Supercare Dental and Cosmetics patients left with missing teeth and superannuation after clinics collapse

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Patients across the country have been left with no teeth and drained superannuation accounts after clinics run by an NSW company were placed into administration. Dentists who worked for Supercare Dental and Cosmetics are now owed hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid wages and say the clinics were "predatory". The situation is part of a broader trend, with the number of patients withdrawing superannuation to pay for dental work more than tripling in three years.

Transcript

00:00I prefer to eat with my gums.

00:04Melinda Amaris has been left with piles of paperwork, half her superannuation missing

00:09and without the teeth she wanted.

00:11I went and saw Supercare Dental because I was having issues, I'm going to cry sorry, lacking

00:18self confidence.

00:20Supercare Dental and Cosmetics helped the single mum withdraw $48,000 from her superannuation

00:26to fix her teeth with implants.

00:28She's been left with a broken overdenture stuck together with superglue.

00:32The product that I've ended up with is absolutely horrific and uncomfortable, I wouldn't be

00:37better off with the teeth that I had.

00:40The company's Katara and Tuggera clinics were put into voluntary administration last month

00:45owing dentists hundreds of thousands of dollars.

00:48A report to creditors says the company traded while insolvent and more than 400 patients

00:53appear to have paid over $2.1 million for dental work that's yet to be delivered.

00:59Much of that's likely to have come from superannuation.

01:02We've been tracking this kind of behaviour for some time.

01:05We've seen practices of people being coached in order to get money out of super.

01:11The amount of money Australians have withdrawn from superannuation to fund dental treatment

01:15has more than tripled over the past three years.

01:18Someone say in their thirties that take out $50,000 can be more than $100,000 worse off

01:24by the time they retire.

01:26Supercare Dental and Cosmetics didn't respond to multiple requests for comment.

01:30One of the companies involved has now been wound up, but patients have been left in limbo.

01:35Is this what I'm going to be stuck with for the rest of my life because that's how it feels.

01:41I don't have the money to fix it.

01:43A creditors meeting will be held tomorrow.

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