WAS IT SWISS OR HONG KONG:
                     THE STORY OF MAXI-AIDS
             by Kenneth Jernigan and Barbara Pierce

     Among those who buy products for the blind in bulk and then
provide them to the public, Maxi-Aids has generally had a
reputation for competitive prices and on-time delivery--
characteristics that have resulted in much business for Maxi-
Aids. It sounds like the American dream in action, but alas,
there appears to be an underside, one that raises disturbing
questions about ethics in general and the willingness of some
volume purchasers to look the other way when it is cost-effective
or convenient.
     Admittedly competitors have everything to gain if one of the
most successful of them can be put out of action. But the
accusations that continue to circulate about Maxi-Aids will not
go away. In fact, they surface with increasing rapidity and
seriousness as the months and years go by. The allegations are
far-ranging. They include but are not limited to selling Hong
Kong-made watches as Swiss and one-jewel mechanisms as seventeen-
jewel; offering payoffs to employees of competitors to steal
product designs for Maxi-Aids; and masquerading as a woman-owned
business to get the competitive edge for a contract and as a
minority-owned company a few months later when that seemed
helpful. In fact, there seems to be no end to the charges and
complaints. 
     Disturbed by the rumors circulating in the blindness field,
the Braille Monitor began to try to sort out facts from
suspicions and specifics from generalities. There was no dearth
of people willing to make statements about their experience with
Maxi-Aids and its founder, Elliot Zaretsky, as well as his two
sons, Mitchell and Harold. One of these statements was submitted
by Marvin Sandler, President and CEO of Independent Living Aids
(ILA). Here it is:

Statement by Marvin Sandler, January 17, 1994:
     Our problems with the Zaretskys, father and son, go back to
the inception of Maxi-Aids and involve the wholesale copying of
our catalogs and our product descriptions, even the use of our
photos, which they simply cut out of our own catalogs and had
photocopied. As an example I am enclosing a copy of a page from a
Maxi-Aids catalog of the late 1980's, showing Braille watches. It
contains photos of our own Braille watches, photocopied from our
catalog, and on which a typewritten "MA" has been pasted over our
own "ILA" logo. We eventually were able to identify 105 different
products on which Maxi-Aids had copied our photos, our product
descriptions, and even our catalog numbers--thus stealing our
intellectual property and cheating us of the fruits of our
labors.
     We retained legal counsel, and I have a file about an inch
thick containing letters written by our attorney, demanding that
Maxi-Aids cease and desist from the wholesale copying of our
catalog. In response, we have several evasive letters from the
Zaretskys, promising to take remedial action (which, I might add,
was never taken).
     In response to the oft-heard complaint, "I can't find a good
looking watch that I can see," my wife and I went to Hong Kong in
early 1991 and designed a line of low vision watches which proved
to be extremely popular. They proved to be so good that we won
the 1991 Texas Commission for the Blind bid for low vision
watches, and our watches became the standard for the following
year.
     When the 1992 bid was tendered with our watches listed as
the standard, Maxi-Aids was the winning bidder, having beaten us
by 6 cents per watch, under circumstances that I can only regard
as suspicious since he [Elliot Zaretsky] has beaten us by the
same 6 cents figure on several bids before and after the 1992
watch incident. 
     Shortly after Maxi-Aids won the Texas bid, one of my Hong
Kong suppliers sent me copies of faxes that had been received
from Maxi-Aids, and which were signed by Mitchell Zaretsky,
containing photocopies of our watches and asking that the
suppliers manufacture the same watches and put the Maxi-Aids logo
on them. The Texas bid required that a sample be sent if the
watch to be supplied was not the standard (which was our own
watch). Armed with the knowledge imparted by the faxes sent by my
own supplier that Maxi-Aids did not even have a sample, much less
quantities of merchandise to fill the Texas order, I called the
Texas Commission to find out the status of the order. I was
advised that Maxi-Aids had submitted one of my watches, with my
logo on it, as his sample and promised to deliver the identical
watch with his own logo if he got the order. Although I protested
that it was unethical to submit one of my watches as his own
sample and equally improper for the Texas Commission to accept
such a submission, the bid was awarded to Maxi-Aids. This
reinforced my belief that the playing field was not level.
