Local company caught selling expired pet supplements

LEE COUNTY, Fla. – A WINK News Call for Action investigation found a local company sold expired pet supplements.

The company, known as Flexcin, makes and sells supplements for humans and pets to aid in joint pain. After receiving a tip the company was selling and giving out expired pet supplements, Call for Action investigators ordered the two products in question. One was a product called ‘FlexPet on the go,’ which is for dogs and cats. The other product was ‘FlexEquine,’ which is for horses.

When Call for Action investigators received the products, they peeled back the labels on the containers and found past-due expiration dates on the products. The FlexPet product had a small label that was covering a stamped expiration date which read ‘2/14.’ The FlexEquine product had a large label that covered half the bucket and the date ’12/14.’

Our investigators contacted a Cape Coral dog grooming business, which carried FlexPet to see if they had any of the expired product. The business, Dog Days Delight, checked a bin of samples they had from Flexcin and found all the samples were expired.

“Did you have any idea that those samples had expired,” as Call for Action Reporter Lindsey Sablan.

“Not at all. Until you brought it to our attention. We get orders every month or every three weeks about. Because it’s in such high demand because the product does work well, when you rotate something that frequently off your shelf, it’s not something you think you have to be concerned about,” said Nicole Kane, the owner of Dog Days Delight. “If you’re going to spend that much money covering something up like this and possibly harm an animal or even person, you could just make new product. I don’t understand money before health.”

WINK News went to the Flexcin warehouse in Cape Coral to speak with the owner, Tamer Elsafy. When investigators arrived, they approached the owner in the parking lot, but he refused to comment and instead slammed the door in the crew’s face.

Later, Elsafy released a statement to WINK News which read in part, “After further investigation it was discovered that…a disgruntled employee, who was in charge of order processing, deliberately violated our company policies and orchestrated an unauthorized sale to you. The FlexEquine product which you received had been taken off the shelves in early 2015 and was temporarily discontinued by us. Additionally, the product had been removed from our website and our sales agents had been specifically instructed to no longer sell or take orders for the product. When product reaches an expiration date and is no longer available for sale it is labeled as “Expired Do Not Sell” in our warehouse and is donated to Animal and Rescue Shelters. We are continuing to investigate how you were able to place an order for the product.”

Reporter Lindsey Sablan asked Elsafy how she was able to buy one of the products online if it had been taken off the website, but he was unable to explain how it happened. WINK News also asked why there were labels used to cover the expiration dates on the products if they were not supposed to be sold. Again, he did not have an answer. Meanwhile, the now ex-employee Elsafy claimed intentionally sold the expired products denied the allegations.

After our investigation, Elsafy did assure WINK News the expired supplements would not be sold again. He also visited Dog Days Delight and restocked the store’s samples with up-to-date products, and he reimbursed WINK News for the expired products we were able to purchase.

If you have this product or any other supplements at home that are expired, local veterinarian Dr. Eleanor Cooke recommends you throw them away just to be safe. Dr. Cooke said the supplements should not harm your animals, but you do not know if the product is as effective if it’s expired.