Attorney General Sues Tinley Body Scan Company for Fraud

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan filed suit Thursday against Tinley Park-based for pressuring consumers into buying expensive and, in many cases, needless body scans.

The suit filed in Cook County Circuit Court charges Sheila Haddad and her son David Haddad, both of , with using unfair and deceptive business practices to pressure consumers into buying 10-year screening contracts for thousands of dollars plus annual dues and enrollment fees.

The lawsuit says consumers are not evaluated by medical providers to determine whether the scans are medically appropriate, that sales claims of detecting cancer and other diseases were false and misleading, that the people selling the scans were not medically trained, and that consumers were not told of risks ahead of time—such as radiation exposure and false positives.

It also alleges that the company called to solicit business from people on the National Do Not Call Registry. The lawsuit, too, states that some scan results were inaccurate.

The suit included examples from three customers who said they paid thousands of dollars for scans and never received the results or the results were inaccurate.

It states that patient Kathleen Collins-Kuba took the results of a $600 body scan to her own doctor who said told her they “had no medical relevance.” Another scan showed she had a kidney stone on one side of her body while a scan done at Northwest Community Hospital showed the stone was on the opposite side.

Another patient, Debora Braun, contacted Madigan's office after getting the runaround while trying to schedule a colonoscopy. She arrived for her appointment to find the company's Arlington Heights office closed and was told by building workers that no one had been there for about a month.

Patient Judy Blazek filed a complaint after failing to receive scan results despite repeated requests. She visited the only to find it closed and still has not gotten her results, the lawsuit alleges. Blazek worked at the company’s Tinley location for about a year before being laid off in April.

Heart Check America operated offices at 2010 Arlington Heights Road in Arlington Heights and 9501 W. 171st St., Suite Q, in Tinley Park, as well as in other states. Both Illinois offices are closed and their phone numbers are disconnected.

The company’s website has been replaced by a notice that a new website for a company called Health Screening Plus is coming soon. There is a link to a letter from Sheila Haddad stating that all contracts with Heart Check America are being serviced by Health Screening Plus at the 2010 Arlington Heights address. An 800 number on the letter is forwarded to the disconnected Tinley Park office number.

The suit is seeking a civil penalty of $50,000, which could be doubled if there is proof of intent to defraud, and the state also is seeking to recoup the cost of the investigation and prosecution of the case.