Liquidator reveals financial mismanagement of dental business that’s left patients with unfinished work

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Patients of a dental business which collapsed, leaving them with missing teeth and drained superannuation accounts, are unlikely to see their money again. A liquidator's report has confirmed an ongoing investigation into the company, with indications that financial mismanagement and suspected statutory breaches led to its failure.

Transcript

00:00Supercare Dental and Cosmetics is a group of companies, and this statutory report relates

00:08specifically to the clinic at Tugra and that company. Now, the liquidator has released a

00:14statutory report to creditors that outlines that there are more than 300 unsecured creditors who

00:21are owed close to $3 million. The liquidator says they are unlikely to see any of that money.

00:30He also says that there are concerns around the management of the company, and he has singled

00:35out the director and said there is evidence that she transferred $8 million from the company to

00:42herself, and he says that is to the detriment of the company. It also outlines that New South Wales

00:48Fair Trading has alerted the liquidator to the fact that the director, her husband and the company

00:55may have contravened Australian consumer law. The liquidator stresses that investigations are

01:02ongoing, that it will take six to 12 months to wrap up the liquidation of Supercare Dental and

01:08cosmetics Tugra. And it's important to note, I think, that this company is a group of companies and

01:15there are other clinics and other companies associated with it, all going through similar

01:20processes at the moment. So it will be some time before we see the true nature of the extent of the

01:27financial damage here. Back when we first published this story in May, my colleague Elise Worthington

01:34became aware that the company was in trouble. And at that time, we had several former patients

01:40reach out to us. After we published the story, we were inundated with former staff, former patients,

01:46and also even dentists, all owed money. For the patients, though, what became clear was that many

01:53of them dipped into their superannuation and were advised to buy Supercare Dental and Cosmetics and

02:00assisted in that process. So many of them have taken out large sums of money for dental work that they

02:08never received, some only partly. One of those is Trish Guiler. She's from the Central Coast, a 60-year-old

02:15woman who works in a service station. Now, she told us that she had been really feeling for many,

02:22many years, all her life, very uncomfortable about her teeth. She really didn't like them.

02:28And she answered an ad on social media that told her that it would be Supercare Dental and Cosmetics

02:33would be able to assist her to access her super. She went ahead with that. She said she had no doubts

02:38when she went to the first appointment. It all looked professional. She then went ahead with

02:43applying to the ATO for $56,000 in super on compassionate grounds. She got some of the treatment,

02:51some crowns and implants. However, she became concerned when appointments started to be cancelled

02:57and it was too late by the time she realised that the company was in serious trouble to get any of

03:03her money back directly from the company. Let's take a listen and hear how devastated she is about

03:10what's happened. I felt like an absolute fool. I couldn't believe that I'd entrusted these people.

03:20And that I told my family, I told my friends, they could see that my teeth were starting to look

03:26good. I was feeling confident and all of a sudden nothing.

03:30I couldn't believe it. Professional, healthcare professionals that can do something like this.

03:42And I thought, surely, okay. And I started to feel, okay, I need to think practical here.

03:50If the government has assisted me and allowed me to have this money,

03:53then surely they're going to be able to help me with this.

03:58Trish Guiler has launched a campaign to raise awareness of the patients of Supercare Dental

04:05and Cosmetics and what they're going through. Facebook support groups have been set up.

04:09Trish has emailed everyone from the Governor-General to the Prime Minister and all regulatory bodies,

04:15but it doesn't seem likely that they will receive any money according to that creditor's report from

04:22Tuggera and the investigations of the liquidator are ongoing.

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