'Quick Cash' accused of no, slow payment nationwide

Time’s running out for a slow-paying “Quick Cash” business based in Beaumont, with clients from all over the U.S. saying “Not so fast” to the owner’s alleged stall tactics. Now, Quick Cash’s outraged clients are demanding the money they say they are owed, a return of the merchandise they mailed to the company’s owner in good faith, or a full-scale investigation into what they call a pattern of behavior that has the internet buzzing with thousands of bad reviews.

“QuickCash4TestStrips,” a Beaumont-based “.com” company with  clients predominately culled from the internet, is owned and operated by Richard “Dick” Spillman, according to filings with the Secretary of State and hundreds of reviews that call out the owner and his cohort Sharon Erby by name. As the name implies, Spillman’s business model includes purchasing diabetic test strips from private persons – allegedly paying out cash for the products in a “quick” process via the postal service or PayPal. Reasons for possessing extra test strips, clients shared, include no longer testing, having a surplus from a deceased loved one and changing testing meters.

On Google, the company sports 1.9-star review; on Trust Pilot, a 1.2. Each rating company has hundreds of reviews to rate Quick Cash by, but the lion’s share of complaints are now being forwarded to the Better Business Bureau serving Southeast Texas (BBB). As of press time, the local BBB has had 998 complaints lodged against the diabetic test strip buyer, 510 in the last year alone, and lists Quick Cash with an F rating – the lowest it goes in the rating system, reporting over 4,000 inquiries into the company also just over the last year alone.

Among the complaints, the chief being the lack of “quick cash,” clients report receiving post-dated checks for payment, receiving only partial payment, and the owner threatening to withhold payment based on the client’s reviews of the company.

As revealed in the pattern of complaints lodged against Spillman and Quick Cash, the company allegedly defines “quick” in a manner unrecognizable to most. For certain, Daniel Beals of New York doesn’t see the “quickness” in the company’s payouts for products. Month after month, Beal said he waited for payment for test strips sent to Spillman’s company, but received no resolution until after he got the local BBB involved.

Beals reported that he sent in nine boxes of strips with an agreed payment price of $484 at the end of 2020. By March 2021, Beals had still not been paid – and he was beginning to wonder if he would ever see the money he was owed. Beals reached out to the local BBB, hoping to get a payment in full, or the return of the merchandise.

BBB Operations Associate Ivy Cobb facilitated 28 complaint notes, back and forths between Shanks and Spillman, and, eventually, payment. Through Cobb and the BBB, Spillman’s responses to Beal’s attempts to collect payment were myriad: The company bank account was hacked; the check was in the mail indefinitely; confusing Fridays; metered postage mixups; staffing shortage; tight cash flow for the business…

Nearly one year after sending in test strips in lieu of “Quick Cash,” Beals was finally paid in full, he reported.

Michael Shanks from North Carolina eventually brought his complaint to the Southeast Texas BBB approximately two months after sending test strips to Quick Cash. Shanks still hadn’t received payment as promised, and he hopes that the BBB could get a better response than he could all alone. After about four months of working with the BBB to facilitate payment, Shanks’ case was closed as unresolved.

In Shanks’ case, he was also informed that “the check is in the mail” soon after filing a complaint with the local BBB. That check, like many of those allegedly sent out to other complainants, never materialized. Two months after the check was allegedly mailed off, the intended recipient reported no evidence of such.

BBB’s Cobb handled many complaints forwarded to the nonprofit regarding Quick Cash and owner Dick Spillman. In 2019, Cobb fielded more than 60 complaints regarding Quick Cash, an unusually high number compared to most caseloads in the Golden Triangle. By 2020, the number of complaints grew more plentiful, totaling over 100. By 2021, the number of complaints generated at the BBB solely regarding Quick Cash were so numerous that the agency was forced to acquire outside staff to assist.

“Basically, we had to pay someone else – there were that many complaints,” BBB Dispute Resolution and Retention Director Jay Sheppard said.

