Community Rallies to Help Save Family-Owned Business

The Putnam County community reacted with an absolute tsunami of support last week upon learning that family-owned and operated Oscom Communications in Carmel was being forced to close its doors.

Longtime customer Rick Stever created the “Save Oscom” Facebook page and within a matter of a few days, more than 4,000 people had signed on.

Many of them have posted comments expressing their shock and dismay at the news and sharing letters they have emailed to Sprint, which officially yanked Oscom Communication’s right to sell or service Sprint phones on Friday, Aug. 3, to protest against the corporation’s decision and ask that it be reversed.

The owner of Oscom Communications, Richard Osmers said that selling and servicing Sprint phones comprised 90 percent of his business and without that, he will have no choice but to close the doors on the business he opened 25 years ago and already has had to let go of some of his staff.

“I can’t survive now,” Osmers said.

Osmers said his situation is not unique and that the strong reaction from the community and his customers is a result of people witnessing so many small, independent businesses being squeezed out of the market, by large corporate operations.

“They are fed up,” he said. “It used to be you could start a business, make it grow and hand it over to your kids. You can’t do that anymore. It’s a sad state of affairs we are in today.”

Osmers explained the course of events that led up to Sprint’s decision that he said came with no warning.

After having to wait three months longer than big box retailers to get new, popular models of phones, Osmers and some other small dealers joined in on an alliance in order to gain a certain status to get new inventory without waiting.

After a while, Osmers said he had serious concerns about the arrangement and began working to dissolve it and move to another distributor.

He said he had begun the official process of doing so with Sprint, but things were moving slowly. As a result, he said he reached out about two weeks ago to a regional vice president of the company for help in order to expedite moving on.

On Thursday, Aug. 2 a Sprint representative came to Osmers’ store on Route 6 and said he was there to do an audit. Osmer didn’t understand why, as he had successfully passed an audit just recently.

The next day on Friday, Aug. 3, Osmers said that he received an email telling him he was not authorized to sell or service Sprint phones based on the fact that he was operating fraudulently under the Oscom name and not the name that was created for the dealership alliance.

Osmers said this was based solely on the sign that hangs outside of his shop, that was approved by Sprint, bore the corporation’s name and logo and had not been an issue previously.

“We used our good will and good name to help Sprint,” he said, noting he had been selling the company’s products for the past 13 years.

He said he hoped the tidal wave of public support might convince Sprint to sit down with him to resolve the matter and that Putnam County Economic Development President Kevin Bailey had sent a letter to the company requesting the same.

Bailey said he has known Osmers for 25 years, dating back to when he first opened up his store.

“Let’s sit down and see what the objections are and correct them and get him back as a [dealer],” Bailey said in describing what he hoped for by requesting a meeting and noting that Oscom had a clean bill when it came to being audited by the company. “Any reason they come up with can be resolved.”

In addition, a representative of U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer is looking into the matter, according to a posting on the “Save Oscom” page.

Bailey said he hoped for a positive outcome, sooner rather than later.

“I’m not going to let it go,” Bailey said of his efforts to have Oscom’s dealership agreement reinstated. “But can the Osmers hold on long enough?”

Standing in his store on a rainy afternoon last Friday with his son Rich Jr. and his daughter Rachel, both of whom work with their father, Osmers said the clock was ticking, as without revenues coming in it would soon be impossible to keep his doors open.

Staring down this fate, the Osmers family was hit hard again by heartbreak just two days following the decision from Sprint, when Rachel’s dog Kahli, who was the beloved store mascot, was struck by a car and killed.

Paging through a string of photos on his phone of the small dog joyfully greeting customers, Osmers said the series of events had been devastating to himself, his wife Lynn and his family.

“When it rains, it pours,” he said of losing Kahli. “That was harder to take than getting shut down by Sprint.”