Free Republic

If you watch daytime TV or have been stuck watching daytime TV while visiting your parents, surely you’re familiar with The Scooter Store. The power wheelchair vendor has had some trouble lately, including accusations of Medicare and Medicaid fraud, a raid by the FBI, and even a lawsuit from the company’s hometown, of New Braunfels, Texas. The company laid off most of its employees, and plans to deal directly with health care providers, rather than blanketing the airwaves and selling directly to consumers. Those investigations came after a scathing investigative piece by CBS News about the company. (Warning: the video...

Late Friday afternoon, The Scooter Store's chief executive notified employees that — effective immediately, but “with certain exceptions” — they'd been placed on unpaid furlough. In an email, CEO Martin “Marty” Landon told employees not to return to work unless they receive notice from the company's human resources department. The Scooter Store, one of the nation's largest suppliers of power wheelchairs and scooters, had about 1,800 workers as of last month. That's following the announcement in February that it had cut 150 positions. About 1,200 employees worked out of its New Braunfels headquarters. The furloughs came a little more than...