     The watches that the Zaretskys copied from us appeared in
the 1992-93 Maxi-Aids catalog, as per the enclosed photocopy of
page 19 of that year's edition. They listed the watches as Swiss-
made and even stated that "All Maxi-Aids watches are made in
Switzerland. All have seventeen-jewel movements." Although his
business tactics can almost always be described in joking terms
as beneath reproach, he sank below his lowest standards and
engaged in outright fraud, by describing a 1-jewel Hong Kong
watch as being seventeen-jewel, Swiss-made. As usual, he used our
own photo, taken right from our catalog, and blotted out our logo
and used it for his catalog.
     I can't begin to describe how upset I was to see the product
that I had worked so hard to develop simply stolen and then
fraudulently advertised as Swiss made--thus unfairly making his
watch seem superior and diverting sales to him that we should
have made.
     In an effort to make sure that I had all the facts before
taking further action, I had one of my employees purchase two of
his watches and have them shipped to her home address. The
watches arrived and were in NFB boxes. Each had a warranty
certificate that stated, "Maxi-Aids watches are made in
Switzerland...." However, if you examine the watch, at the very
bottom, straddling the "6," you will see the words "Japan Mov't."
We also took the back off the watch, and it states, "Maxi-Aids
Watch Company, Hong Kong." It is a clear case of fraud, and we
turned it over to the New York State Attorney General.
     The New York State Attorney General took no interest
whatsoever and advised that they do not take action on complaints
submitted from competitors. I called Albany and acknowledged that
my motives were not pure but pointed out that fraud was fraud and
that our interests coincided. I was stonewalled, and nothing was
done to follow up.
     Perhaps encouraged by the fact that no one in an official
capacity will do anything, the Zaretskys have continued with the
fraud, and in their latest catalog, pages of which are enclosed,
they have even put asterisks next to the watch to call the
reader's attention to it.
     The asterisks next to the fraudulent listing may also be a
way for them to rub my nose. For many years we have used the
slogan "CAN-DO Products" to advertise our items. I notice that
the latest Maxi-Aids catalog has a listing on the cover of "DO-
MORE Products."

     That is Marvin Sandler's statement--and it is, to say the
least, disturbing. Distressed to learn that Maxi-Aids might
without our permission be using NFB watch boxes to package its
allegedly fraudulent products, we arranged to have one of the
watches ordered, and indeed it arrived in an NFB box. Needless to
say, the National Federation of the Blind has taken no part in
the production of watches that pretend to Swiss quality and
seventeen-jewel construction when that is not the case.
     In short, the use of our logo on a Maxi-Aids watch box was
not only unauthorized but implied a relationship and an
endorsement which did not exist and had never existed. Quite a
number of years ago we did buy a number of watches from Maxi-
Aids, and our logos were on the boxes. We can only speculate that
(using our logo, which we had provided to Maxi-Aids for the
manufacture of our own boxes) Maxi-Aids caused additional boxes
to be manufactured, used those boxes for their own watches, and
thereby sought to trade on our good name and reputation and
create the impression of an alliance and endorsement which did
not exist and had never existed. We repeat that this is
speculation, but one thing we can say for certain: we long since
stopped buying anything at all from Maxi-Aids, even if their
price was the lowest to be had. We did this because we did not
like their behavior or dealings. All of this was before we
learned of the unauthorized use of our logo or of the experiences
of others. 
     The alleged bid in Texas caused us to contact Pat Westbrook,
Executive Director of the Texas Commission for the Blind, with
questions about the agency's 1992 bids for low-vision watches and
other matters. Mr. Westbrook expressed complete surprise at the
information we gave him and said that he would need to talk to
his auditing department before making any statement. Mr.
Westbrook later told us that the letter accompanying the
Independent Living Aids (ILA) bid was dated August 1, 1991. He
said that the price quoted for men's watches was $21.23. He said
that the Commission's "date received" which was stamped on the
ILA bid was illegible. He said that the "date received" which was
stamped on the Maxi-Aids bid was readable and showed August 2. If
one assumes that the ILA bid was dated as reported and that the
Maxi-Aids bid was correctly stamped as to time of receipt by the
Commission--neither of which assumption we can substantiate at
this time--Commission staff are unlikely to have had an
opportunity to give information about the ILA bid to Maxi-Aids. 
