MonaVie Employee Calls Me an “Annoying Douche” |
52 Comments |
If you've been a regular reader over the last month you probably know that MonaVie is threatening to sue me to hopes of preventing you from reading my article where I asked if MonaVie is a Scam. (It's really the information in the 3000 comments that they don't want you to read.)
The threat of threat of law suit lead Tracy of Fraud Files to do some investigation of MonaVie. She found that MonaVie was editing their own WikiPedia posts to hide the Income Disclosure Statement on their own corporate site. Tracy also points out that Wikipedia doesn't approve when companies edit that kind of objective, factual information out of their own Wikipedia article.
In that Fraud Files post, Tracy notes that the IP address of 65.44.117.2 is registered to MonaVie.. That made me think... has anyone from that IP address ever commented on my site? I should run a quick search to find out.
The answer is yes, someone from within the walls of MonaVie corporate headquarters has commented on my site. Here is what they said (with a link to the source):
Lazy man really is lazy. I can’t believe you even waste your time with this. Do you have a real job or do you just sit at home on the computer getting fatter and fatter. My guess…. the fat part. Why waste time bagging on any company that you haven’t trie. I haven’t tried this but if I had chance to, I am not going to listen to the fat, lazy, sit on computer with no lover Lazy man. You’re annoying douche
Don't believe that's a MonaVie employee? Here's a screen grab from my Wordpress administration page (click for larger image):
Click for Larger Image
There are three lessons to learned here:
- If you have a company, cherish all criticism as an opportunity. If the criticism is based on unfounded information politely respond to that criticism and explain where the criticism misses the mark. If the criticism is logical, be very, very happy. You just stumbled on something I like to call "feedback." Use it to make your product or your business practices better. Some companies pay a lot of money in the form of focus groups to get this valuable feedback. The wrong way to deal with criticism is to go through litigation to try to get it removed and through name calling..
- If you are in the business of sending out threatening emails, you may want to educate your employees how the "Intertubes" work. You don't necessarily have to spend time on teaching them the details of IP addresses. Keep it simple and say "Don't use company resources to make yourself look like an immature idiot. Please save for your home computer."
- It sure seems that MonaVie is a scam.
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WOW! I think it still amazes me that people think they can talk to other people that way (whether on a blog or in person).
If this company had just done nothing about your original post, everyone would have forgot by now…but instead they chose to make a stink about it (I actually look forward to these posts to see updates…lol). Then to send a message like that to you, that just makes them look so much worse…I will always remember the name of that company and I will tell people to BEWARE!
Thanks for the update! I, for one, love your blog (and no, I don’t work for Lazy Man…this comment is legit…check my IP)
Jen
Highly disturbing stuff Lazy Man. I’m not sure what’s worse… hyping your product on Amazon.com with false reviews, or verbal attacks on consumer advocates who question your business.
Guess we’ll know in a few months. Good luck!
Wow I can’t believe that this company gets more and more unprofessional by the day..
Stay classy, MonaVie.
Oh, by the way. Your product is a complete scam and nobody should ever sell your stuff. Maybe I’ll go register douchebagemployeesatmonavie.com and have people submit all of the classy comments your horrible company leaves on blogs.
Hey google, here are some keywords for you to pick up: monavie is a scam, acai berries can kill you, monavie doesn’t work, monavie causes cancer
I’m honestly surprised there isn’t more from that IP address.
Enjoy it now monavie…Live it up while you can
That’s hilarious.
Personally, I make a concerted effort to avoid commenting on articles (or writing articles) that involve my company, and tend to not even comment on the industry very often … in 270 articles on my blog, my industry is mentioned exactly 6 times (and my company is mentioned zero times). And one of those time was by another writer, who doesn’t realize that I work in this industry. The other times are mostly passing references where it would be extremely awkward to avoid mentioning the industry.
(Now there’s a fun game … read through all 270 articles and try to guess my industry :)
The downside (getting fired or lectured for statements I make about the company) far outweighs any upside.