In February 2020, Spillman addressed Quick Cash clients via his website, alleging that the majority of people seeling their test strips to Quick Cah were satisfied customers; those who weren’t satisfied, he stated, could be “chronic complainers, have too much free time or are just plain mean and enjoy causing trouble.”

Spillman explains that the complaints against his company are actually slowing down quick cash payments by aggravating him and his limited staff.

“The daily flood of emails and phone calls from these type people results in my staff spending way too much time trying to answer all of their multiple and frankly harassing inquiries, which makes it impossible for them to answer everyone’s legitimate emails and phone calls and takes valuable time away from their task of processing payments and slows down response times and payments for everyone,” Spillman wrote to clientele. “I am not going to increase my staff in order to deal with this situation.”

Spillman said that he has stopped “guaranteeing payment in any certain number of days” and instead will “process payments in the order received and get them sent as soon as possible.”

“If you are looking for instant or overnight or expedited payment for your test strips, or if for any reason you are really desperate for money, we are not the company for you.  If you are the type of person I described above, please don’t even get started with doing business with us.”

According to Spillman’s representation to his clientele, Quick Cash had a client base of 14,000 in 2020; and over 20,000 clients as of Spillman’s representation to the BBB. Using the largest of Spillman’s client estimates, and confirmed complaints to the local BBB, 1 in every 20 of Spillman’s clients has reached out to the local entity. BBB President Liz Fredrichs said it isn’t uncommon for persons to have complaints, and not report them.

“If it’s not a huge amount of money, some just write it off,” Fredrichs shared. The same goes for the policing and investigatory agencies complaints are reported to: If the amount of loss isn’t high, the priority to investigate isn’t high, either.

Quick Cash consumer Caroline Korn said that she felt criminally violated by Spillman’s business practices, and sought help from the BBB after months of trying to get paid from Quick Cash for products Spillman acknowledged he received.

“I thought it was out of the ordinary, but I waited as suggested,” when “Sharon” told her it would be about 30 days before she received payment for the test strips sent to Quick Cash, Korn advised. “I received confirmation from the USPS that the package was received April 11. I phoned the company several times and left messages inquiring as to the pay terms, no response.”

Subsequent calls were met with a voice recording that the number was no longer in service.

“I wish I would have read the hundreds of complaints,” Korn dismayed. “This is fraud, theft and, of course, unethical. No communication is egregious to all these good-hearted people who have sent their diabetic equipment and have been unpaid.”
Despite repeated attempts to get an update on Korn’s payment, Spillman hadn’t responded to the BBB’s inquiries as of June 22.

Jefferson County District Attorney Bob Wortham said that, when a cluster of complainants join forces, the relatively small losses afforded to each can be collected together to really get justice for persons who defraud any people for small amounts. The victims of such crimes have an option to obtain justice, Wortham said, and are not bound by jurisdictional limitations.

“If you have people across Southeast Texas – or the U.S. – that have been victims of crime, they can file in their home county or in the home county of the alleged suspect,” Wortham explained. “What you may find, is maybe the case is too small to file in New York. But, they could also get together and raise the stakes.

“If someone swindled 25 people and those 25 people got together and tried to file a complaint in Jefferson County, that would take into account the cumulative of all the victims. For example, $1,000 (theft) is a misdemeanor in most areas. But if they stole from 100 people, at $1,000 each – $100,000 would be a felony.”

Wortham suggested that the complainants are on the right track by getting the local BBB involved.

“The Better Business Bureau could really point them in the right direction,” Wortham said. “The BBB has been a good source of information for our cases – and they can send a direct referral to our office.”

“BBB is very concerned with the number of complaints,” Fredrichs said, to which she and the staff added that they would very much like to see the company rectify the issued that are the root cause of the complaints.

“We’re not here to put people out of business,” Cobb said. “We’re here to make them want to be a better business.”

Fredrichs, Sheppard and Cobb all advise consumers to check out business at bbb.org prior to getting financially intertwined.

“We’re here to help,” Sheppard said.