     Be that as it may, Mr. Westbrook reports that the Maxi-Aids
bid is characterized by unexplained, one might almost say
extraordinary, peculiarities. He says that it shows a price for
the low-vision men's watch of $23.98, two dollars and seventy-
five cents higher than the ILA bid. A line is drawn through this
figure, Westbrook says, and it has been changed to $21.94, still
seventy-one cents higher than the ILA bid. But that is not all!
This figure too is lined out, Westbrook says, and the final Maxi-
Aids bid is $19.95, one dollar and twenty-eight cents lower than
the ILA bid. So Maxi-Aids was given the order.
     Westbrook says that he and other Commission personnel find
these alterations suspicious. So do we. But apparently the Texas
Commission personnel did not find the alterations suspicious
until the Braille Monitor began to investigate--some three years
after the fact. When pressed for a possible explanation, Mr.
Westbrook postulated that perhaps a disgruntled ILA employee or
somebody in another state agency with an earlier bid deadline
might have passed the ILA figure on to Maxi-Aids. And, of course,
this might be the case--or it might not be the case. We simply
don't know.
     Mr. Westbrook reports a similar circumstance in a Maxi-Aids
bid in recent times. Here is how he tells it: On July 5, 1993,
the Texas Commission for the Blind received bids from both ILA
and Maxi-Aids. The ILA price quoted for the women's low-vision
watch was $16.82 and the Maxi-Aids price was $16.95, which would
have been thirteen cents higher than the ILA bid. But wait! Just
as before, the Maxi-Aids price was crossed out and adjusted to
$15.94, making it the low bid by eighty-eight cents.
     Assuming that the Commission date-stamping is reliable,
there is no way, Mr. Westbrook says, that the Maxi-Aids changes
for the 1992 contract could have been made after the ILA bid
reached Texas. Commission procedure, Westbrook says, is to leave
all bids sealed until the deadline has passed. Then they are all
opened and recorded by a group of employees working together. All
bids that are compliant with Texas regulations are then
considered, and the lowest is chosen. There is a clear
understanding, Westbrook says, that the Commission is not bound
by the agreement if during the contract period the Commission
finds the same product at a better price.
     The Westbrook explanation not only sounds plausible but also
implies ultra care and circumspection. However, the very steps in
the procedure that are designed to keep it pure make possible
another scenario. It is easy to open and reclose sealed bids; it
is undoubtedly difficult to maintain constant surveillance, if
indeed anybody thinks it necessary to do so when trusted
employees are involved and when no suspicion exists; and the
repeated crossing out of lines and substituting of figures lends
credence to suspicion. 
     On the other side of the argument is the statement by
Sandler that he was beaten by 6 cents for the 1992 contract when,
if the Westbrook statement is true, he was finally beaten by more
than that. However, this may be more than offset by the curious
coincidence that the "date received" which was stamped on the ILA
bid is apparently conveniently illegible while the stamp on the
Maxi-Aids bid is reported to be readable. When this is added to
the repeated crossing out of lines and changing of prices, the
argument of mere happenstance becomes harder and harder to
believe. 
     Independent Living Aids is not the only producer to express
outrage at the Maxi-Aids methods. Here is what E.L. Bryenton,
President of Brytec, Inc., says:

Statement by E.L. Bryenton, February 16, 1994:
     In March, 1992, we entered into a contractual agreement with
Maxi-Aids, Inc. for the distribution of NOTE TELLER in the New
England states only. This agreement was negotiated with and
signed by Mr. Elliot Zaretsky after promising to comply with all
clauses of agreement.
     In June and July, 1992, we were advised by some of our small
regional distributors that Maxi-Aids was promoting NOTE TELLER in
their regions and causing other problems. Because of these
problems that were confirmed by us and denials by Mr. Elliot
Zaretsky, we requested that our agreement be terminated within
sixty days in compliance with our contractual agreement. 