I also try to avoid calling people annoying douches. I prefer other terms – such as [bleep], [bleep], and [bleep]
Nice mention on The Consumerist:
http://consumerist.com/5356665/monavie-hits-blogger-over-trademarks-in-metadata?skyline=true&s=x
That’s awesome. I especially like the “I haven’t tried, but…” shtick. I’ve seen that from other commenters that I’m sure are shills for something or other (though the IP addresses weren’t registered to the company).
And I guess this person doesn’t know about Energy Gal? I mean, she’s kind of the whole reason you started looking into Monavie. Ah, blind, uneducated rage–it apparently sustains Monavie’s top-of-the-line employees. :)
Wow, classy stuff. Tracy at Fraud Files also ID’d and I noticed the same IP comment behavior from company IPs for articles we did on Haverhill Home Staging – which promotes itself incessantly on HGTV but “seemingly” has left tons of suckers in its wake. Comments from a company IP address were rave reviews of the program and questioned the competency of people who had claimed they’d been taken for a ride.
Anyway, saw the article on Consumerist today. Ironic – the attorney says remove the meta tags and cites bogus irrelevant court precedent, yet he also states that meta tags don’t have any benefit any more. So, what’s his point? If they aren’t valuable, why are they threatening to sue you? At least their attorney picked up the phone to talk to Consumerist – but no apology? How does a corporation allow a “mistake” by a “new person in the compliance dept” to go out to threaten another party? Doesn’t legal counsel review such correspondance before it goes out? Or are legal threats that willy-nilly that they’re on autopilot? Complete nonsense.
By the way, I’ll be doing a fun post on this over the weekend – and it will have “MonaVie” written AAALLLLL over it.
Always so pathetic when you catch them in a lie like this. I wonder if they wish they hadn’t messed with you now?
Darwin,
There were two different people there. MonaVie’s person cited the irrelevant court precedent. I doubt MonaVie realizes that search engines don’t use them much anymore.
The attorney from the EFF who typically protects people like me said that my best defense would be just to remove the tags, since they won’t hurt me.
However, I don’t think I’ll take the EFF’s lawyer’s advice. I think his idea is for me to escape a lawsuit. I don’t believe I’ve done anything wrong and look forward to proving it myself if necessary. Either MonaVie will win and set new cyber precedent, or I’ll win and get publicity in the process.
Aside from the horrid netiquette of the commenter, it’s also fascinating to me how the most illiterate comments are the comments coming from “an employee at MonaVie LLC”.
Jacked on the juice, indeed!
What really gets me is that these people are so stupid, they don’t realize that those kinds of comments are seen as a troll anyway. As soon as you see a comment like that, you think “oh, the looneys got out of the bin again.”
You don’t even assume the commenter believes his or her comments, or that they read the article.
All I can say is that, “I love you, Lazy Man.” You know why… because others would not be brave enough to post what you did, keep it up and actually continue the discussion.
Bravo!
BTW, can you see the Barbara Streisand Effect happening now… I can. I mean… over 3,000 comments… and you’re now at position #8 on Google when I search for MonaVie… and really, you’re at position 6 or so, because everybody knows that people skip over the Google Shopping results that come up. :-)
Woot!
I ran a series on a mortgage acceleration scam, the UFirst Money Merge Account. Tracy caught that scam as well. The literacy level of the UF supporters is about the same as that of your shill poster for MV. One poster goes on for a full page rant, time and time again, with no paragraphs and few full sentences. I don’t know if I find it funny or sad.
“I am not going to listen to the fat, lazy, sit on computer with no lover Lazy man. You’re annoying douche”
Wow, this sure changes my opinion of MV. It must be a great product with a supporter willing to write such an endorsement.
Oh, and btw – if you have the resources, one of the best ways to counter a “slap” suit is to counter sue. Especially if they are leaving harrassing messages on your blog. Also, maybe there is a “class action” – if they are doing this to other bloggers.
(A slap suit is when a big business sues a whistle blower or group to stop them from talking. Developers used to use it against citizens who would speak up at public hearings – but scammers love to threaten it too.)
