Marvin Zindler, Consumer Lawman
A stylish, self-proclaimed public protector battles deception in business and poor taste in fashion.
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As much as Zindler relishes his reputation as a dandy, it is likely he enjoys his duties as the consumer's friend and protector even more. He brings almost unlimited energy and enthusiasm to his job. Each case, while he is working on it, becomes in his mind the most important problem he has handled, and he will spend hours trying to convince newsmen that it should be written up and shared with the public. His efforts as head of the consumer fraud division have spanned almost every conceivable area and include the trivial and zany as well as the serious. A short sampling of Zindler cases includes:
A charge of using the American flag to advertise, filed against the advertising manager of Foley's after the store ran an ad featuring a drawing of Old Glory. The manager drew a probated jail term.
Charges of deceptive advertising lodged against the managers of two Houston Walgreen's drug stores because, Zindler said, the stores did not carry a particular brand and size of candy that had been advertised.
The theft case against Texas Motor Exchange's Enright.
A theft charge against a roofer who allegedly did not finish a job he contracted for.
A theft by false pretext charge against a TV repairman who allegedly did not install all the new parts he billed a customer for.
A full-dress grand jury investigation of odometer rollbacks by car dealers. Only one criminal charge, a perjury indictment against an odometer repairman, resulted from the probe, but Harris County auto dealers resolved to ask the new legislature for criminal penalties for turning back mileage indicators.
And, in one of his most bizarre cases, Zindler filed a theft by false pretext charge against a gypsy.
Zindler tells the story this way: A gypsy fortune teller, visited by a woman, told the customer her family was infested with evil spirits and, for a price, the fortune teller would get rid of the spirits. The customer came back, complaining that she was still having problems. The fortune teller replied that now she needed a refrigerator to bury the spirits in. So the unfortunate lady went to the store, bought a refrigerator, and had it delivered to the gypsy. The lady's husband came home, found the sales slip for the refrigerator and, after hearing his wife's story, complained to Zindler about the fortune teller. Zindler visited the gypsy and found the refrigerator being used to store food and drinks. He filed the theft charge. "I wouldn't have arrested them if they had buried the refrigerator," Zindler said. He later dismissed the case when the gypsy made full restitution.
As the variety of his cases suggests, Zindler does not have any master plan for cracking down on consumer fraud. The impression is more that of a man reacting to a series of phone calls and visits from the grieved customer. The phone jingles and Zindler springs into action. "I like to work on one problem or a series of related cases until we get the thing cleared up, then move on to something else." Most of the time he does not initiate any investigation or file any charge without first having a complaint from a citizen.
He is not particularly interested in obtaining a glossy string of convictions. "We don't consider going to court a success," he says. "We want the customer to get taken care of after we get in the case. If we get a bunch of convictions, that means we're not successful, we're not able to work out the problems between the merchant and the customer. That means the customer is not getting any restitution." He says he prefers to resolve a problem with a phone call.
He shares with the Federal Trade Commission a passion for bringing honesty to advertising, expecially where large, established businesses are concerned. He searches both Houston papers daily for deceptive ads, and can pick them out easily because "I wrote more phony ads than any of those people when I was in the clothing business."
"Just because a man wears a suit and tie and has a store doesn't make him different from anyone else in the eyes of the law," Zindler says. "There's no reason for a big store to advertise something for sale and then not have it." Zindler feels, though, that the big boys of business are pretty clean in their dealings with customers. "They're going to be in business tomorrow. Their operation is based on tomorrow. We worry about the merchant who seems more concerned about making a fast buck today and doesn't care about tomorrow."
Zindler says some consumer problems in other parts of the country don't seem to be prevalent in Houston. "Consumer chiefs in other cities and states have told me that a lot of their complaints stem from grocery stores—overpricing, bad advertisements and the like. We get very, very few complaints on grocery stores."
Zindler says he does get a lot of complaints about merchants not backing up their warranties and guarantees. "We've been pretty successful talking to these people on the phone," he says. "And as a general rule we find that a warranty is only as good as the company you buy from." He feels, though, that he or anyone else is powerless to substantially alter the number of bruised and dissatisfied consumers. "The consumer problems probably haven't changed much here since we started up. Wherever there's money and people involved, you're going to have problems."