     Maxi-Aids has refused to pay for products that had been
shipped to them during the term of our agreement. Maxi-Aids has
also included NOTE TAKER in their 1993-94 catalog that states
there is a one-year warranty. This is misleading to customers,
who assume that Maxi-Aids, Inc., is an approved distributor, and
are very disappointed when they are advised that there is only a
six-month warranty by our company and no warranty by Maxi-Aids,
Inc.
     As discussed, we have had numerous complaints from visually
impaired and blind customers as well as other distributors about
Maxi-Aids, Inc.

     There you have the experience of Brytec. Here is what Ann
Morris Enterprises, Inc., has to say: 

Statement by Ann Morris, President, February 16, 1994:
     Ann Morris Enterprises, Inc., designed a money organizer
wallet and had them manufactured in India. We had been selling
many to Maxi-Aids until they decided to take our wallet and copy
it and wholesale it for less than we could. When approached,
their response was that it is part of doing business. We sell
nothing to Maxi-Aids and do not conform to their unethical
business practices. 

     If the foregoing statements are true, the word that comes to
mind is "unethical," but such dealings are not the only arrows
alleged to be in the Maxi-Aids quiver. Until recently Elliot
Schreier was the Director of the National Technology
Center/Consumer Products Department of the American Foundation
for the Blind (AFB). With the consent of Carl Augusto, President
of the American Foundation for the Blind, Mr. Schreier made the
following statement:

Statement of Elliot M. Schreier, March 1, 1994:
     I was contacted by one of the principals of Maxi-Aids, who
asked me to meet with him at their offices to discuss various
"business opportunities." I went to the meeting, and after a
short time an opportunity was presented to me, and it was not
what I had expected. Maxi-Aids proposed that I manufacture AFB-
designed products for them to sell without telling the American
Foundation for the Blind (AFB). Maxi-Aids would then pay me for
my services on the side. Maxi-Aids had been buying these products
from AFB but could obviously make more of a profit through this
approach. The intent was clear--I should steal from AFB in order
for Maxi-Aids to sell products at a greater profit (and make
money for myself, too). I was quite surprised and bothered by
their offer. I immediately informed my supervisor at AFB of the
business opportunity that was offered, and it was decided that
nothing be done at that time, and we let the matter drop.
     Recently we have heard of two other similar circumstances
that show how diligent Maxi-Aids is in pursuing business dealings
such as the one proposed to me. Maxi-Aids approached both our
electronics manufacturer and one of our former engineers with a
similar proposal to the one offered me. Essentially, the offer
was for them to duplicate AFB products for Maxi-Aids without
AFB's knowledge. Fortunately, both our manufacturer and former
engineer are ethical and told us what had occurred. It was again
decided not to pursue the matter.
     In this field we have very few developers willing to risk
money on research and development for a low-incidence population.
Those who do hope to make a reasonable profit on their
investment. Situations such as those I described hurt everyone,
including the consumer and the developer. This can result in
fewer products at higher costs.
     I hope that it would help to avoid these types of situations
if they were openly discussed in a public forum.
     
     That's what Mr. Schreier has to say. Paying people to steal
competitors' designs, misrepresenting the quality of products,
and refusing to comply with contractual agreements--all of these
alleged practices enable Maxi-Aids and the Zaretskys (according
to the belief of most of those with whom we talked) to increase
their profits and lower their bids. But there are other ways in
which Maxi-Aids reportedly manages to get the jump on its
competitors.
     Sources tell us that in 1993 Maxi-Aids and Vis-Aids
submitted identical bids for a contract being let by the
Department of Veterans Affairs. Maxi-Aids was awarded the
contract because, according to the VA, it had identified itself
on the bid form as a woman-owned company. This was news to
everyone in the field. Even a brochure produced by Maxi-Aids
itself describes the company and its subsidiaries as owned by two
brothers, Mitchell and Harold Zaretsky. 
     To constitute a woman-owned business, the VA says that at
least fifty-one percent of a company's stock must be owned by a
woman or women who are U.S. citizens and who control and operate
the company. Elliot Zaretsky's daughter Pam (who, we are told, is
a young mother of twins) was apparently the woman in question,
though it is hard to credit the idea that in 1993 she owned a
controlling share of the company and was the working, salaried
leader of the management team. 