Toogie might be on to something. If you have a legitimate reason to counter-sue (just consult a law office and they should be able to tell you if there is substantial evidence) you might want to do that.
On a side note – holy crap! I didn’t realize how many comments were on that post. You must have received a BOATLOAD of traffic from that. Just proves the theory – controversial posts are GOOD both for traffic and for truth!
Candace,
Good point, I had been focusing on the act of posting what she posted rather than the fact that likely lied (work at MonaVie and never tried the product?).
Toogie,
I’m so used to the trolls on my other article that one more usually doesn’t get to me… unless that troll is employed by MonaVie.
Lori,
*blush*
I thought about not posting that for a long time because I like commenters to feel that they have a level of anonymity here. I don’t typically go looking at where people are commenting from (I’m much too Lazy). However, if you threaten to slap me with a cease and desist order, the gloves are off. Don’t give me ammo and expect me not to use it.
JoeTaxpayer,
Ugh, I hate mortgage accelerators. Most of them charge big money for something you can do through online banking in about 10 minutes. I’ll have to read up on your post there.
Toogie,
I’m going to let MonaVie continue to push this more before I look into a counter suit. People have told me that it’s an option. However, if some lawyer is reading this and wants to take on a case pro-bono they know where to Contact Me.
JoeTaxpayer and LM -
As far as the literacy goes for these types of comments, it makes me wonder if they are infact illiterate or uneducated, or if they are possibly in a foreign country and do not know perfect English. If they are foreigners (nothing wrong with being a foreigner) then perhaps this is bigger than just a few guys sitting around their mansion in Some City, USA, counting their money and laughing all the way to the bank. This could span the globe, which would make it difficult to put a stop to.
But… I can see you all know more about it than I do. I’m just speculating.
Sarah, in the case of the particular mortgage scam I referenced, it’s US based, and not available outside the US/Canada.
I’ve read enough (let me hope this comes out right)to recognize the difference between an ignorant English-first-language writer and an intelligent English-second-language writer. Observing the difference is quite remarkable.
Sarah, in this case if you click the link I posted (http://centralops.net/co/DomainDossier.aspx?addr=65.44.117.2&net_whois=true), you’ll see that it’s from MonaVie’s South Jordan Utah headquarters. I can pinpoint it to the office suite unless they are doing some kind of high-tech redirect.
Oh and MonaVie officially sent me a Cease and Desist a few minutes ago: See this article for background information:
http://consumerist.com/5356665/monavie-hits-blogger-over-trademarks-in-metadata
Joe, I guess I was refering to the comment in this article (the “douche” comment) and other similar comments. The first part of it is ok, grammatically correct and no spelling mistakes. In the second part, whole words are ommitted and some of the grammar seems more like English as a second language mistakes to me. Just my opinion. Or maybe the person was just really mad and in a hurry.
I have been reading all of this all day (maybe I should be working…), and it seems everything is in the US, and as I said, you all have obviously done your homework. I am just a conspiracy theorist, I guess :)
this is so awesome and hilarious. you should link to this post from the original monavie scam post. the comment really highlights the idiots that work for them.
Wow. Great sleuthing to link the IP and show the Monavie comment. And I agree with the comment above, you’ve got courage holding your ground here, and you should, since everyone is entitled to report on their experiences and judgment with companies and their products. It’s clearly Monavie’s employee that has engaged in slander with those comments, and not yourself.
If you think MonaVie’s a scam then don”t go to an ATT store. You might come out with extra features you never asked for and this is from a manager. But these big guys at these MLM companies are good at making lots of money for themselves and their executives. But can someone explain how in the world are these type companies making so much money?
bwahahahah!! I try to avoid calling anyone an annoying douche in writing anywhere, but this is hilarious. Way to go, MonaVie.