Sometimes, however, Zindler can spot an illegal operation where higher ranking law enforcement officials have seen none. He scored what he considers to be one of his major consumer victories against Tussey & Associates Success Clubs, Inc., after Harris County District Attorney Carol Vance and Houston Police Chief Herman Short said they could find nothing illegal in the club's operation.
Zindler, after several members complained to him, initiated an investigation of Tussey, a success-motivation organization which offered seminars and lectures on self-confidence. The firm had clubs in 11 Texas cities. Estimates placed the membership as high as 8000 persons who had invested more than $10 million. One lawyer described it as "a Dale Carnegie operation with the added lure of a quick and handsome profit." The club, operating on a chain-letter principle, sold memberships for $150 to $500. Members then earned $80 to $l50 for each new member they recruited and smaller commissions when the new members in turn recruited others. Zindler persuaded a grand jury to probe the club, even though Vance at first said the firm was not violating state law and Short concurred with the district attorney's position.
The grand jury indicted several Tussey officials on charges of operating a lottery and, after subsequent actions in civil courts, Tussey closed its operations in Texas. Mark Vela, an assistant district attorney who participated in much of the Tussey litigation, credits Zindler with the initial thrust behind probes that led to indictments and court orders against the company. "Without him (Zindler), the investigation would have died somewhere along the way. Had it not been for his persistence, we would not have gotten them," Vela says.
Vela admires Zindler's determination, but contributes his own story about Zindler's preoccupation with Zindler. As Vela tells it, he once left his office while Zindler was making a series of phone calls from the assistant district attorney's phone. When he returned, Zindler was gone, but he discovered that Zindler, like almost anyone else, doodles while using the phone. "Only most people draw circles or pictures or make notes," Vela said. "Marvin had filled an entire page with two words: Marvin Zindler. He wrote them in every way imaginable, in block letters, in script, big and small. It was a whole page of Marvin Zindlers."
Zindler was using Vela's office on another occasion when he announced one of his most off-beat consumer cases: Acting on a complaint that a man was not paying off on football game bets, Zindler arrested the man and charged him with possession of bookmaking paraphernalia. At that time Zindler said he didn't care what kind of complaint a consumer had; he just intended to enforce the law. "I don't care whether it's a store not delivering what it advertises, a repairman not fixing television sets, a stock fraud scheme or a gambler not paying off. I'll get 'em." he said. Meanwhile, the modly-dressed defendant sat morosely in a corner of the office, maintaining that he was in investments and did not owe anyone any money.
Such capers have earned Zindler criticism from some unlikely sources, including the Better Business Bureau of Metropolitan Houston and other lawmen. The Better Business Bureau, in a newsletter published shortly after Zindler moved into the consumer fraud area, accused him of "generalized, irresponsible public statements." Loyd Frazier, until recently the chief deputy of the Harris County sheriff's office, says he sometimes had complaints about Zindler from other deputies because Zindler seemed to like publicity too much. "I had to get on Marvin once or twice because it didn't look good for the prosecution of a case to have the TV cameras on the spot for the arrest. Then it looks like he's doing it just for the publicity." Frazier lauds Zindler as "a real good officer. When he gets something, he won't let up. He gets carried away sometimes. He seems to have an ego that, when he gets an assignment, no matter how large or small, he stays with it."
Some members of the district attorney's staff, men who must prosecute the cases Zindler files, despair at Zindler's zeal, which they feel is untempered with a good working knowledge of the law. "There's no way I can make a case like that stick," is a common complaint. Zindler freely admits he is no lawyer, but he says he tries to look up the law before he files a case. In the Tussey probe, he says, he had a gut instinct that the firm was illegal, though he didn't know what laws it was violating.
He professes not to worry about the pokes and jabs from his critics, saying he just wants to do his job and he wants that job to be in law enforcement. Before the first of the year, there was common speculation that Jack Heard, the incoming Harris County sheriff, would keep the consumer fraud division but move Zindler to a less visible position in the sheriff's operation.
As this issue went to press, Texas Monthly learned that Heard had fired Zindler. Zindler is considering running for public office.
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