Vemma Tells Court Consumers ‘Possibly’ Took Unreasonable Risk In Joining Its MLM Program, But Did So Knowingly

“Consumers represented by the FTC knowingly and voluntarily, and possibly unreasonably, exposed themselves to any claimed losses with knowledge or appreciation of the risk involved.” — Part of Vemma’s Sept. 30 defense to pyramid-scheme and deceptive-advertising charges filed by the FTC in August

Consumers can be forgiven if they view part of Vemma’s defense to the FTC’s pyramid-scheme and deceptive-advertising charges as a reason to avoid the MLM trade altogether.

Not taking time and expenses into account, the odds of losing money in MLM already are high and the odds of making money are low. But Vemma now is asserting that while the risk affiliates took when joining its program may have been unreasonable, they took it knowingly.

Meanwhile, Vemma is claiming that “[a]ny losses sustained by the FTC and/or the consumers it purports to represent were caused by the acts or omissions of third parties over whom the Corporate Defendants had no control or right to control.”

Vemma did not identify the third parties. But if the firm was referring to its own affiliates, including those who hyped the program on college campuses and through constant banging on social media, consumers again can be forgiven for avoiding the trade.

There is little reason for consumers to trust any MLM if one of the industry’s most famous companies is saying it cannot control affiliates, especially if it earlier benefited from the toxic tradecraft of those affiliates.

Vemma’s defense is pretty much a blanket denial of the FTC’s material allegations contained in the complaint here.

Vemma critic Truth In Advertising has a link to Vemma’s response to the FTC complaint. (See Vemma’s Answer to FTC’s Complaint for Permanent Injunction here.)

A week before Vemma filed its response, one of its top affiliates took to the web and made crude remarks about the FTC while at once asserting that Vemma itself had a “douchebag element” in its affiliate ranks. This occurred just days after CEO B.K. Boreyko had made an appeal for people to pray for the company.

The firm’s defense that affiliates may have knowingly made an unreasonable choice in joining would come later.