Chummie Dilemma Resolved for Costco.

In July, 2015 Chummie flashed on as many “billboards” and internet sites as they could that “Theos Medical Systems, the manufacturer of award winning Chummie Bedwetting Alarms, announces the launch of the Chummie Premium Bedwetting Alarm Kit at Costco.”

The final Order and Consent Decree for a case in the United States District Court, Northern District of California for an agreement reached in the Court in February, 2015 in which Theos Medical Systems and its owner Saket Bhatia (Theos/Chummie/Bhatia) was not signed by Bhatia till July 14, 2015. This is a delay of over four months. In our posting on this blog dated July 22, 2015 we postulated:

“Knowing what we now know, both with respect to Theos/Chummie's business practices which we have very often complained about in this blog, and the substantiation of many of our concerns and complaints by the Honorable Judge in his Order, we can hypothesize what lies behind Theos/Chummie's machinations in delaying this Court Order as long as possible:

1.            The longer Theos/Chummie could continue to operate in its prior free-wheeling manner, the longer it could continue to promote and sell its products to unwitting customers who may withhold their business as they became better aware of true matters. This would have a much more severe effect on Theos/Chummie if it had the standing of a Court Order!

2.            The longer Theos/Chummie could keep its abusive and false behavior out of the public eye, the better its chances of making a "deal" with some other large seller. This would be much like what Theos/Chummie did to become a direct vendor with Amazon, by falsifying facts and making themselves look exemplary. Again, something that should prove very difficult to do with a Court Order detailing much of Theos/Chummie's misbehavior and ordering them to cease and make corrections!

This has become fact with our observing that Costco now carries a Chummie bedwetting alarm on Costco.com . We very much doubt that Costco would have done this if they knew the true facts about Theos/Chummie, which the Court Order certainly points out quite adequately.”

In a relatively short period since July (this is October), we now no longer find any Chummie product on Costco or Costco.com. So let us again postulate some possible reasons for Chummie no longer appearing on Costco.com, in the order of increasing likeliness: 

1.    Theos/Chummie/Bhatia found it in their best interests to desert the “sinking ship” that was Costco, and therefore not go down with it.
2.    This is a mix-up at Costco and for some unknown reason Chummie slipped out of Costco’s site. Costco is working on it. 
3.    Costco ran out of inventory on the Chummie products, and did not want to mislead customers that they could get the product immediately. 
4.    Costco, now that it was more aware of the actual characteristics and competitiveness of the Chummie products it was hyped into selling, as well the dubious background and history of Theos/Chummie/Bhatia, decided to rid themselves of the burden that they may have unwittingly acquired.

Now, if Amazon had the sense to look into these Theos/Chummie/Bhatia matters as Costco probably did …..