BrandsMart USA
Michael Perlman
BMUSA Landlord
Growth Chief Officer
President / CEO
As a ex-employee with a long term tenure, understanding the limited benefits of being employed in a retail environment, I can only imagine the betrayal of committed employees of BrandsMart USA by Michael Perlman!
Michael Perlman went from the owner of a mom and pop family based major independent regional retailer, with many dedicated long-term employees, with the Perlman family owning the properties of many of the stores, to the Aaron’s: Rent to Own Furniture, Electronics and Appliances landlord in South Florida and two stores in Atlanta Georgia.
As with all acquisitions, it’s a matter of time where the consolidation of redundant departments will be phased out resulting in those same dedicated and committed employees losing their jobs!
My prediction; Management Information Systems (MIS), Human Resources (HR) and Accounting will all be consolidated into Aaron’s: Rent to Own Furniture, Electronics and Appliances in 2023.
Update: March 16, 2023
As predicted when word of the acquisition was announced in early 2022, starting in January of 2023, Human Resources (HR) staff and Vice President, Human Resources at BrandsMart USA Janet Witczak, were let go. Management Information Systems (MIS) had a number of staff let go and Chief Information Officer (CIO) / Senior Vice President Vincent “Vinnie” Visco was demoted to programmer. Director of Development Rocky Aldrich was assigned new leadership and now both have to go to store locations to resolve any Information Technology (IT) issues that arise.
The BrandsMart USA Accounting department has also lost staff, not voluntarily, but as reductions in staff redundancies. BrandsMart USA accounting is a primarily manual function that is now being converted into Aaron’s: Rent to Own Furniture, Electronics and Appliances automated systems and will result in further reductions in BrandsMart USA staff.
There is now a new name for personnel changes within BrandsMart USA of Pink-Slip Thursday!
The Aaron’s Company, Inc.
Raymond James Institutional Investors Conference
March 8, 2023“Expanding Aarons.com assortment with BrandsMart’s broad product mix..” (Ultimately, largest benefit to the acquisition, access to manufacturer’s who would NOT sell to Aaron’s: Rent to Own Furniture, Electronics and Appliances.)
After leaving in 2018, I continued to take advantage of the BrandsMart USA‘s 401k benefit. With the acquisition, the BrandsMart benefit was offered to ex-employees and current employees have been rolled over to the Aaron’s: Rent to Own Furniture, Electronics and Appliances, which like their exaggerated pricing and fee structure that takes advantage of people, Aaron’s 401k is loaded with exaggerated fees.
Only goes to show that the only people Michael Perlman could sell BrandsMart USA to, is a company worse than he was to his employees.
As a condition of the acquisition, Michael Perlman’s title has been changed to Growth Chief Officer. Noticeably, both BrandsMart USA and Aaron’s: Rent to Own Furniture, Electronics and Appliances have not grown with Aaron’s: Rent to Own Furniture, Electronics and Appliances last press release of growth dated before the acquisition completion.
Believe I was one of the only employees who would defend one aspect of Michael Perlman’s business ethic, although did not agree with his business ethic. Do not get me wrong, never accepted his business ethic while defending the reasons for it.
The family is in an industry where pilferage is a daily issue. Imagine for years dealing on a daily basis with employee’s and customers stealing from you. It has to have an impact!
The company is sued all the time and it is to the point that the company has a relationship with mediators, when the court orders a mediation.
When I first started with BrandsMart USA, Robert “Bob” Perlman was incarcerated and Michael Perlman was extremely involved in the company, resulting in Michael Perlman taking over the family business.
Back then, Michael Perlman personally held the General Manager meetings, where the General Manager of each store came to the corporate office and discussed issues of the stores and policies, as just one example. With the eventual expansion of BrandsMart USA, Bobby Johnson took over supervision of all locations and General Managers.
Told that Michael Perlman wanted to take the company public and expand as Circuit City, hhgregg and Fry’s were doing at the time.
His expansion of the company to Georgia in 2004 was pure ego, from what I heard. From what I was told, there were no meetings about the move to Georgia in the corporate office.
