Advanced Medical Institute founder Jacov Vaisman faces bankruptcy in new ACCC action
PROMISING “longer lasting sex”, Advanced Medical Institute reaped $130m in two years. But the ending is proving anything but happy for its founder.
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EXCLUSIVE
THE consumer cops are attempting to bankrupt the businessman behind those “Want longer lasting sex?” billboards because he owes them $3.7 million.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has filed a creditors petition in the Federal Circuit Court against Advanced Medical Institute founder “Dr” Jacov Vaisman after he failed to meet a court order to pay its legal costs following a long-running action.
ACCC chairman Rod Sims has described AMI’s behaviour as some of the worst the commission has seen.
AMI reaped $130 million in the two years before the ACCC embarked on court action by peddling treatments for premature ejaculation and erectile dysfunction to men ranging in age from 19 to 109. Tens of thousands were convinced into outlaying $2500 to $4500 each, despite there being no clinical evidence AMI’s treatment worked.
MORE: Not even Steven Seagal could save AMI
The case began in 2010 and was built on three million recordings of phone conversations between AMI salespeople and customers. The recordings revealed some targets were told that without treatment there was a heightened risk of stroke and prostate cancer, or their penis shrinking.
In 2015, Federal Court Justice Anthony North found AMI — which had since morphed into NRM Corporation — had engaged in unconscionable conduct. In July 2016, a Full Court of the Federal Court dismissed an appeal against the decision.
In December of that year, Mr Vaisman — he calls himself a doctor without being registered — put NRM into liquidation. At that time Mr Vaisman had just discovered the ACCC was going to chase him for $3.7 million in legal costs, according to a written statement he made to creditors.
“These costs were substantially higher than I had anticipated,” Mr Vaisman said in the statement, also saying NRM had written off about $8.3 million owed by customers but which couldn’t be recovered.
NRM’s 2016-17 accounts show it owed 93 creditors nearly $6 million. One of the largest is Mr Vaisman, owed about $500,000. But after meeting liquidator’s costs, it had $8.80 in its bank account.
He told creditors the ACCC’s actions had “substantially affected my health over the past six years. During 2015 I suffered a series of heart attacks and strokes from which I have yet to fully recover.”
When News Corp Australia visited his home in Bondi Junction this week a relative said Mr Vaisman was in hospital for dialysis treatment.