Although my favorite part is the “with no lover” because that obviously means your opinion doesn’t count. Oh, and you’re married. Morons.
hahahahaha
you must be really cutting their profits lazy.
you should be proud of yourself i wish i could catch a company like this
To continue keep the party goin’, summarize the full situation from a third party’s point of view, and sprinkle in some of my own commentary, I posted this up at
http://everydayfinance.blogspot.com/2009/09/monavie-monavie-monavie-ridiculous.html
I generally don’t drop links on blogs, but so you can find it (and of course I’ve linked back here) I hope you enjoy and the article.
Oh and, the horror – I used “MonaVie” in my title (3 times in a row – oooohh), url and label for the article.
How the “intertubes” work? DUDE – That is just HILARIOUS!
MORE! MORE! MORE!
Never heard of monavie before. I can’t believe people are so gullible as to be scammed by such a ridiculous product as monaivie. Funnier still that their own employee felt the cloak of internet anonymity would allow him to get back at Lazy Man by making pithy comments–yet it clearly has backfired and only makes them look bad. It’s little things like this that can make a big difference in a lawsuit (if it ever comes to that). I imagine the monavie lawyers are pretty ticked at this comment. What a con.
at least they should hire literal people who can speak proper english. Or maybe this is that dude in the legal dept who started all this ;-)
“at least they should hire literal people”
agreed, the metaphorical customer service people piss me off.
(Forgive me, LM, a weak moment)
Hah, thanks for the laugh. Funny how now whenever I read the word “douche” I think of Kanye West.
p.s. You have 440 unmoderated comments?! Thanks for making me feel better about my blog habits. :)
Does MonaVie really hire employees that illiterate?
I work with a number of people for whom English is a second language. Their writing is far better than that in the posting.
I was laughing at my brother when he signed up with MonaVie but now he’s laughing at me! At 20 years old he’s making twice as much as me and is still raking it in!
I am an IT person and the screenshot of the IP address is easy to re-create so I don’t give it much validity. With Photoshop and a simple DNS lookup I can have the same screenshot in 5 minutes from any company you wanted. I’m sure MonaVie has complete records of their server traffic to support their claim it wasn’t done from the inside. If not then it was.
I have seen my brother’s MonaVie account and can tell you first hand he’s killing it. I don’t know why people get so pissed off over fruit juice. As my brother puts it, people have no problem spending more than $5/day on soda, smokes, coffee and the like but ask them to spend it on something that can make them live better, and possibly make some money off of it and they get pissed off. I don’t have any problem with people throwing their money away but why the harsh criticism over a product that is good for you? Sounds like the person who tried to sign you up was the dirtbag and not the product.
It only makes me wonder about all the guys who post on here and whether or not they’re the ones who signed up and never made it. Oh well, continue to work for the man and get your 3-5% raise every year. I signed up with MonaVie three weeks ago and I’m making $50/week already. It’s not a million dollars but I’m drinking my juice for free.
Here’s to all the MonaVie bashers out there.
Sarah,
I agree that it could have been Photoshopped. However, how would you like me to prove that they left that comment? MonaVie did apologize for it in the comments of this post – http://monaviemediacenter.com/blogs/5-tips-every-monavie-distributor-needs-to-know-about-the-new-ftc-guidelines/, so that seems to be an acknowledgment on their part.
If your brother is making that kind of money it’s far from typical. MonaVie is embarrassed by their own income disclosure statement.
Sarah you realize this is a personal finance website. I write about how one should make smart financial choices such as making their own coffee at home and quit smoking. Plus if you are a smoker, MonaVie is an additional cost unless you quit. If you do quit smoking and then take up MonaVie you save nothing financially.
$5 of soda is around 12 liters for me ($0.80 or so for a 2 litter). I don’t know anyone who drinks 12 liters of soda a day.
Sarah, it turns out that the juice isn’t that good for you: http://www.mensjournal.com/superjuices-on-trial. Thus paying some $1500 a year for something with little nutrition is a poor financial move (though if you are rich, I say go for it).
Sarah, you are only drinking your juice for free because some people under you are overpaying for their juice. I wouldn’t want to take advantage of someone that way, but it looks like you don’t mind.
