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Santa letters company in Sarasota accused of scamming customers gets sued

Posted at 7:00 PM, Jan 05, 2018
and last updated 2018-01-05 19:00:55-05

Two Sarasota business owners are getting sued after the I-Team reported several customers complained they got scammed.

RELATED: Santa letter company in Sarasota on customers' naughty list after several complaints

They're supposed to be delivering Santa letters and products to families who purchased them, but as Investigator Jarrod Holbrook found, not everyone is getting their goods.

The federal lawsuit was recently filed in Michigan. That's because a similar company there claims the two Sarasota business owners stole their pictures and videos to pass off as their own.

To read the lawsuit, click here.

Holiday Printables Inc based in Sarasota is getting sued. In the law suit they're accused of trademark infringement. Several customers accuse them of straight up fraud.

"I would say they're horrible", says one customer. "I feel totally duped", another says.

The I-Team spoke to several families who say they ordered letters from Santa and other products but never got them.

Others say they were overcharged.

The Sarasota business is owned and managed by Bill Michelon and Patrick Ferlazzo. We tried talking to Michelon at his holiday decorated Sarasota home he purchased for $750,000, but Michelon declined to speak and asked us to leave his property.

Michelon and Ferlazzo own several companies together that have F ratings with the Better Business Bureau, and people at the BBB can't get ahold of the owners to discuss the complaints they've received.

Dale and Carey Gruber own PackageFromSanta.Com, the company suing Holiday Printables.

The I-Team previously showed you how the Sarasota company, which goes by "Letters From Santa" on Facebook, used pictures from the Gruber's videos they produced.

"What they're doing is wrong and needs to stop", Dale says.

The Michigan couple says they are also looking at filing formal complaints with the Attorney Generals office in Michigan and Florida.