MonaVie Scam? |
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[MonaVie has threatened legal action against me twice in an attempt to prevent you from reading this article below. Probably more important, the 3600+ comments which follow this article are jam-packed with research. While the organization of the comments are not ideal, you can find a subset of that information in a more organized form at the MonaVie Scam website.]
Is MonaVie a Scam?
Is MonaVie a Scam?
Was my wife targeted to buy snake-oil? Hundreds of people weigh in.
My wife is an active member in a nation-wide, young adults group. I am a member as well, but I'm not nearly as active (lack of time, plus my Laziness kicks in). The groups' goals are very noble. They aim to help members with public speaking and event planning skills while raising money for charity through local businesses. Recently my wife went to a meeting and was gone longer than usual. I got a little concerned, so I called her to find out how the meeting was going. It turned out that it wasn't a typical meeting any more - one of the members had invited some business acquaintances of his. When she got back, she told me about the meeting. It turned into a presentation of an energy/antioxidant juice called MonaVie.
About MonaVie
This juice is a blend of 19 juices with the most referenced being the açaí (a-sigh-eee) berry. The açaí berry supposedly has many, many antioxidant properties. I like to be as healthy as I possible, so why wouldn't I incorporate MonaVie into my diet?
The Price of MonaVie
The business behind the juice detracts from its value. The juice itself is not cheap. It's $40 a bottle with a bottle lasting only around one week. That means you can expect to pay around $175 a month for this juice. For many people, that's a significant car payment. For this kind of money, one would expect some sort of guarantee, perhaps a popular, publicly-traded, pharmaceutical company standing behind it. The company also doesn't publish how much of the acai berry is each bottle.
MonaVie and Multi-Level Marketing (MLM)
Beyond MonaVie juice being expensive, it is sold by distributors who are compensated in based on a multi-level marketing structure. Some of you familiar with Amway or Quixtar might understand how this works. For those who are new to multi-level marketing, the goal of the organization is to recruit more sellers and "incentivize" them for recruiting them. I'm not a big fan of such systems, it seems like the founders of the company always make a fair amount, and the people who join later end up with few sales and no one else to recruit.
The people the other night were trying to coerce my wife to buy two bottles, at nearly $100, and potentially become a distributor. My wife balked at such a thing, largely because she knew that I would want to do some research before spending that kind of money. They ended up giving her two bottles of juice to try for free. I fear that my wife may notice a placebo effect and grow a taste for the expensive juice.
MonaVie: Perhaps not a Scam?
Is it possible that it could work? Well Wikipedia references that Red Sox players Jonathan Papelbon and J.D. Drew as fans. As Red Sox fans ourselves this is high praise. I read an article from Fortune magazine that had high praise of MonaVie coming from Sumner Redstone. That's a very influential person and a very influential magazine. I did find one scientific piece of research, a PDF by AIBMR Life Sciences (update: it seems to have been removed from the site). The clinical research shows that it does indeed deliver more antioxidants than a placebo (update: in the comments it has come out that the researcher of the study was supplying MonaVie with its acai - sounds very biased to me). However, it doesn't compare to less costly solutions, like a multivitamin, V8 Fusion Acai Berry
Update: There have been thousands of comments here... I urge people interested in making a decision about whether to buy or sell MonaVie to read them.
Further Reading from MonaVie Scam:
- MonaVie Medical Testimonies are Pointless - A lot of visitors here leave a testimony about how MonaVie may have been responsible for helping them with some medical conditional. These should not impact your decision whether or not to buy MonaVie and it's explained why here.
- MonaVie Lies about the ORAC score of MonaVie?
- Oprah Sues MonaVie
- Men’s Journal Proves MonaVie Lacks Nutrition
- MonaVie vs. an Apple (Hint: the apple wins easily)
acai, acai scam, mona vie, mona vie scam, MonaVie, monavie scam
... and focuses on:Dumb Purchases, MonaVie
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It seems that with over 3000 comments people are finding this page slow to load and difficult to leave additional comments on. You can find a nearly complete archive of comments here. and can click the "Older Comments" link above for the most recent ones. I highly recommend reading them before posting. There's a high chance your topic has been addressed already.
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Seriously, you’re probably not far off there. Blue Diamond Phil Driscoll got convicted for bilking about a mil out of his faux Christian charity/ministry. These guys are thieves that steal from little old church ladies using pictures of starving doe-eyed Brazilian kids.
“In 2006, Phil Driscoll and his wife Lynne Driscoll were the subjects of a U.S. Federal Court indictment which charged that the Driscoll’s had used their Cleveland, Tennessee-based Christian music ministry in an income-tax cheating scheme, failing to report more than $1 million in income and evading the payment of more than $300,000 in taxes from 1996 to 2000. Also indicted was Lynne Driscoll’s mother, bookkeeper Chris Blankenship, who died just before the trial. It was testified that their ministry took in as much as $2.8 million annually, and according to the prosecution, Phil Driscoll owned an airplane, drove a Porsche, and used money funneled through Mighty Horn Ministries (later renamed Phil Driscoll Ministries and relocated to Eatonton, Georgia), to buy and sell lake houses. Rick Blankenship, brother of Lynne Driscoll and former U.S. Ambassador to the Bahamas, testified on behalf of the prosecution that he had worked for Mighty Horn Ministries until he became concerned that “there was little or no differentiation between personal and ministry expenses.” On June 8, 2006, Phil Driscoll was found guilty on 2 counts of tax evasion and one count of conspiracy, and was sentenced to serve one year in Federal prison, beginning on March 14, 2007. Lynn Driscoll was found not guilty on two out of three charges and the jury reached a deadlock on a third charge of tax evasion. Prosecutors elected to not retry the case.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Driscoll#Tax_Evasion