EDITORIAL: Zeek: The ‘Reverse Rolaids’ Of MLM

From an old Rolaids commercial. Source: YouTube

Rolaids products are back on store shelves after a recall that lasted nearly three years — and that may come as particularly good news for sufferers of the ongoing Zeek Rewards sickness.

And with the TelexFree MLM story potentially churning hundreds of thousands of stomachs and getting stranger and stranger with each passing week, Rolaids may have a chance of regaining its past glory under the new leadership of Sanofi US and its consumer-health business Chattem Inc.

One way to look at Zeek Rewards is as a sort of reverse Rolaids, a brand of antacids that provides heartburn relief and became legendary for its claim that it consumed “47 times its weight in excess stomach acid.”

Another way Rolaids worked its way into the American consciousness was by asking a simple question that Sanofi says became “one of the most recognized advertising taglines of all-time”:

“How Do You Spell Relief? R-O-L-A-I-D-S.”

Zeek: The ‘Reverse Rolaids’

While wanting you to believe that it cured financial pain for small businesses and upstart entrepreneurs, Zeek and its combined MLM and auction “programs” actually created it by consuming victims at 44 times its weight. We arrive at this rounded figure (and reverse-Rolaids observation) by dividing the estimated number of Zeek “losers” (840,000) by the population of the North Carolina city of Lexington (18,936).

Indeed, Zeek was to causing financial pain what Rolaids was to relieving your sick stomach.

In August 2012, the SEC described Zeek as a massive Ponzi- and pyramid scheme that duped people into believing it paid a legitimate return of about 1.5 percent a day.

Zeek, through Rex Venture Group LLC, operated from Lexington, turning a Southern city famous for its hospitality and delectable barbecue into the MLM Heartburn Capital of the World.

Rolaids products were pulled from store shelves in late 2010, because “wood and metal particles were potentially introduced into the products during the manufacturing process at an outside supplier” and because customers detected “a musty or moldy scent,” according to the AP and NBC News.

Lexington, unfortunately, inherited the MLM Heartburn Capital title from Quincy, Fla., home base of the $119 million AdSurfDaily MLM scam in 2008. Zeek, the SEC said, gathered about $600 million.

A court-appointed receiver has been gathering up money for Zeek victims for more than a year and prepping to sue Zeek profiteers and insiders. He’s also in the process of seeking court approval to dismantle Zeek’s Heartburn Factory in Lexington.

Though coincidental to the dismantlement of Zeek in a tranquil American city that never wanted the MLM Heartburn Capital title from Quincy, the comeback of Rolaids amid continuing stomach-churning events in MLM La-La Land perhaps is occurring at the perfect time.

Best of luck as you relaunch, Rolaids.