     In any case, by June of 1994 Maxi-Aids was bidding again on
VA contracts, this time as a small, disadvantaged company--with
Harold, who is deaf, listed as the principal stockholder. Again
the bids were close, and again Maxi-Aids won--according to the VA
because of its disadvantaged status. Protests were lodged with
the Department of Veterans Affairs, and an investigator was
assigned to the case, although it seems clear that, even if the
judgment is made that Maxi-Aids made untrue claims about its
ownership, nothing will be done about awarding the bid to the
company's competitor. Next time is apparently soon enough for the
VA to insist upon accuracy and honesty, never mind justice and
the taxpayers' dollars. 
     The status of the investigation is unclear at this writing.
When contacted by the Braille Monitor for comment, the
investigator refused even to confirm that he had been assigned
the case, but he referred us to an Assistant Investigator
General, who also refused to make any comment since he said the
investigation was still in progress. 
     We are told by a source close to the situation that, after
the VA's investigator visited the Zaretskys, Elliot apparently
happened to find a letter which he passed on to the investigator
which explains all the confusion about the ownership of Maxi-
Aids. As far as we know, the letter has not actually been read by
any of those in the blindness field who are disturbed about the
contract awards. But the investigator described the letter to one
person, who reports that Elliot Zaretsky explained that Pam was
the majority stockholder in 1993 but that she relinquished her
stock to Harold early in 1994. Why it should have been Harold,
the younger son, and not Mitchell, who is the President of Maxi-
Aids, is not clear. And no one can figure out how Maxi-Aids can
qualify as socially or economically disadvantaged. 
     When asked how long this investigation might be expected to
last, Jack Kroll, Assistant Investigator General of the
Department of Veterans Affairs, said he had no idea but that
complicated cases could easily take a year or more. One might be
tempted to question how complicated this case actually is, but
anything can become clouded when the bureaucracy gets hold of it
or especially, it seems, when it involves the Zaretskys. In any
case, those who lodged the protest in the first place will be (or
should be) notified when the investigation has been completed,
according to Mr. Kroll. They can then attempt to obtain the
documents in the case under the Freedom of Information Act. Until
then one supposes it will be business as usual at Maxi-Aids and
the Department of Veterans Affairs.
     There are still other facets to the Maxi-Aids story. Mohymen
Saddeek has been in the blindness field for a considerable number
of years. He is now the president of Technology for Independence
(TFI) and was formerly the head of Boston Information and
Technology Corporation (BIT). He tells of a number of interesting
contacts with Elliot Zaretsky and Maxi-Aids. 
     He says that his first memory of Zaretsky was a telephone
call from him in which Zaretsky said that since he was one of
Saddeek's distributors, he would like to order certain products
at a reduced price. Saddeek, who says he had never until that
time heard of Zaretsky, states that he later learned that
Zaretsky had taken the BIT catalogue, cut pages and pictures from
it, added his own text, and circulated it as a Maxi-Aids
catalogue, claiming to be a distributor. 
     Mr. Saddeek tells of later incidents. Here is a summary of
what he says: 
     Elliot Zaretsky tried a particular maneuver with him on
three separate occasions--once with talking scales, once with a
talking money identifier, and once with talking watches. Since
the pattern was always the same, the incident concerning the
watches will suffice to make the point.
     Zaretsky, according to Saddeek, called him and asked how
many Seiko watches he had to sell. Saddeek told him that he had
several hundred. The Seiko is a comparatively expensive watch. 
     According to Saddeek, Zaretsky then told him that he could
sell him these expensive watches at an unbelievably low price, in
the neighborhood of twenty-five dollars. Saddeek says he told
Zaretsky that he would be glad to buy all that Zaretsky could let
him have, beginning with a thousand. Zaretsky said that it was a
deal and that he was glad to be able to do it. According to
Saddeek, he then said that he didn't have the watches in his
warehouse at the moment but that they would be coming shortly. In
the meantime he needed watches to sell so as not to interrupt his
flow of business. Therefore, he would like Saddeek to ship him
several hundred Seikos at the low price he intended to give
Saddeek.