Lazy man,
First of all, I’m a MonaVie distributor. I bought into MonaVie for the business aspect. I drink it every day and have the same amount of energy as before. I don’t have cancer or joint pains and I’m not making any claims that MonaVie cures anything.
With that said, most of us have no problem spending $1500 for a flat panel, $100/mo. on cable or dish, $100/mo. on the cell phone, $60/mo. for high speed internet, $3-5/day for coffee, $5-10/day for lunch at work and so on. Most of us have no problem watching 3-4 hours of TV a day or spending 3-4 hours on the internet. If we took a look at our expenses we could all live better by drinking or eating something healthier by cutting out a fraction of what we spend everyday. Whether that means buying the juice at the store or buying MonaVie is up to you. Most of us could also benefit from taking an hour out of our day and doing something constructive versus sitting on our butts doing nothing.
Side note: I work with a guy who spends well over $6/day just on Red Bull alone. One in the morning and one in the afternoon. I think Red Bull would qualify as a soda. So you may be right, you may not have to drink 12 liters of soda but you can drink $5 of soda really quick.
If you look at the MonaVie business model you can get your juice for free by simply sharing with people you talk to everyday. The last time I checked, you can’t do that with the juice at the grocery store. Also, the bottles aren’t $45 each. All the MonaVie haters out there want to claim the bottles cost $45 each. Plain and simple, they don’t cost that much. One bottle costs $32. If you buy in bulk you can get them for as little as $19.89 per bottle. If you don’t want to sell MonaVie, get it off of Ebay, you can buy it for $25 per bottle. If you want to get your juice for free, signup with MonaVie and share it with your friends and family. You might make a buck or two off of it, maybe even more.
As far as the business end of MonaVie, it makes me laugh when people get offended when they find out they have to spend money to make money. This is the first principle in any business. You can’t get into any business for free and there isn’t any business that’s legit where you’ll get rich overnight. To be successful in any business you must make a financial and time commitment. When you sign up with MonaVie you become a distributor. Just like a grocery store who distributes products for multiple manufacturers, you’re distributing a product for one manufacturer (MonaVie). It just so happens that MonaVie isn’t cheap. However, once you market your business (distributorship), you start making revenue just like a grocery store. Before you know it, your revenue exceeds your expenses and you make money.
Lastly, Americans are funny people. We smoke cigarettes and then want to sue the manufacturers when we get cancer. We don’t brush our teeth and get mad when we get cavities. We never work out and hate the fact that we’re overweight. We see someone who is rich and are jealous but we never want to put the time in like they did to make all the money. Instead of bashing something, why don’t we all take the negative and do something positive. Stop blaming and bashing, go do something positive.
One more thing, it seems to me like you’re just riding on the coattails of MonaVie to drive traffic to your site. It seems to have paid off for you too. So in a way you want MonaVie to do good or else you would have less traffic. As a financial adviser I would think you would see the value in their business model as well, but it looks like you don’t.
One more business tip, if you want to make more money off of PPC ads you need to dump Google. You could be making a hell of a lot more with some affiliate networks but I’m sure you know that too.
Last thing, I promise. I’ve got plenty of links from magazines claiming the benefits of MonaVie. I’ll send them later, this post is pretty long. For every great product you’ll find some company or magazine claiming how it doesn’t work. It’s called ratings. Much like yourself driving traffic to your site. Also, do you have any other links that aren’t your own that support the embarrassment by MonaVie?
Thanks for the good discussion!
Sarah -
I know nothing about MonaVie.
I have a question though. Do all MLMs defend themselves by talking about how people waste their money? Is that the best they can do?
I’ve written at length about a mortgage acceleration scam, and the agents selling it cite the money thrown away exactly as you did, like you’re reading from the same play book.
You miss one thing – the product must have some benefit if a reputable company like Costco is trying to copy the product. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. You can have that line for free. I’m still going after the mortgage guys. Keep in mind, the fact that people buy big TVs and smoke means nothing to your cause, it actually makes you look slimy.
