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.
The hippie hipsters at The New Yorker liked Joe Flatley’s Scamworld epic. Says they :: between sips of green tea and shit …
Another fun piece, with a marvellous and innovative Web layout, is Joseph Flatley’s “Scamworld,” from The Verge, about the dark, wacky world of Internet con men.
It really was a fun and innovative layout. Did you notice there were no links? So many subtle touches signaling that the piece was something important … something different. The Verge really is doing amazingly creative things with layout and design :: if you’re into that sort of thing … which of course I’m not because I’m a wildly out of control hate blogger … obviously.
The Verge’s Joseph L. Flatley delves into the world of Internet marketing scams (those stupid spam pitches you get for “lead generation” and such) in eye-watering detail. Fundamentally, these things are exactly what they appear to be: con artists who suck money out of desperate people by lying to them about the money they can make with “work from home” businesses. They’re pyramid schemes.
Andrew Sullivan at The Daily Beast thought it was “excellent” :: and prolly almost definitely wants to steal Anna …
Last year Engadget left AOL to become The Verge :: because AOL is like one of the stupidest things that’s ever happened … and if you breathe in their fumes for too long you’ll turn into a raging idiot addicted to teeth whiteners. Says David Carr in his NYTimes article about the move …
“In Internet years, AOL has grown long in the tooth and seems incapable of playing nice with the toys it buys. There is a great deal of execution risk in putting old and new brands together. Even now, many of the longtime editorial employees at AOL have been laid off to make way for Huffington Post staff, while many of the unpaid contributors to Huffington Post have been vocal about the fact that the site cashed in, but they still work free.
It hasn’t helped matters that AOL has changed strategies as often as Lady Gaga switches out sunglasses, including the much-hated “AOL Way,” a leaked document that suggested that the company was far more interested in mass-produced link-bait than building and supporting unique publishing brands.”
What’s wrong with mass-produced link-bait? If it’s good enough for Jason Calacanis :: then it’s good enough for you … assuming that you’re fucking useless like Jason Calacanis.
Do you have a statistically significant shortage of grey matter in your anterior rostral prefrontal cortex?
That’s a shame.
You should seriously have that shit checked out … you might be a psychopath.
Vacation over :: I bailed my fake secretary Debbie out of debtors prison {which she’ll be repaying at a variable interest rate that I’ve pegged to Italian credit default swaps} … now back to freak town.
1 … 2 … 3 … go!
Not all psychopath’s are bloody :: liver eating … mass murders. But those are the ones we {eventually} lock in cages … because it’s hard to pretend that mass murders didn’t happen. Psychopaths are dramatically over represented among the prison population :: and they’re easy to test because they are all sitting around bored out of their whacked out minds.
I’m on vacation … so let’s just read some of my March emails together shall we? I think it will be fun because I won’t have to do very much work {I already wrote March’s emails} :: and you’ll think it’s fun because you’re easily amused like a methed-up gerbil.
BlogWorldExpo –
Jason,
My name is Shane and I’m the conference director for BlogWorld and New Media Expo. I wanted to reach out to see if you would be interested or would consider doing a keynote presentation at one of our shows.
We have our NYC show June 5th, 6th, and 7th and then our West Coast show (dates are not finalized yet) in October.
Possible topics could be: The 5 Biggest Internet Scams of 2012 or even, “You Can’t Make Money Online”. Just ideas.
Look forward to hearing back.
Shane Ketterman Conference Director BlogWorld & New Media Expo
Stephen Pierce is a scammer :: that much is fucking obvious … and easy to prove … which is why Vorys Sater Seymour and Pease are suing everyone but me. Unfortunately :: and kinda usually around here … the scamming is the least of it.
This text message is from Stephen Pierce to his no-longer wife Alicia Lyttle. Here’s what Stephen Pierce thinks about people who aren’t Stephen Pierce …