     Since this was a pattern, Saddeek says he felt certain that
Zaretsky had no watches at the price he had offered and had no
way of getting any. Saddeek says that he felt this was simply a
ruse to try to get his watches at a below-cost price. Saddeek
says he simply laughed at Zaretsky, who went into a rage and was
abusive. This is how Saddeek tells the story, and although we
cannot verify it one way or another, it blends into the picture
that others have painted. 
     Sources tell us that on more than one occasion Zaretsky has
called a competitor in the field and asked how many of a given
product the competitor had that he could sell to him. Then,
according to these sources, Zaretsky would call the sales
department of the competitor and say that he had just talked with
the owner, who had sold him a given number of the item at a
specified price (always exceedingly low), and that he needed them
shipped immediately. The shipments, according to what we are
told, were sometimes sent before the owner caught on. 
     With these statements and charges before us, we called Maxi-
Aids on Tuesday afternoon, November 29, 1994, and talked with
Mitchell Zaretsky, who acknowledged that he was president of the
company. He said that Elliot Zaretsky is now only a consultant.
     As to the specific charges, Mitchell Zaretsky categorically
denied them. He said that the investigation by the Department of
Veterans Affairs has "been taken care of," but that even if it
hadn't, he didn't think it mattered--that it was unimportant, and
that his bid was also the lowest. With respect to Mr. Schreier's
charge concerning the offer to pay him on the side for American
Foundation for the Blind products and designs, Zaretsky said,
"That's hogwash." In fact, he said all of the charges were
hogwash and that he couldn't see what difference it made whether
most of them were true or false. He said that his sister Pam had
the majority stock in Maxi-Aids one year and that his deaf
brother Harold had the majority the next year, and that Harold
still has the majority but that he (Mitchell) is president. He
avoided the question whether Pam and/or Harold had ever actually
operated and controlled the company. 
     He said that the truth was that when Maxi-Aids entered the
blindness field, prices of appliances and materials for the blind
were high and that Maxi-Aids had brought them down. He further
said that if people wanted to talk about appropriating the labor
of others, he could cite the incident of the money identifier,
which he said Maxi-Aids had spent time and money to develop. He
said that another company had then somehow got hold of the
product and had claimed that it was theirs. When we asked him to
identify the company, he declined, saying that he was not hunting
trouble with anybody but wanted to talk about positive things.
     In this connection he wondered why the Braille Monitor was
interested in this sort of thing at all. He said he couldn't see
what benefit it was to the customers--that we should be printing
positive things about new products that Maxi-Aids had developed. 
     Concerning the situation in Texas, Zaretsky said that there
was nothing wrong with crossing out lines on bids since a company
had the right to change its mind anytime before the bid proposals
were actually opened. We asked him whether the crossed-out lines
and price changings had occurred after the bid was submitted but
before it was opened (in other words, at the offices of the Texas
Commission) or whether the alterations had been made in his
office before the bid was mailed. He said he wasn't sure, that he
didn't know, and that he didn't see what difference it made.
     He said that all of his Braille watches were made in
Switzerland. He said he understood the term "Swiss-made" to mean
that a watch was both made and assembled in Switzerland and that
none of his Swiss-made watches were assembled in Asia. He said
that his low-vision watches were quartz and, therefore, had no
jewels at all. He said that jewels were only applicable to
manually wound watches. He acknowledged that some of his low-
vision watches were made in Hong Kong. 
     Zaretsky was most emphatic in denying that Maxi-Aids now
copies or has ever copied other people's catalogues or now covers
or has ever covered other people's logos with its own. He took a
different tack concerning the selling of Maxi-Aids watches in
boxes with NFB logos. He first said that it might have happened
on one or two occasions several years ago when NFB was buying
watches from Maxi-Aids. When we told him that the occurrence was
recent, he said that somebody might mistakenly have grabbed a box
that had been used by a customer in returning merchandise and
sent out a Maxi-Aids watch in it or that some boxes with NFB
logos might have been left over from former times and used
unintentionally. As with the other charges, he shrugged the whole
thing off as if it made no difference. He said that there was
certainly no intent to imply NFB affiliation or endorsement. 
