please write to me via info@SpeakUpNow.info. If you have physical evidence, copies of documents, or photos, please send them also.

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.