Lois Latta, an elderly woman in Zephyrhills, says a smooth-talking salesman convinced her that a home sanitizer would improve the air in her mobile home so much that she could ditch her oxygen generator and never dust her house again.
“He knocked on the door and said my house stunk and this would change my life,” Latta said.
The cost? Mike Wright, the sales consultant for Tampa-based Healthy Home, collected $2,000 and talked Latta into “trading in” her car to him personally for $1,500, bringing the total payment of the Healthy Home sanitizer to $3,500.
And here’s the kicker – while helping her search her files for the title, she says he stumbled across her gun and talked her into selling it to him for $80.
“I feel he took advantage of me,” Latta said.
Latta stepped forward for help from Better Call Behnken after her son, Robert Latta, discovered that his mother’s car was gone and started looking into the situation.
This incident occurred in late October, but Robert Latta said it took months for him to fully realize what happened.
After unproductive calls over months with staff at Healthy Home, Robert Latta says he tried for weeks to reach the CEO. When he didn’t hear back, he knew he’d Better Call Behnken.
“More than the money or the gun or anything else, I just feel I need to share this story to warn people so that this doesn’t happen to anyone else,” Latta said.
Latta believes the car, a 2004 Hyundai Elantra with just 50,000 miles, was worth thousands more than the $1,500 “trade value” on his mother’s contract.
Robert Latta also questions what exactly was installed in his mother’s air conditioning. He claims he hired an air conditioning consultant to inspect the unit and found only one thing that didn’t come with the unit when his mom purchased it four years ago: a Fresh-Aire Blue-Tube UV light. It’s designed to keep mold out, and the manufacturer makes no claims that it helps people get off of oxygen.
When reached by phone, Wright said he had done “nothing inappropriate” and did not have time to talk because he had an important conference call. He said he would return our call in an hour, but he did not.
We were able to reach Mike Hudson, the President and CEO of Healthy Home. He said he’s been looking into the situation and said both the car trade-in and the gun purchase are “inexcusable and not allowable.”
Hudson said he reprimanded the salesman but plans to allow him to continue selling Healthy Home products.
“I just can’t cut the cord,” Hudson said. “I’m stuck in the middle.”
Hudson did say he would look into the situation further and discuss the issue with the Latta family to try to work out a resolution.
