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.
“Oprah totally loves me now :: she’s getting all my craps for free :: but you should pay enough to upset the normal functioning of your life” :: says Tony Robbins to his email list {basically} …
“You think you have a busy schedule - how about Oprah’s? She showed up at Unleash the Power Within expecting to spend two hours, and 11 hours later she was preparing to walk over hot coals. How did that happen? Watch Tony share details of what it was like to have the legendary Oprah in his audience.”
I wonder if she stayed eleven hours for the same reason that Liz Neuman stayed by the hot rock pit for seven grueling rounds of fake spiritual ritual … and then died? {manipulation} I wonder if she stayed eleven hours for the same reason that Colleen Conaway stayed at seminar after seminar :: coughing up money she didn’t have … and then died? {manipulation} Or maybe she just needed that much time to think about how James Arthur Ray used to train Tony Robbins’ telemarketers before she gave him the licence to kill nice ladies :: and about how :: and for how long :: her incompetence has been hurting America.
You know I hate me some gnomes :: the hats :: the tiny dumb dancing :: the chirp chirp singing … and of course the fucking scamming. Maybe it’s not fair to judge all gnomes based on my limited experience with them :: but so what … I don’t have to be fair to gnomes. Fuck you gnomes :: go away and fix some stuff with your dumb little tool sacks.
As it turns out :: and as everyone always knew :: John Paul Raygoza is more like The Fucking Disaster than he is like The Truth … so say we all. When recent investigations revealed that Mike Filsaime had been inside of John Paul Raygoza’s PushTraffic boiler room {prolly tiny dumb dancing} :: I confronted him about it …
“WTF Gnome?”
… was the basically of what I said.
“I wish I’d never met John Paul Raygoza :: he sucks a big ol’ bag of donkey dicks … let me answer for myself.”
Begin lawyer talk in 3 :: 2 :: 1 … oh god make it stop …
Congress passed 15 USC § 6102 to tell the FTC to do something about people being buttholes over the phone :: this was back in the Nineties when Congress still did stuffs without needing to be tazed. It’s the FTC’s job to make the actual rules :: which they do after a prescribed period for public comment where interested parties who have enough money to hire lobbyists … like the Direct Marketing Association … can help “contribute” to the rule making process with their own insightful insightfulness.
If you act now you can get a free copy of these exciting rules :: then you can print them out and carry them around with you whenever you’re touring boiler rooms :: like Vicious Garden Gnome Mike Filsaime was said to do several times at John Paul Raygoza’s PushTraffic before it imploded.
My fake secretary Debbie is on Ray Kurzweil’s email list because she’s all worried that medical progress won’t be able to keep pace with her “chain-smoking while tanning” lifestyle. She’d love to stop the smoke & tan madness :: but she needs it to cover up her diabetic pallor … so she depends on the science of future miracles for comfort.
Says Dr. Kurzweil to Debbie …
Dear Friend,
I’d like to reach out to you personally about a new book that I am very excited about:
Abundance — The Future Is Better Than You Think. This book is written by my dear friend and colleague Dr. Peter H. Diamandis, Singularity University Cofounder and X PRIZE Foundation Chairman, and Steven Kotler, science journalist.
The Future Is Better Than You Think :: assuming you’ve been thinking about it of course … which {let’s face it} you haven’t been because The Future is not what’s on TV right now. What’s on TV right now? It’s a question AND a way of life :: one with scant little room for books about science by doctors who can’t write everything they know about math on to a single half-used napkin.
