by KRISTIAN GRAVENOR

A local tradition of mail order flimflammery that for a decade has outraged consumers throughout North America has come to an end. John Dragan's JD Marvel Inc., along with his year-old, Hawkesbury-based Canadian Mail Order Exchange, will no longer be angering customers with lack of delivery. Dragan's wobbly mail order empire declared bankruptcy September 1.

For a decade John Dragan has placed advertisements in Canadian and American newspapers peddling mail order goods, ranging from brooms to bras. Dragan had a habit of cashing cheques and then not sending the goods, at least until the person raised hell with the authorities. "They're our all-time leader for consumer complaints for sure," says Quebec's Consumer Protection Office rep Georges-André Levac. "We had accumulated 314 complaints about them over the past two years, and before that there were undoubtedly more." According to Levac, 92 per cent of the complaints regarded excessive delays in receiving ordered products; another five per cent concerned the products' poor quality.

Courthouse roadshow

Under Quebec's penal code, the government can fine an individual for false advertisement from $600 to $15,000 for a first infraction, and can fine a business from $2,000 to $100,000 for a first offence. Since being fined $18,000 for false advertising in 1994, the provincial government's actions against JD Marvel have been a roadshow appearing in courthouses throughout the province. In recent years, fines have ranged from $650 to $2,000, alongside the occasional acquittal.

Consumer Protection bureaucrats struck a deal with Dragan to ensure that goods would be delivered within 45 days, but Dragan moved his Montreal-based business to Ontario about a year ago, launching Canadian Mail Order Exchange in Hawkesbury, which has inspired 93 new complaints from Ontario residents.

Those who have had their cheques cashed and are still waiting for their mail order goodies are probably out of luck. JD Marvel owes $1,966,000 to its creditors, and his Canadian Mail Order Exchange owes $1,656,000, mostly to suppliers and printers, according to André Allard, the accountant overseeing the bankruptcy.

On March 1, 2003, Quebec revoked JD Marvel's right to collect prior to delivery. Most Quebec-based mail-order companies pay a security deposit of $50,000 or more for the convenience of cashing cheques prior to expediting goods. The government uses the deposit as insurance for potentially shafted customers.

JD Marvel's company phone lines have been disconnected, and the Mirror's repeated attempts to contact Dragan were unsuccessful.

Guilty by association

Dragan's touch has proven so damning that at least one other local company has been tarnished by its similarity. Robert Dubé, president of Clearpoint Direct (www.clearpointdirect.com) has issued a written plea to consumers explaining that he has no affiliation with Dragan. "He's got an office in Pointe Claire, ours are in Pointe Claire, we're both servicing the U.S. market out of P.O. boxes in Champlain, New York, selling similar goods and advertising in circulars throughout North America," says Dubé. "People put these things together and just assume it's the same company, but we're completely independent and we have nothing to do with Dragan."

Before "he fell off the face of the Earth," Dragan was somebody Dubé was familiar with. "Seventeen or 18 years ago I worked with him for the same company in Montreal, and a couple of years after I joined that company he was basically fired by the board of directors for a number of reasons and he went off on his own. And that's where the legacy began."

Clearpoint - like JD Marvel - attracts customers by placing ads in 100 Canadian and 600 American papers, but Dubé says the main difference is that Clearpoint actually has the goods it peddles. "Dragan would go out and promote merchandise through media and then wait for the orders. Then he'd go out and buy the stuff. What we do is run ads, but we make sure we have merchandise. It takes about five or six weeks to get media and 90 to 120 days to get merchandise, so if you book now, you'd better have merchandise in the warehouse."

JD Marvel has been the target of unrelenting vituperation among disgruntled consumers who have written their tales on various consumer Web sites. The stories also include the occasional sad tale, such as one about a "mentally handicapped grandson" awaiting a mini satellite dish. "He has gone to the mailbox every day to check for it. They stole from a very kind handicapped young man who worked hard for that money," writes Colleen of Waterdown, Ontario.