Michael Perlman was at a industry buying group meeting that he got word that another retailer was moving into the Atlanta region and stood up and said that BrandsMart USA would be expanding to Atlanta.
Rapidly expanding to four locations in the Atlanta region of Georgia, the little planning resulted in 50% of the stores closed a short time later.
The great recession starting in ’08 took the wind out of his sails on expansion and, I believe, his focus on the company.
2010 brought the company into eCommerce sales. With no real funding or investment, with development and hosting all in-house. At the time Michael Perlman refused to invest in ANY type of search engine optimization or Social Media participation.
In 2012 had Michael Perlman hiring a Vice President of eCommerce. With questionable experience and highly compensated brought turmoil within the entire corporate office!
“Train people well enough so than can leave, treat them well enough so they don’t want to.”
“Take care of your employees and they will take care of your business. It is as simple as that.”
Loyal Employees are Assets – Not Liabilities!
Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson, Virgin Group
Thru my tenure, participating and watching Michael Perlmans’ business practices, hiring and promotion decisions had always been subject of question. Hiring individuals that assisted Robert “Bob” Perlman while he was incarcerated, being incarcerated themselves. As well as, the cronies hired as favors to family friends to corporate office positions with little or no experience.
He definitely shows signs of narcissistic personality disorder, a disorder in which a person has an inflated sense of self-importance. He knows everything!
Not only was Robert “Bob” Perlman involved with legal issues, Michael Perlman was accused of Sex-harassment[1] back in 1997.
He is well known for using his volume of advertising to manipulate the press BrandsMart USA receives[2]. Pulling advertising dollars from any media, television, print or radio, if the media did a disparaging story about BrandsMart USA. Particularly during the busiest season, Black Friday[3]&[4].
[1] Sun-Sentinel – Brandsmart, President Face Sex-harassment Suit – April 10, 1997
[2] Miami New Times – All Herald BrandsMart – December 19, 1996
[3] Free Republic – Woman, 73, says she was knocked down, stepped on during ‘Black Friday’ at Sawgrass Mills – November 25, 2005 (PDF)
[4] The Richest – The 15 Deadliest Black Friday Incidents In History – November 28, 2014
Michael Perlmans’ narcissistic extremes are evident in his stamp collections, to his views of the second amendment of self preservation, with a gun and ammunition collection that could rival some private militias.
In 2014, a neighbor in the gated community he lives in was murdered[5]&[5a] and shook him up pretty much. With his associations in the Police Department and FBI, purchased large amounts of firearms from pistols to rifles, obtaining licenses for specialty firearms. Large pallets of ammunition would be, and probably still does, be delivered to the corporate office and brought to his office.
Having discussions with him on the debate on assault rifles to the Hearing Protection Act[6] that legalizes a licensed firearms owner to own a silencer and remove the tax on them.
His defense of the Hearing Protection Act was because of his hearing loss and having to wear a hearing aid, I suspect from excessive use of Viagra[7], (Micheal Perlman offered me some Viagra pills to try, which I declined!) and wanted the silencer so it would not further deteriorate his hearing.
Told him that if he worried about his hearing he should pick something to do that did not effect his hearing.
[5] Sun-Sentinel – Burglar’s Arrest Solves Woman’s Mystery Death, Police Say – September 19, 2014
[5a] Jail escapee’s alibi convinced investigators he’s a killer – November 22, 2017
[6] Congress.gov – Summary: H.R.367 — 115th Congress (2017-2018) – February 6, 2017
[7] Metro Atlanta Otolaryngology – Rhinological and Otological Society, Inc. (PDF) – May, 2011
Western Cover Society
From 2007 to 2018 Western Cover Society (WCS) website was designed with all code work, content, graphics, collected, created and posted to the site by ex-employee with no supervision, funding or additional compensation other than hosting expenses.
From 2007 through 2016 the entire site was written in HTML, way before Content Management Systems (CMS) became viable, stable and cost efficient. Started development to switch to the WordPress CMS platform in 2016.
