In 2013, Herbalife, facing a full-on assault from a hedge fund manager still bitter about not rowing varsity crew at Harvard; a class action lawsuit inexplicably emanating from Salt Lake City; and several ominous Sword of Damocles style government inquires… added a mandatory arbitration and class waiver provision to its ridiculous consumer “contract”.
Here’s the first version of that provision. (Please make sure to read every word carefully because it’s desperately important to the story. I can’t overemphasize the importance of reading the provision, in its entirety, before continuing.)
SECTION 29 ARBITRATION AGREEMENT FOR DISPUTES BETWEEN MEMBERS AND HERBALIFE
Jessie Conners Tieva is a scammer who’s spent most of the last ten years fronting for various Utah fraud operations. She’s a grinder–always out on the road, talking about doing things she’s never done. Jessie is one of the few scammers who I’ve had the pleasure of heckling in person. When we met in a half empty hotel conference room in Chicago six years ago, she was fronting for the Robert Kiyosaki Rich Dad Poor Dad Utah-backed op.
This week Jessie and her husband Matt Tevia were busted by the FTC and the Minnesota Attorney General for operating a short-lived hustle called Sellers Playbook.
The Fake News should be running the headline:
Trump University “Professor” and Failed “Apprentice” Busted for Fraud
This is my most viewed video. It’s amazing. I won’t pretend that I don’t love it–the greed, the panting, the epic drama of secret audio recordings.
It’s been floating around the internet for eight years now, but it’s not allowed on YouTube. My heartbreaking work of staggering genius has been taken down from the big social media sites an absolutely uncomical amount of times.
This article is brought to you by the advertising that brings you Slate.
I started sometimes reading Slate when Slate started publishing stuff to read. Slate, an exclusively online news magazine, was one of the first of its kind. I thought it was going to change the world. Back then I naively thought that just about everything that was happening on the fledgling web was going to change the world.
Oh, M&M’s have their own website now? This is going to change the world!
Bloomberg reports that top YouTube stars can expect poverty level wages. That doesn’t surprise you because you’re sophisticated (and good looking, and smart, and conscientious) and you read a site taglined: “… you can’t make money online.” But other–lesser–people are surprised.
Straight to the guts:
Breaking into the top 3 percent of most-viewed channels could bring in advertising revenue of about $16,800 a year, Bärtl found in an analysis for Bloomberg News. That’s a bit more than the U.S. federal poverty line of $12,140 for a single person. (The guideline for a two-person household is $16,460.) The top 3 percent of video creators of all time in Bärtl’s sample attracted more than 1.4 million views per month.
That’s almost enough money to buy gas, drive to the library, and take a nap.
One in 3 British children age 6 to 17 told pollsters last year that they wanted to become a full-time YouTuber. That’s three times as many as those who wanted to become a doctor or a nurse.
You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney–and obviously you cannot–then screw you.
That’s how the law “works” for real people. The system is built for, and run by, powerful synthetic people. Corporations, cartels, partnerships, shells, professional associations, unions, and government agencies are “the people”–the people are the pawns.
When Herbalife needs lawyers to fight off fraud claims, they get to pick from the biggest and the bestest. It makes no difference that their business model is a blatant deception bringing about a humanitarian crisis. Members of the legal monopoly don’t have to care about petty triflings like morality. Herbalife’s got the cash to put up a huge retainer–and to pay legal bills larger than the operating budgets of most companies–so the “best” lawyers and law firms are immediately available to them… less than no questions asked.
“Our new name, Herbalife Nutrition, reflects our strategic transformation as a leader in the nutrition industry.”
They’ve strategically transformed into a leader in nutrition. But they don’t sell food; they sell food replacements isolated from commodity crops and industrialized into unnatural pills and powders. It’s the opposite of everything that science, and life, has to tell us about nutritiousness.
The shifty internet marketing outfit Cambridge Analytica, attached to the shifty editor of internet propaganda site Breitbart.com, attached to the shifty too-old-for-the-internet billionaire Robert Mercer; mined Facebook data and used it to target voters.
Also, if you need any Ukrainian prostitute type stuff… that’s a yes for Cambridge Analytica. They do it all - from spamming, to expounding on spamming, to pretending that they know a guy who knows a guy who does murders while spamming.
On September 18, 2017, myself (an online activist) and my longtime friend Etan Mark (an offline litigator) filed a federal class action lawsuit against Herbalife’s fraudulent Circle of Success event system.
The suit doesn’t accuse Herbalife of being a pyramid scheme, or make any claim for damages related to the purchase of Herbalife’s products. Instead, it focuses on a cartel of shady creeps who run a dirty side business mandating that victims spend small fortunes attending a never-ending sequence of expensive events.
