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.
Well then fuck you :: cause this ain’t no blog … and if you really loved it you’d’ve already known that.
Here’s how to blog :: in five easy steps …
1) write an opening sentence that attempts to be quippy … and fails
2) add a couple of lines about this or that problem … or this or that cat
3) talk briefly {or ad nauseam} about something you read in some other publication somewhere
and/or
3) talk briefly {or ad nauseam} about someone else’s blogish opinion about something they read in some other publication somewhere
and/or
3) just talk shit ad nauseam about whatever :: nobody fucking cares anyway … so accuracy and relevancy aren’t important considerations … just like on cable news networks
4) quote extensively from the original sources to pad your word count … because as everyone who has never been a writer can tell you … the more words something has the better it must be
5) link back to the OG source so as not to cause an interwebz rage war
Anywayz :: turd spewing pageview whoring turd site Gawker :: whose mission is all about smearing turds all around everywhere turd style … is pretty sure you need this sex tape in your life.
“We watch this footage because it’s something we’re not supposed to see (sometimes) but we come away satisfied that when famous people have sex it’s closer to the sex we as civilians have from time to time. Meaning: it’s hardly ever sexy the way we expect it to be sexy, even when the participants are ostensibly more attractive than the majority of our sex partners will be.”
Well that’s high-minded :: meth high … that sweet sweet “disassemble a toothbrush a bristle at a time just because you fucking can” high.
BlogWorld & New Media Expo co-founder and CEO Rick Calvert needs me to be wrong :: because if I’m right … then he and his sham of a scam disguised as a convention are very much part of an ugly and shameful problem. But I fucking doubt I’m wrong :: which is why instead of agreeing to give a BlogWorld keynote … I scared Rick Calvert away with some super easy questions.
Rick likes thinking about tacos :: not about his own culpability in the suffering of others … so he was none to pleased when he looked into my robotic mirror mirror and found himself lacking. He was even less pleased shortly thereafter when hip-as-shit tech culture site The Verge printed a big important article independently substantiating many of this site’s primary themes.
So Rick Calvert contrived a solution to his problem that wouldn’t require any genuine self-reflection :: he’d hire a real reporter to get to the bottom of how I never really get to the bottom of anything because I’m not a real reporter … it’s all just fat jokes about fat girls and baseless innuendo. Says Rick …
“It won’t be a hit piece full of insults. It is a simple objective piece of journalism. The problem is; it has taken us weeks to find someone willing to even consider writing the story. No one would speak to a journalist on the record about you for fear of being associated with you.”
Mike Koenigs is a fucking disease :: so it’s kinda confusing that he has a disease … I guess even parasites can get cancer. Disease fight!
Says Mike in a super classy sales email …
It’s the most significant public admission I’ve ever made. It revolves around “The C Word”.
Yup, you guessed it. Cancer.
Did I guess cancer? I didn’t even know we were guessing … and then you blurted the answer before I got done thinking about what was revolving around “The C Word” … maybe “The D Word”? Also :: that’s not technically an “admission” … but who’s quibbling? It’s just that every word is so :: so … stupid.
$53,000,000 :: fifty-three fucking million … that’s how much money the government claims 1500 investors around the world dumped into the bottomless fraud coffers of Senen Pousa via Mike Dillard.
It’s a depressing shit ton of money … I was much happier not knowing.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission lays it out in their complaint …
“During the relevant period, IIC and Pousa have accepted at least $53,000,000 from an estimated 1,500 investors in the United States, Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands and Singapore. They have done so by using emails and sophisticated internet webcasts, and webinars sent directly to investors via their websites… Pousa has also solicited investors for his fraudulent scheme through a third-party website called The Elevation Group …
In May 2012, investors learned that Pousa’s offering was a massive fraud.”
Pretty much :: maybe “sophisticated” isn’t the best adjective to describe webinars … but I guess it’s hard to gain a proper perspective on the webz while browsing from IE6 on your government issue Windows XP computer.
