I recently read the story behind Leroy Stick (note some adult language there). For those unfamiliar with Leroy Stick, he’s the guy behind @BPGlobalPR… a Twitter account that parody all the fantastic blunders of BP and their “attempts” to repair the company’s image. While I’m not a fan of the idea behind his Leroy stick, I applaud him for doing the right thing with @BPGlobalPR.
You see Leroy Stick got feed up that BP wasn’t doing more. In fact, as he put it there was “no solutions, no urgency, no sincerity, no nothing” on BP’s behalf. He goes on to say this to BP:
“… the best way to get the public to respect your brand? Have a respectable brand. Offer a great, innovative product and make responsible, ethical business decisions. Lead the pack! Evolve! Don’t send hundreds of temp workers to the gulf to put on a show for the President. Hire those workers to actually work! Don’t dump toxic dispersant into the ocean just so the surface looks better. Collect the oil and get it out of the water! Don’t tell your employees that they can’t wear respirators while they work because it makes for a bad picture. Take a picture of those employees working safely to fix the problem. Lastly, don’t keep the press and the people trying to help you away from the disaster, open it up so people can see it and help fix it. This isn’t just your disaster, this is a human tragedy. Allow us to mourn so that we can stop being angry.”
In some ways, I feel bad for BP. There are no easy solutions for them. They made a mistake. It wasn’t intentional. It’s not like BP set out to profit by hurting anyone.
Enter MonaVie… a company that I believe is intentionally trying to hurt people, making them, in my opinion a million times worse than BP. Ever since my article questioning the value of MonaVie became popular, I’ve garnered a reputation as the MonaVie blogger. I never intended for it to turn out this way. If I had a magic wand, MonaVie would have never existed and I could focus on personal finance topics of a broader nature. However, information came to me in the comments and I felt like I needed to get it out there in the hands of the public. So I started MonaVie Scam – a site based on exposing many of the issues with MonaVie.
I should note that I have no love for the company or the product. MonaVie threated to sue me for using their copyrighted name once and again for using MonaVie’s Keywords in my article. Their employees even called me an annoying douche… and that was when I didn’t care to focus much on MonaVie. Fortunately, I’m also annoying enough to make their lawyers’ threats look like a bunch of butt clowns.
I thought I’d begin a new series where I briefly some up the missteps of MonaVie and their distributors every so often. In this first update, I’m covering three hot topics that have sprung up over just last month:
- Mitch Biggs Saga – It came up recently that one of MonaVie’s top distributors, Mitch Biggs has committed a number of legal infractions. For more information read Mitch Biggs Claims MonaVie Prevents Swine Flu, Mitch Biggs Claims MonaVie is Organic (and Other Lies). I tried to get MonaVie to do the right thing by swinging my version of the Leroy Stick but in the end, Mitch Biggs Scams People and MonaVie Condones It. (Sorry Mitch, nothing personal, but you bring it on yourself. The fact that MonaVie let’s you continue to sell juice is jaw-dropping.)
- Dr. Louis Niles Saga – Dr. Louis Niles is one of the most famous MonaVie distributors. He was so famous that a law suit against MonaVie by Amway named him as a defendant. I recently wrote about Dr. Louis Niles’ Illegal Medicinal Claims of MonaVie. That has been known for time, but this month I got distressing news about Dr. Lou Niles and recent arrests – including one involving a child. I don’t want to go into it further on this site. It looks like he’s still a MonaVie Distributor.
- Brain Injuries – One of the more interesting articles I wrote was was about MonaVie Corporate Attributing Coma Brain Injury Recovery to Monavie. It centers around MonaVie itself breaks the very FTC guidelines that it asks it’s distributors to adhere to. Lastly, there may be a case of medical malpractice by one of MonaVie’s advisors, but I need MonaVie to be more forthcoming with details on that one.
As you may be able to tell, it was a very eventful month for MonaVie. The sad part is that it’s very much the typical month for them. It’s been going on for years, and they’ve been giving a BP-like response – if you can even get a response at all.
So let’s hope that someone reading this is with the FDA or the FTC… or that someone knows someone at the FDA or the FTC. Maybe there’s a lawyer out there who wants to make a big name for themselves? Maybe someone just wants to do the right thing. If any of you are reading this, please feel free to Contact Me. If you don’t fit the above, you can still help. Spread the word through your blog, Facebook or Twitter accounts. Thanks.