Sarah, it’s good that you admitted to being a MonaVie distributor. Remember the FTC requires that now: http://www.juicescam.com/monavie-ftc-guidelines-and-distributor-testimonies/.
I admit that people spend money on silly things at times. However, I think everyone should budget something for entertainment. For instance, buying a $1500 television is better than being bored and going to the movies every night.
Many people save more money with high speed Internet than they waste. Ever compare the price of a book at Amazon vs. what it would cost at Barnes and Nobles?
My point is that a lot of these are very justifying expenditures. Is the $3-$5 coffee or $5-$10 lunch each day able to justified? Let’s just say that people make careers trying to tell people how silly it is pay that for coffee (just look up The Latte Factor). The lunch is very much the same way (again volumes have been written on it). That’s largely what this website is about… ways you can get 90% of the experience for 10% of the cost (make your coffee at home, bring in leftovers to work, etc.)
So let’s take this concept of getting 90% of the experience for 10% of the price to MonaVie. There are plenty of juices that are much cheaper and provide the same experience or even more nutrition. So the question I always ask, which no one has been able to answer is, why would I waste my money on it? Just because others spend $3-5 a day on coffee or $5-10 on lunches is no reason to spend MORE money on juice. If anything it’s another reason to spend less.
You are right, I quite enjoy the traffic that I’m getting from those looking to learn more about MonaVie. So you are right, I *should* want MonaVie to do well as the more people who know about it, the more they’ll search for information and find my site. However, that’s the most interesting thing. Despite the fact that it’s good for my business, I’d still rather do the right thing and stick to what this website is about… helping people get the most value for their dollar.
You have a point about the Red Bull, but at least it’s a lot cheaper than MonaVie’s eMV. So it’s better from a financial standpoint your friend continues with Red Bull rather than switch to MonaVie.
You are very right about Americans being funny people with the list of things that you put there. However, you mistake my “bashing” for being negative. I’m being positive and helping to show people get more for their money. It only sounds negative to you because it is negative to your business. If you saw someone selling old used Yugo for $75,000 on unprovable claims that it’s better than other cars out there, I would hope you’d try to warn people not to buy it as well. You’d be a consumer advocate. And that’s a positive thing.
As far as the business of MonaVie a quick look at the Income Disclosure Statement (IDS) shows that most everyone isn’t making minimum wage… and that’s the people who at least recruited someone… it doesn’t take into account the people who aren’t able to bring in anyone.
If you read the article about MonaVie being embarrassed by their own IDS, you’d see that I link to another post that shows that MonaVie was editing their Wikipedia to take the IDS out. Why would they do that except for being embarrassed? The reason I link to my own article is because it’s helpful to keep that part of the discussion there. I’m hoping that someone will prove me wrong.
I use affiliate networks for products I believe in. I still make more money from PPC though. I’d rather write what I want to write and then find an affiliate network after the fact, than look for a product to sell.
The difference between my link to Men’s Journal is that it’s an unbiased article based on scientific testing by an unbiased third party. I have not seen any other magazine article do that. I’m sure you have magazine articles claiming the benefits, but who wants claims? I’m offering proof. Do you have unbiased proof supporting the benefits of MonaVie? If so, please post all those links. I’d like to see them.
Hey Joe,
Not trying to look slimy. Just pointing out that we as Americans spend a lot of money on junk, me being one of them (insert MonaVie jokes here). I still watch TV on a 36″ tube and don’t use a PDA for a phone. I try to be a smart consumer and I think we all could take a look at our own spending habits and cut back on some things. I don’t know how that makes me look slimy.
Hopefully I wrote more in my post than just people wasting their money. I think some of it was just to rebut Lazy Man’s comments on soda. Shoot, I even said if you don’t want to tangle with MonaVie buy it from Ebay. Not sure how many other MLMs would say that.
Bottom line is some people see value in MonaVie, some don’t. I just don’t make it a habit of bashing other companies because I don’t see the value in them.
