July 17, 2000

Ostrov, who formerly headed Celebrity Choice Beds, faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Prosecutors say at least 97 customers around the country paid as much as $3,600 for Celebrity Choice beds between May 1997 and January 1998 but never received them.

Ostrov joined Electric Mobility, which makes Rascal electric scooters for persons with limited mobility, as a sales consultant in 1998. Since then, he has consolidated his power within the company and now controls its sales efforts, company insiders told ConsumerAffairs.com

Ostrov is prominently featured in a Web site -- 100grandayear.com -- that recruits sales people for Electric Mobility. The site touts "Mark Ostrov's World Famous Selling System" and hawks a free videotape, "Close With Class by Mark Ostrov," that features high-powered "closing" techniques.

Besides the scooters and powerchairs for which it is best known, Electric Mobility has recently added adjustable hospital-style beds to its product line-up. It sales recruitment Web site touts the aging of the Baby Boom generation as an "ideal" opportunity for hard-closing in-home salesmen.

During Ostrov's tenure at the helm of Celebrity Choice beds, he advertised nationally on cable channels using former game show host Wink Martindale as his pitchman. The company closed in January 1998 after a Mississippi man complained to federal prosecutors that he had not received his bed.

Officials then found nearly 100 other disappointed customers.

"I had people who sold their old bed or gave it away and they were sitting out there on the front porch waiting for the moving van to deliver it," San Diego U.S. Attorney Bruce Smith told The Associated Press.

The Better Business Bureau said it expelled Celebrity Choice beds in 1996 after receiving complaints about aggressive and misleading sales tactics. It had also expelled the company in 1994 but reinstated it after the company appealed the decision.

Purchasers of Rascal scooters have also complained of high-pressure and misleading sales tactics and even some former Electric Mobility salespeople are unhappy with the company's current direction.

"I repeatedly spoke out against the tactics of Mr. Ostrov in letters to the owner of Electric Mobility, Mr. Michael Flowers," one former regional sales manager told ConsumerAffairs.com. "I find it appalling that the company would continue to keep such a person in charge of their sales department."