After speaking personally with Michael Perlman and emailing other society officers, I could not get any assistance or guidance to take the new CMS based site live. In the fall of 2017, took it upon myself and went live and never looked back.
In 2018 the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) took effect after my leaving the company and the site does not comply being applicable because the society does have members accessing the site from the European Union (EU). Now with the California’s new Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) on the horizon and no one maintaining the applicable issues the society may end up in a serious liability situation from both U.S. and EU laws.
From the start, my primary use for the WCS website was to test new technology and to prove to Michael Perlman that it could be used on the BrandsMart USA corporate website.
Starting with using social sharing(ITYS02) which had been utilized on the WCS website for months before transferring over to the corporate site.
The there was Google Analytics(ITYS03); the previous CIO told Michael that Google would make all our analytics public. It was not until ’12 when hiring the new expert that he relented and allowed analytics and metrics were collected.
Finally PayPal(ITYS04) payments were being used on the WCS website to collect dues from members and used as a motivator to get the BrandsMart USA MIS team on top of adding it to the corporate site.
After many trips to the Director’s Meeting in San Francisco, a constant theme was how could I work for that man (Michael Perlman)? Putting me in a peculiar position professionally having to not say a word because of the retaliation I would have to deal with back at the corporate office.
Michael Perlman made my leaving the company VERY adversarial. As a result, instead of working out an amicable separation, Michael Perlman chose to sue me for $45,000 demanding I relinquish control of the Western Cover Society website, accelerated the hearing, receiving the notice on a Friday following my last contact the Monday previous and scheduled the hearing the following Monday making it impossible to acquire representation.
At no time was the relinquishing of control EVER discussed nor was I provided with an entity to relinquish to in my discussions leaving the company.
Spent the weekend reviewing my records and went to court in downtown Fort Lauderdale. When the judge heard that the transfer was never discussed the result was, ordered to turn over control to the site within twenty-four hours and the Western Cover Society was ordered to pay me for the expenses that I showed receipts for ($300). Not a dime out of my pocket.
Too bad Michael Perlman does not have the ability to not be adversarial. The only thing he has done is make the Western Cover Society suffer.
Just a few examples of liability; No GDPR compliance, No prorated Active Membership plan and lastly, as of this writing the site is DISPLAYING all members emails that have been approved to have access to restricted pages. BIG privacy No No!
Book
Published in ’06 before my involvement with Michael Perlmans’ stamp fascination, he was quick to boast about co-authoring the book.
Asking him why he would co-author a book, he responded by saying that he had realized that there was no information available on the subject and went on a purchasing spree of all the applicable covers he could get his hands on paying fifty cents to a dollar before publication.
After the publication, the applicable covers soared in value and he had collected some of the best that were on the market and his collection’s value sky rocketed.
Sheriff’s Foundation of Broward
Back in ’15 when Michael Perlman again had an issue with another group’s website he was affiliated with, he had an associate approach me to create the Sheriff’s Foundation of Broward County website.
Facilitating obtaining a host and the foundation of the platform using WordPress but refused to develop the site because, again increasing workload with no additional compensation.
It amazes me in the fact that the importance of the transition from the http:// to the https:// secure protocol is, of this writing, NOT being adhered to.
Corporate Address:
3200 SW 42nd Street
Hollywood, FL 33312
Corporate Phone Number:
954-797-4000
Toll Free:
800-432-8579
Once, if a business, business owner did something an employee or member of the public didn’t like or disagreed with, they had little recourse besides protesting in person or to their local Better Business Bureau. Now, with the avenue of the Internet, the average person can easily voice their concerns and open a dialog to come to a compromise and/or lead to a resolution. If that opportunity by the business or business owner neglects to respond, it is up to any of those individuals to voice their response.
The most basic component of freedom of expression is the right of freedom of speech. The Supreme Court requires substantial justification for the interference with the right of free speech where it attempts to regulate the content of the speech. Generally, a person cannot be held liable, either criminally or civilly for anything written or spoken about a person or topic, so long as it is truthful or based on an honest opinion, and such statements.
Updated (March 27, 2023 @ 14:45:48)