To each their own. Obviously Lazy Man has found a niche by creating another site entirely dedicated to bashing MonaVie and this site as well and it has created a ton of content as well. Hell, he’s made me spend well over an hour just reading all the comments.
Well, it’s time for me to take my afternoon shot of MonaVie. I’ll toast to all of us making money any way we can!
@ Sarah,
I would be very interested in seeing any magazine articles that were conducted by independent labs, and put through a rigorous peer review.
Naturally, I’m talking about independently contracted labs or academic institutions where those involved in experimental design and analytical testing had zero exposure to compensation from Monavie other than funding to pay for experimental costs, technician expertise, data analysis, etc.
Alternatively, I’d accept any white paper data from the FDA when it becomes available.
Lazy Man,
All great points. Looks like we could go around in circles for days on this. I know everyone wants to point out the high cost of MonaVie. However, if you sign up a couple of people your juice is free. I know that’s hard for people to comprehend and think it is a sin to recommend products to people. A lot of people think this is where the scam is. We all recommend products to our friends everyday. When is the last time you got paid for recomending a good movie to a friend? What’s the harm in sharing a product with a friend. If it makes my fruit juice free then I’ll recommend it all day. If it has less the nutritional value as the juice at the store, I’ll just drink twice as much. It’s free to me so it doesn’t matter. I don’t want to seem offensive, I know we’re both trying to make points here but do you get where I’m coming from? Can you put yourself in my shoes. I see your point and you’ve defended it well. You certainly have more time invested in this argument than I do being a distributor for three weeks.
Comparing the Red Bull to the Emv you’re right, for the regular consumer it Emv may be higher but it’s free for me to drink it.
What’s better than free? Getting paid. I get paid to drink the juice. To me there isn’t anything better.
I don’t know many other business that would let you use their product and then pay you on top of that. Imagine if Verizon would let you use their phone service and then pay you for signing up your friends to use Verizon. Wouldn’t that be awesome?
Wow, you guys come out of the woodwork don’t you? What would happen if you took all this passion for making a product look so bad and use it for something good?
All of the magazine links are on MonaVie’s blog. I know they don’t have triple blind placebo studies or have white papers from the FDA but they’re just links.
I don’t care about ORAC scores or how a men’s magazine says it’s not good. I’m drinking the juice for free.
Bottom line is I’m drinking a product for free and I’m getting paid as well. If there is another company that offers this please let me know so I can sign up with them as well.
Sarah said, “I try to be a smart consumer and I think we all could take a look at our own spending habits and cut back on some things.”
Exactly my point. So we agree that MonaVie should be one of those habits to looked at. And everything that I’ve seen in over two years shows that it’s little nutrition at a huge price. So if that’s true, we should agree to cut back on it (or eliminate it in this case). It all comes back to the value of the nutrition in MonaVie for the price.
For what it’s worth MonaVie has been trying to prevent the sale of it’s product on Ebay. I believe as a distributor you can be terminated for listing it. No one has been able to explain why MonaVie doesn’t want it’s product on Ebay. Also at the end of my original article, I suggest that people buy it from Ebay if they really must buy it.
Sarah said, “Bottom line is some people see value in MonaVie, some don’t. I just don’t make it a habit of bashing other companies because I don’t see the value in them.”
The value that most people see are related to the outrageous illegal medical claims that are being made on the product and the hopes of “financial freedom” that you’ll find when you look at any pyramid scheme.
No one has been able to show that MonaVie has more value than a $4 bottle of any other juice (or even and apple. When someone starts to show that it will be time to get interested.
“I know everyone wants to point out the high cost of MonaVie. However, if you sign up a couple of people your juice is free.”
Do you realize you just described how a pyramid scheme works? You get your money (or in this case juice), if you bring in other people. I see where you are happy to get your free juice, but realize that your gain is a lot of other people’s huge financial loss down the line. I don’t mean to be harsh, but a lot of people would use one word for that: selfish.
Take a step back and realize that MonaVie isn’t just giving away free juice to people. If the idea is to get your juice for free, MonaVie should just make it free. I’d endorse them if they did that.