     On another matter, we talked to Zaretsky about a company
called See-More, which sells magnifiers. Zaretsky at first said
it was affiliated with Maxi-Aids. On further questioning he
changed his statement to say that See-More was a separate company
and that it was simply located in the same building as Maxi-Aids
but not affiliated with it. After more discussion he said that
Maxi-Aids might own some stock in See-More. He finally said that
Maxi-Aids did not own stock in See-More but that some of the
Maxi-Aids principals might. At that point it didn't seem
worthwhile to pursue the matter further. 
     Later the same afternoon (November 29) Mitchell Zaretsky
called us. He seemed concerned about our earlier call to him and
said, "We are pretty open and pretty honest." He went on to say
that he had two children (one of them a boy named Daniel, who was
born about a month ago) and that his family was his life. He said
that there had been no "charges" and that he didn't see why we
were interested in these vague allegations. 
     We talked with Elliot Zaretsky on December 6, 1994. He said
that he was now in semi-retirement, but his responses and
demeanor indicate that he is still very much in charge at Maxi-
Aids. He said that his daughter Pam was the majority stockholder
because, as he put it, when you have two sons, they can feel some
rivalry toward each other.  He later said that Harold owns the
company--and still later that Harold does not yet own it but is
about to own it. 
     We read to Mr. Zaretsky the various statements we have
printed in this article, and his responses were fairly uniform.
He said that Marvin Sandler is a liar. He denied that Maxi-Aids
had submitted ILA's watch to the Texas Commission for the Blind
and also denied that a bid with crossed-out prices had been
entered. He said that Texas would not have accepted such a bid. 
He later said that if such a bid was submitted, the alterations
would have been made in the Maxi-Aids office and that Mitchell's
initials would have been put by the parts that were crossed-out. 
Zaretsky said that Maxi-Aids has never copied anybody else's
catalogue or anybody else's photos. 
     We read Zaretsky the statement of Elliot Schreier. He
responded by saying that Schreier is a liar. Then he asked if we
knew why "the American Foundation for the Blind went down the
tubes"--presumably referring to AFB's liquidation of its aids and
appliances department. He wanted to know whether we knew that
Elliot Schreier had "tried to buy the American Foundation for the
Blind"--again presumably referring to the Foundation's aids and
appliances department. 
     He said that Schreier had, indeed, come to his office but
that what Schreier wanted was quite different from Schreier's
statement to us. He hinted that Schreier had made shady
proposals, but when we tried to pursue the matter, he said that
he didn't want to say anything bad about anybody--that everybody
should just get along and work with each other. 
     We asked Mr. Zaretsky about the shipping of Maxi-Aids
watches in boxes containing National Federation of the Blind
logos. He said that such shipments had been made. He said that a
number of boxes containing NFB logos had been left over from the
time the Federation had bought watches from Maxi-Aids and that
twelve or fourteen watches were sent out in these boxes. When we
pointed out that this was an illegal and unauthorized use of the
NFB's logo, he said that he had stopped the use of the boxes as
soon as he learned about it. 
     Zaretsky said that Maxi-Aids was started about ten years ago
in order to provide a business for his deaf son, Harold. As
already noted, he first said that Harold now owns the company and
then that Harold is only in the process of owning the company. He
said that Harold is married and that he and his wife are
expecting a child. 
     With respect to the bid that was made to the Department of
Veterans Affairs, Zaretsky said that the claim of being a
minority owned company was a mistake made by Mitchell. He said
that Mitchell had made the error of believing that Maxi-Aids was
a minority-company because it is owned by Jews. Zaretsky said
that Jews are, after all, a minority. He said that the
investigator from the Department of Veterans Affairs was, as he
put it, a "nice man," who said, "Forget the whole thing." 
     When we read him the statement from E. L. Bryenton, Zaretsky
said that Bryenton was a liar. He said that it was true that he
was holding more than $6,000 of Bryenton's money and that he
intended to continue to hold it until Bryenton apologized to him
for the way Bryenton had behaved. He said that Bryenton was
supposed to give him six months' notice before canceling the
contract and that he hadn't done so. When we read him Bryenton's
statement that the contract called for a cancellation notice of
sixty days, Zaretsky said that maybe it did but that Bryenton had
given him no notice at all.  
