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.
I’m fucking against the SOPA :: and the PIPA … and the Santa Maria. I just blacked out my whole glorious fake robot site to prove it {and for fear of defying Wikipedia}. According to The Times of New York :: the protests and bellyaching are working … and the stupid old men of the stupid old man Congress {which is like a series of intestinal tubes} are caving.
The Stop Online Piracy Act is like the DMCA … except worser.
I’m against it.
I think it’s dumb.
I fart in its general direction.
I think it won’t help protect Intellectual Property {a worthy end}.
I’m so against it that I’m embedding the above Vimeo video that other thought leading thought leaders are fearlessly embedding {I haven’t actually watched it but I think that’s how these things are done}. It reminds me of the time I had a Vimeo account :: after I got banned from YouTube and I set it up in hopes … but then I lost it even quicker … so much for hopes.
Oh well :: anywayz :: back to protecting all of our super awesome free Internet speech …
Harlan Kilstein isn’t a doctor :: and he isn’t an Internet marketing guru either … thanks to lil’ old me.
Good job me!
But he’s still a pathetic bottom feeding scammer … and every month or so someone tells me a story about Harlan trying to ruin their life with his ridiculousness.
Maybe a fake robot can keep a motherfucking d-bag from getting huge … but he can’t keep them from existing. There are police in Boca right?
Anywayz :: HK has a new bullshit site about the meditations. The site has 21,000 Facebook fans :: prolly in the same way that Newt Gingrich has a million Twitter followers. In the above pic Harlan demonstrates a Finger Healing meditation position for his Facebook fake-fans :: which he calls … “The Seven Purples of Constipation” … or something.
Thinking that maybe Not-Doctor Kilstein is having a hard time truly relaxing :: I’ve decided to record him his very own personalized binaural meditation track. All the top constipation gurus know the secret unicorn magic of binaural messages set to music :: Joe Vitale :: Pat O’Bryan :: Bill Harris :: James Arthur Ray … and the aforementioned Harlan Kilstein.
Fortunately for the Not-Doctor :: Jason :: like all haters … plays poor piano. Not-Doctor K regularly talks at the @countingcrows on the twitter {cause we’re all cool in our own way} so the fat mans personal meditations have been set to a poor facsimile of Raining in Baltimore.... binaural meditations on a fat man ...
Hopefully this will help HK achieve that long-awaited bowel movement.
“The Transformational Leadership Council was founded so leaders of personal and organizational transformation could support each other in their contributions to the world.”
… says the Transformational Leadership Council on their website about the Transformational Leadership Council. Sure it’s a shit sentence to use as a tagline :: but understand that many of the world’s most transformational leaders were barely able to complete high school … or totally weren’t able to after getting hung up on the complexities of the 8th grade.
You’ve probably heard the devastating news :: maybe from a tiny classified ad backending to a boiler room :: that Don Lapre is dead. Don was struck down too soon :: by Don Lapre … after only having time to commit hundreds of millions of dollars worth of fucking obvious fraud. How many more lives and families could Don have ruined if only he had more time? We’ll never know now … and it’s fucking tragic.
Mike left a comment on the fake robot blog back in 2009 :: it seems brave … but he was likely under the impression that I was Ben Mack. Once “The Salty Droid is Ben Mack” turned out to be just as stupid as every other opinion ever held by Andy Jenkins … Mikey was far less willing to chit-chat …