Live events are the backbone of the Herbalife scam, and of the scam industry in general; the draw and the glue that makes all of the life ruining possible. It can’t be “too good to be true” when you can see other people believing that it is true. The best weapon against nice people is other nice people.
It’s a good :: and fair … question to be asking if you find yourself enmeshed in a sticky stinky web of Herbalife’s outright fucking lies. Google gets asked the question so often :: that many unicorn distributors focus their marketing attention on phrases like “Herbalife Scam” … rather than on more positive phrases like “Herbalife Formula 1 Wild Berry™ FTW!”
But if you’re a journalist asking that question :: then you’re not a journalist … and don’t let society’s lazy labeling convince you otherwise.
“Is Herbalife a pyramid scheme? Some Wall Street assholes say yes :: while other Wall Street assholes say no … tonight on CNBC ActionNews!”
Utah’s new {but already fucking corrupt} Attorney General John Swallow is a “real conservative” :: not some fake ass conservative like Mitt Romney … or Hitler. “Real conservatives” make home-craft-sunset-word-art for Republican nominating conventions :: fake conservatives move to Berkeley and get AIDS … simple as that.
… or something.
It’s lucky for Mr. Swallow that he’s a “real conservative” :: because he’s certainly not a “real lawyer” … having had no real legal experience before becoming Utah’s chief legal officer. Unless you count losing elections and lobbying for the payday loan and pyramidal supplements “industries” as legal experience {which you shouldn’t … because duh}. Swallow’s opponent in the Republican primary :: Sean Reyes … had more than a decade of experience as a litigator. But he’s a half-Filipino from Hawaii :: so he’s obviously from Kenya … just like FakePresident Obama. No real Republican can trust a fake Kenyan.
Funny story :: one of Utah’s largest boiler rooms … is located in New York City. That’s the end of the funny part of the story :: I hope you laughed your ass off … because the rest of it is fucking terrible.
Or as the FTC :: and the New York and Florida Attorney Generals :: put it in their lawsuit last week …
“This scam has victimized thousands of individual consumers, many of whom are unemployed or elderly. Defendants have defrauded each victim out of thousands, sometimes tens of thousands, of dollars and have taken in over $220 million since 2008.
The Tax Club and its related entities and principals have preyed upon consumers… What began as one company in Utah has expanded into a sprawling enterprise operating out of the 60th floor of the Empire State Building that now encompasses at least twelve interrelated corporate entities, all controlled by four individuals”
Two of those individuals :: Tedd Johnson and Michael Savage … are pictured above enjoying a nice day on a boat yo … spending your grandma’s retirement money and having a big old laugh about it while she’s contemplating suicide.
Jeremy Johnson is totally innocent :: just kidding … he was going to accept a plea deal that had him only doing 10 years in prison rather than the 12,000 years he’d need to do in order for his time to be commensurate with his fucked up crimes.
But he’s innocent according to this little propaganda video he had made about his innocence …
… I’d tell a joke about it :: but I’m sure you’re already laughing.
The plea deal fell apart :: with Johnson wanting a list of people the government would agree not to prosecute entered on the record at the last moment {unorthodox} … and the government not wanting to do that even though not prosecuting fraudsters is their specialty.
On Johnson’s list was Utah’s new Attorney General :: John Swallow … which seems odd because you’d expect Johnson to be hating Shurtleff & Swallow right about now :: for failing to deliver on the no enforcement zone. But then he dropped his ginger bomb on The Salt Lake Tribune …
Tomorrow Herbalife CEO Michael Johnson :: and his saggy band of morally culpable senior executives … are due to present their fake company’s response to Bill Ackman’s truth {and money} attack on their fucking obvious pyramid scheme.
Strange that it takes more than two weeks for the country’s highest paid CEO to come up with a decent {or not} defense to such a direct challenge on the legality of his business model :: but I guess he’s really busy coming up with neat new flavors for low-end shake mix … or something.
According to Michael O. Johnson … all of this talk about Herbalife being a scam is totally new to Michael O. Johnson. In another time and place he may have resorted to feigning ignorance by rapidly fanning his face with a monogramed kerchief …
{affected}
“How dare you Mr. Bill Ackman? How dare you sir?”
{swoon}
{Jim Cramer enters stage right … gently strokes Johnson’s forehead and wallet until he recovers.}
It must have been confusing for Mr. Johnson when he searched Google to find out if Ackman was right about Herbalife being a total sham/scam :: only to find most of the Internet’s useful information on the topic {that hadn’t already been removed by agressive legal posturing} buried under a huge fucking pile of FTC rule-violating fake reviews posted by unicorn industry boosters … and his own distributors.
You can bury the truth … but eventually someone {or some robot} is gonna come along with a shovel.
