Smile direct club help!

Dinio1

I opened my complaint with Tabeo on the day we all found out about SDC going under. I'm still yet to receive a reply from them other than the generic response sent out to everyone.

I have however cancelled all future payments and in additional to that managed to do a charge back for recent payments.

Has anyone had a response from them at all or heard any other news kn what is happening with everything?

pallyman

This was mentioned on the LBC legal hour on Friday he said there maybe a route to go for some.Sorry did not hear it all but may be available onh is X page or global player.

Toothsmith

As a dentist  I have written the following letter to my MP. 

As I said in an early post in this thread, dentists have raised concerns about these people since they started. Had they been regulated in the same way as dental practices, then this would not have happened, but also, their entire business model wouldn't have worked either - as they would have needed properly qualified people, and a commitment to ongoing treatment.

Allowing them to get away with operating as they did though, is scandalous and a complete failure of the Department of Health and the Care Quality Commission, not to mention the General Dental Council.

Enough people writing to their MPs about this and creating a stink that way would be the best tactic to at east make sure it didn't happen again. 

 Dear.......

I'm not sure if you are aware of this, but the 'direct to customer' orthodontic aligner company Smile Club Direct went bankrupt last Friday (8th December).

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-67675431

This has left an estimated 65,000 customers either mid treatment or yet to start treatment having paid the fees, but not yet received their aligners. This is what the company has on it's website:-

https://smiledirectclub.co.uk/en-gb/contact/

As you can see, current customers will now not receive their ongoing treatment, finished customers no longer have any guarantees SCD have promised, and anyone still paying off finance agreements is still expected to pay these off - even if no aligners have been received.

My question to you, why did the Department of Health, the General Dental Council, and the Care Quality Commission completely fail to apply any regulations to this obvious 'dental service', even when repeatedly warned about them by the British Dental Association, the British Orthodontics Association and more than likely quite a few dentists writing to their MPs as well?

Had they been regulated like a proper dental practice or specialist orthodontic practice, then not only would there not be thousands of people out of pocket, but there would not be a fair proportion of them about to find out when they go to a 'proper' dentist or orthodontist that they were having/ have had completely inappropriate treatment and have been harmed by Smile Club Direct.

It would be very interesting to know precisely why the GDC, The CQC and the Department of Health saw Smile Club Direct as a service that did not require regulation like a dental practice?

DullGreyGuy

Toothsmith said:

It would be very interesting to know precisely why the GDC, The CQC and the Department of Health saw Smile Club Direct as a service that did not require regulation like a dental practice?

I'm curious @Toothsmith, what level of financial oversight do the GDC and CQC have over practices? I assumed it was heavily slanted to the medical side rather than if they were giving out too many risky loans?

Toothsmith

DullGreyGuy said:

Toothsmith said:

It would be very interesting to know precisely why the GDC, The CQC and the Department of Health saw Smile Club Direct as a service that did not require regulation like a dental practice?

I'm curious @Toothsmith, what level of financial oversight do the GDC and CQC have over practices? I assumed it was heavily slanted to the medical side rather than if they were giving out too many risky loans?

They don't have any financial oversight at all really. Also, very occasionally, a dentist can escape to a different country and not be held accountable for poor treatments left in their wake.

By and large though, through GDC registration, patients would still have some recourse if that dentist or dental professional moves on elsewhere, and losing that registration would mean that operator could not operate in this country again. 

The FSA do the regulation for who can offer what loans in this country - and I know that a lot of dentists stopped offering them a few years ago as the rules surrounding who could offer them became very onerous and it became impractical for a lot of smaller places to afford the necessary licenses and keep on top of the compliance. Obviously not a problem for a big corporation though. 

Whether SDC were operating under FSA rules, I don't know - but had they been CQC registered - the CQC would have checked. 

DullGreyGuy

Toothsmith said:

DullGreyGuy said:

Toothsmith said:

It would be very interesting to know precisely why the GDC, The CQC and the Department of Health saw Smile Club Direct as a service that did not require regulation like a dental practice?

I'm curious @Toothsmith, what level of financial oversight do the GDC and CQC have over practices? I assumed it was heavily slanted to the medical side rather than if they were giving out too many risky loans?

They don't have any financial oversight at all really. Also, very occasionally, a dentist can escape to a different country and not be held accountable for poor treatments left in their wake.

By and large though, through GDC registration, patients would still have some recourse if that dentist or dental professional moves on elsewhere, and losing that registration would mean that operator could not operate in this country again. 

The FSA do the regulation for who can offer what loans in this country - and I know that a lot of dentists stopped offering them a few years ago as the rules surrounding who could offer them became very onerous and it became impractical for a lot of smaller places to afford the necessary licenses and keep on top of the compliance. Obviously not a problem for a big corporation though. 

Whether SDC were operating under FSA rules, I don't know - but had they been CQC registered - the CQC would have checked. 

A dentist is an individual so not really comparable and so really need to look at what GDC/CQC etc does at the corporate level as that is what SDC was. 

The Food Standards Agency has very little to do with loans, The Financial Services Authority disappeared in 2013 and was replaced by the Financial Conduct Authority (deals with the customer side of the world) and the Prudential Regulation Authority (deals with the financial security of banks and insurers). 

SDC was FCA authorised but as not a bank holding customers money didn't have to be authorised by the PRA. 

Have to say it's still not abundantly clear how customers would be in a better position with an insolvent provider if that company had been GDC registered @toothsmith? It doesn't sound as if registration would have reduced the risk of the insolvency and banning the company from practicing again still doesn't help those customers that have paid and not received their product etc. 

Toothsmith

If it had to be CQC registered and the workers had to be GDC registered, like any other dental service needs to be, it simply wouldn't have existed in the first place! 

Those out of pocket are just the first wave of problems this company will have caused. 

Dinio1

Has anyone managed to get a reply from Tabeo at all yet? 

dialted

Dinio1 said:

Has anyone managed to get a reply from Tabeo at all yet? 

No nothing yet. I emailed on the 11th

Dinio1

Has anyone else received this email? I'm not sure what it means or if it's just useless info?

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