A nationwide COVID-19 testing company is temporarily closing its locations Friday, January 14th, including the ones here in West Michigan. The Center for Covid Control is pausing operations to train and educate their staff, and employees at the 28th Street location in Grand Rapids were seen cleaning and packing up Thursday evening.
The move comes following complaints about the service there, and while some are ready to see them go, officials with the Better Business Bureau Serving Western Michigan says the company's intentions are still unclear and the investigation is still ongoing.
It's been more than a month since Holland resident Sarah Nava and her husband got a COVID test at the 28th Street location.
"As soon as we got there, if I wasn't with my husband, I wouldn't have stayed," she says.
She shared a picture with 13OYS, showing that the company was using a shipping container and a drive-thru set-up behind the strip mall.
"The guy was nice and wore a mask," Nava says. "That was the positive experience I had with that, but everything else was, really, it was suspicious."
She says she and her husband were told not to fill out the insurance portion on their paperwork, and they only got their rapid test results, but their PCR results were never shared with them. It's the same complaint made by multiple people in West Michigan and across the country.
"To hear I'm not the only one is also concerning," Nava says.
The company announced a one week closure Thursday to improve their test production and staffing capabilities.
"For this, we truly apologize and are committed to resolve these recent customer inconveniences and loss of confidence," CCC's Founder and CEO Aleya Siyaj said in a news release.
"The fact that they're talking about it and not closing in the middle of the night and disappearing with peoples' information is a good sign," BBB Director of Educational Foundation Troy Baker says.
The investigation into this Illinois-based company is still ongoing, and he says the company has taken steps that other scammers wouldn't.
"They're now in storefronts where you would expect a business to operate from," Baker says. "The fact that this company put out a release, made a statement and took the actions you would expect a company to take, that lends them a little more credibility that you might not have otherwise given them two weeks ago or a week ago."
As for Nava, she's not holding her breath.
"I definitely don't believe them, and I'm going to laugh if my results come over a month later," she says. "Like ok, is that what you had to catch up on?"
The BBB serving Western Michigan says their Chicago office is leading the investigation and there's not an exact timeline yet on how long the investigation could take, so anyone with complaints can still contact them.
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