     Immediately after our conversation with Zaretsky we called
Bryenton, who began his response with the comment, "So many
untruths." Bryenton said Zaretsky and Maxi-Aids repeatedly
violated the provisions of the Brytec contract and that he gave
Maxi-Aids two verbal notices, followed by a written notice. He
said that Zaretsky called him to say that he was willing to have
the contract canceled if Bryenton would sell him twenty-one more
NOTE TELLERS to satisfy outstanding orders. Bryenton says that he
agreed to this and was about to ship the NOTE TELLERS when he
learned that Maxi-Aids had canceled its check for the previous
shipment. Apparently this is the money Zaretsky says he is now
holding. Bryenton said he is still having trouble in trying to
repair the damage done by the misrepresentations made by Maxi-
Aids.
     When we mentioned the name of Ann Morris, Mr. Zaretsky said
that she is a nice person, one who does business with him on a
continuing basis. When we read him the statement by Morris, he
said that she was not telling the truth. He said that the wallet
in question was not hers at all but that even if it was, there
would have been nothing wrong with what was claimed.  He said
that you could take a product (a game of Scrabble, for instance),
modify it a little, and sell it as your own without any problem. 
     Shortly after our conversation with Zaretsky, we contacted
Ann Morris, who repeated her statement that she had provided the
money to develop the wallet. She said that she would never sell
anything to Maxi-Aids that was not generally available on the
market since she felt that the Zaretskys would copy it and sell
it as their own, and that she never buys anything from Maxi-Aids
if she can possibly get it anywhere else. She said that she feels
the Zaretskys are completely unethical. 
     When we told Zaretsky of the charges by Mohymen Saddeek,
Zaretsky said that Saddeek is a liar. Zaretsky said it would be
foolish to suppose that anybody would sell a Seiko watch for
twenty-five or thirty dollars; and when we told him that this was
exactly the point, he simply repeated that this was foolishness.
     Zaretsky said that he had worked at Vis-Aids until about ten
years ago and that he had left on good terms. When we told him
that Vis-Aids said that he had not left on good terms, he said
that he had had no problems with Henry Eisen, the owner of Vis-
Aids, but that his wife had had a problem. He declined to say
what the problem was. 
     Toward the end of the interview, Zaretsky hinted at all
kinds of wrongdoing on the part of others in the blindness field,
but he declined to be specific. He said such things as, "It
wasn't my son who was indicted for fraud," and "I could say
things about the bankruptcy." He ended by saying that all of
those that we had discussed are, as he put it, "nice people." He
said that he didn't want to say anything bad about anybody. 
     There you have the litany of charges and denials. What are
we to make of it? We carefully examined a Maxi-Aids low-vision
watch, and it clearly says on its face that it is a Japan
movement. When we removed the back, we found stamped on the
movement the words "one 1 jewel." We examined documents from both
Maxi-Aids and Independent Living Aids, and we believe there is no
doubt that copying of photographs and text occurred, as well as
cutting and pasting. We have examined the 1992 Maxi-Aids
catalogue, and page nineteen is headed "Men's Low Vision Watches:
Swiss made." Page nineteen contains listings for both manual and
quartz watches. The heading clearly indicates that all are
covered by the Swiss-made claim. Page twenty is much the same,
with the added fact that the claim is made that all Maxi-Aids
watches have a seventeen-jewel movement. 
     This is the evidence we found, and the charges are serious.
This is why we have presented these lengthy statements and
reports in such exhaustive and tiresome detail. The implications
are too important to permit any other kind of treatment. These
matters affect every blind person in the United States and every
sighted person who is engaged in work with the blind or who has a
blind family member.
     All of us in the blindness field (consumer organizations,
service providers, and manufacturers and vendors of appliances)
have a trust and an obligation. In the struggle of the blind to
move from second-class status to first-class membership in
society, there are roadblocks enough without having to deal with
questionable behavior from within. We who are blind seek not only
the rights and privileges but also the responsibilities of
citizenship. An important part of those responsibilities is self-
policing and scrupulous conduct.