Oh as far as drinking the juice for free goes, let’s look at our friend the Income Disclosure Statement again. It shows that 50% of the people who have successful recruited a distributor make an average of $1214 a year… not enough to drink the $1500 juice for free. They worked an average of 208 hours for that financial loss.
When you get to the next tier you have 85% of the people making enough to drink the juice for free. Though because shipping they really probably don’t make much more. Of course those other people who maybe make a couple of hundred dollars have to work 312 hours a year for it… a rate of pay of about $1/hr… plus free juice of course.
So the conclusion here is that 85% of the people who are successful recruiters (not counting the huge number that aren’t) are working pretty hard for their “free juice.” The saddest part of all, it gets exponentially more difficult to work your way past that level. Sorry, if that’s the great business opportunity, count me out…
And the point you made is just a defense of MLMs in general and not one that explains the nutritional value of the juice at all.
Verizon could pay you for signing up friends, but if they start charging 10x as much as AT&T, I imagine few of your friends will want to sign up. And that’s the problem with MonaVie. It tries to say that there’s something premium to justify that 10x price tag, but they won’t actually give any details on why their product is better than someone else’s.
Alright man, you’re just being silly now… it’s too bad, I thought we were having a good discussion.
Just to let you know, pyramid schemes are illegal. Monavie wouldn’t be able to operate if it was a pyramid. MonaVie has a substantial product, they pay commissions eight different ways and they buyback all inventory of all terminating participants.
Good luck to you all.
One last thing, other than the MonaVie bashing I think you have a great site.
What’s it’s silly to point out hard people are working for their “free juice” and how most people aren’t even getting “free juice”
I know pyramid schemes are illegal. However, there’s a loophole in the law if you use a product. This is essentially what MonaVie is doing. The FTC is very clear that the differences between some MLMs are pyramid schemes are very difficult to find. This gives some guidelines that you can read here:
http://www.stopbuyingcrap.com/stop-buying-crap/12-tips-on-avoiding-pyramid-schemes-scams-like-monavie/
I like the four things the person added at the end. It’s especially interesting that he wrote about the negativity thing over a year ago and Sarah used that same thing just a couple of hours ago.
Thanks for the compliment on the site.
Given Sarah’s defensiveness, her passion for trying to validate MonaVie as a juice or company, and her tenacity in posting to several different places the type of information she is posting….it would certainly seem that Sarah has more than a few week’s vested interest in MonaVie.
And since Sarah posted to MonaVie’s blog without posting her distributor ID, wouldn’t that be a direct violation of MonaVie’s policies and procedures…which oddly enough occurred on MonaVie’s OWN blog?! Fascinating how quiet Shante has become on the matter.
Sarah sounds more like a corporate lackey. If one takes Sarah’s comments to heart, it is obvious that Sarah knows very well how to follow internet trails, making it doubtful that Sarah will be easily tracked.
What a tangled web she weaves….
Just sayin’.
Candace, I do not know who Sarah is or about her relationship with MonaVie, but have tried contacting her via email. I’ve also corresponded with Lazy Man on this matter and we’ve decided to remove Sarah’s comments from the live forum. I was not purposely quiet either as you suggest. The FTC guidelines are important to our operation and we are working diligently to train our distributor base. This is our focus and we know it will take time and consistent effort.
Shante,
My printed words read: “Fascinating how quiet Shante has become on the matter.”
I did not state nor imply that you were “purposely quiet”. Any implication you take from my statement is yours alone due to whatever actions or thoughts you have taken or not taken on your own if Sarah is a MonaVie distributor.
I still say it is fascinating how long you let the comments stand, since they were in direct violation of your own policies and procedures on your own company blog.
And the FTC guidelines are not just “important to (y)our operation”, they are vital to determining the legitimacy and legality of your entire organization.
Candace, all good points. I can only tell you how your statement was perceived and that no wrong doing was intended on my part. I am new to my role and am learning quickly. I appreciate the feedback I receive through all platforms, including Lazy Man’s site.