Quebec inventors defrauded for more than a million dollars by a “charlatan” have borne the brunt of the “laxity” and “inaction” of the Office de la protection du consommateur (OPC), criticizes an inventor in a request for collective action. She thus claims thousands of dollars for each cheated inventor.
Posted at 4:58 p.m.
An “impostor” and a “charlatan of the XXIand century “. This is how Judge Alexandre Dalmau qualified the president of the Federation of Quebec Inventors (FDIQ), Christian Varin, by convicting him of fraud in January 2022. For years, the fraudster used his bogus federation to make believe in his victims that he was going to patent their creations. However, he never obtained a single patent for the 500 inventors. Christian Varin is still awaiting the imposition of his sentence.
Many people had however sounded the alarm with the OPC, maintains the inventor Nancy Vigneault, in a request for authorization of collective action filed last week at the Montreal courthouse. A former police officer had even carried out an extremely documented investigation into the practices of Christian Varin and had alerted the president of the OPC.
However, even if the OPC had been “informed on several occasions of the dishonest behavior” of the Federation of Inventors, the public body did nothing to protect the public, it is argued in the request. Christian Varin’s “Federation” then held an itinerant salesman’s license from the OPC.
“The inaction of [l’OPC] allowed the FDIQ to make false representations regarding the services it offers and thus attract a large number of clients, and this, for several years, while this fraudulent conduct had been denounced many times to the defendant”, alleges the request of the firm Langlois-Cordeau.
“Minimise” complaints
The OPC is also criticized for having “minimized” the number of complaints received, as well as the “significance” of these. The plaintiff adds that the OPC website only mentioned four consumer complaints against Christian Varin in 2018, while around fifty had been filed, including around twenty for “unfair and misleading practices”.
PHOTO ROBERT SKINNER, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
Christian Varin (left), accompanied by his lawyer Mand Normand Haché (right), in November 2020. Mand Haché had tried to prevent The Press to photograph his client at the Montreal courthouse.
Inventor Nancy Vigneault testified that her checks with the OPC did not reveal “significant problems of probity” at the Federation. ” But if [l’OPC] had fulfilled its mission, the FDIQ would have been advertised as a highly contentious company. […] The FPIQ was working with a permit issued by [l’OPC] and his public record was consistent, even almost without stain, ”she laments.
As part of the class action, Mr.me Vigneault is thus claiming $2,500 in damages for all the people who have given a mandate to the FDIQ since the 1er May 2015 and who have not obtained the services requested and paid for, or who have obtained deficient or incomplete services.
The OPC declined to comment on this request. “The file is currently being examined by the Office, and we will see to analyzing it and taking the necessary measures at the end of this assessment,” indicated spokesperson Charles Tanguay.