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Tag: threats against Bloggers

  • Alleged Bid To Gag Customers Leads To FTC Lawsuit Against Florida Seller Of ‘Unproven Weight-Loss Products’

    Image from FTC complaint against Roca Labs of Sarasota, Fla.
    Image from FTC complaint against Roca Labs of Sarasota, Fla.

    Let’s say you’re a direct-seller and manage to persuade yourself that trying to threaten and intimidate your own customers is a good business practice.

    How might you accomplish this?

    Well, the FTC alleged today that Florida-based Roca Labs Inc. and Roca Labs Nutraceutical USA Inc. inserted “gag clause provisions” in purported customer agreements in a bid “to stop [consumers] from posting negative reviews and testimonials online.”

    From an FTC statement dated today (italics added):

    “In a complaint filed in federal court, the FTC alleges that Roca Labs, Inc.; Roca Labs Nutraceutical USA, Inc.; and their principals have sued and threatened to sue consumers who shared their negative experiences online or complained to the Better Business Bureau, stating that the consumers violated the non-disparagement provisions of the ‘Terms and Conditions’ they supposedly agreed to when they bought the products. The FTC alleges that these gag clause provisions, and the defendants’ related warnings, threats, and lawsuits, harm consumers by unfairly barring purchasers from sharing truthful, negative comments about the defendants and their products.”

    Said Jessica Rich, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection:

    “Roca Labs had an adversarial relationship with the truth. Not only did they make false or unsubstantiated weight-loss claims, they also attempted to intimidate their own customers from sharing truthful – and truly negative – reviews of their products.”

    The FTC accuses Roca Labs of advertising its “Formula” and “Anti-Cravings” lines as “safe and effective alternatives to gastric bypass surgery.” In addition, the agency alleges, “[t]hey also claimed that users could lose as much as 21 pounds in one month, and that users have a 90 percent success rate in achieving substantial weight loss.”

    Meanwhile, according to the FTC, “the defendants used testimonials and supposed ‘third-party’ reviews to illustrate the weight-loss success consumers achieved with their products. They solicited ‘Success Videos’ from purchasers by offering to pay 50 percent of the products’ price for providing positive reviews. In addition to threatening consumers who violated the gag clause provisions, the defendants claimed that consumers who posted negative reviews would owe the ‘full price’ for their products – hundreds of dollars more than advertised or actually paid, according to the complaint.”

    Customers have directed at least $20 million to the firms for the powder products since 2010, the FTC alleges.

    “The defendants sold the products starting at $480 for a three-to-four month supply, and have sold at least $20 million of the powder since 2010, according to the complaint.

    In addition to the FTC’s unfairness charges based on the defendants’ gag clauses, the FTC alleges that the defendants’ weight-loss claims are false or unsubstantiated. The FTC also charges that the defendants failed to disclose that they compensated users who posted positive reviews. In addition, the FTC alleges that defendants violated consumers’ privacy by disclosing their personal health information in some cases to payment processors, banks, and in public court filings.”

    Also named defendants were Don Juravin, also known as Don Adi Juravin and Don Karl Juravin, and George C. Whiting, also known as “Dr. George Whiting” and “George C. Whiting, Ph.D,” the FTC said.

    Roca Labs implemented oppressive Terms and Conditions to stifle customers from complaining, the FTC charged. Here is one example, according to the complaint. (Italics and bolding added/light editing performed.)

    A version of the Terms Defendants used prior to December 2014 . . . provided that Defendants, in the event a purchaser violated the Gag Clause, had the right to sue purchasers for an injunction, immediately bill them for $3500 in court costs and legal fees until they are determined in court, and immediately revoke all “discounts” that purchasers purportedly received. This version of the Terms further provided that Defendants could, after thirty days, report any such charge that remained unpaid to consumer reporting agencies, and forward the unpaid charges to a collection agency. This version of the terms also provided that Defendants could require purchasers who violated the Gag Clause to execute a notarized affidavit stating that their “disparaging remarks or review contained factually inaccurate material, was incorrect and breached [the Terms].” A version of the Terms used from approximately September 2012 into mid-2014 . . . provided that the purchaser further agreed that “any report of any kind on the web will constitute defamation/slander,” and agreed “to a predetermined compensation of $100,000. You agree and understand that you can not [sic] talk badly about the Formula because of any frustration you might have with the support department or your misunderstanding.”

    In 2015, Public Citizen, a nonprofit group, sued Michigan-based KlearGear.com amid allegations the company effectively fined a Utah couple $3,500 after the wife posted a negative review of KlearGear at RipoffReport.com after her husband never received a desk toy and a keychain he’d ordered as Christmas gifts in 2008.

    KlearGear also was accused in the lawsuit of causing a debt collector to go after the couple and of lying to credit-reporting agencies when asserting the debt was valid.

    See Palmer v. KlearGear.com at Wikipedia.

  • UNACCEPTABLE: ‘Hopefully One Day He Will Pick The Wrong Target And . . . Someone Will Take A Shotgun To Him,’ Internet Marketer Says About ‘Salty Droid’ Author

    DISCLOSURE: I was a volunteer Moderator at the Warrior Forum (WF) between December 2007 and July 2008. I learned what is best — and worst — about Internet Marketing at the WF. Just as my Mod days were coming to an end, the AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme case was coming to the fore — and Internet Marketers raced to the forum to “defend” the business.

    UPDATED 11:13 P.M. EDT (U.S.A.) The author of The Salty Droid, a Blog that unapologetically skewers highly questionable Internet Marketing practices and some of the trade’s most visible figures, was made the subject of a death wish Aug. 17 by a poster at the Warrior Forum (WF).

    “Hopefully one day he will pick the wrong target and that someone will take a shotgun to him,” wrote Robert Puddy, a well-known marketer. The post was in response to a poster who apparently committed the high crime of making a favorable comment about The Salty Droid.

    The PP Blog, which itself has been the subject of threats by Internet Marketers, strongly condemns the event at the WF, the actions of Puddy and attempts to chill by force of threat reporters and Bloggers who write about IM-related issues.

    Suggesting a human being should be executed by shotgun for his critical point of view about Internet Marketing is thuggery. That Puddy, who provides Internet Marketing training and is regarded an expert, even could suggest that death was an appropriate penalty for a Blogger who opines that some Internet Marketers engage in anticompetitive and racketeering-like marketing practices is a matter for great introspection.

    So much for having a sense of the moment — or any PR savvy at all.

    A number of Internet Marketers have been implicated in racketeering schemes or found themselves squaring off against racketeering indictments or lawsuits in recent months. Andy Bowdoin of Florida-based AdSurfDaily, for instance, was sued by his own customers for racketeering. One of Bowdoin’s attorneys also was sued for racketeering in the same case, which was placed on hold until the federal Ponzi case against ASD plays out. At least one ASD member was successfully sued for racketeering in Utah for participating in a scheme to place bogus judgments for astronomical amounts against  public officials.

    The ASD member — Curtis Richmond — sat as an “arbitrator” on a bogus panel set up by a bogus “Indian” tribe and signed a bogus “award” for more than $300,000 against a Family Services worker. Not to be outdone, Richmond claimed the federal judge hearing the Utah case owed him $30 million.

    Richmond later claimed the federal judge overseeing the ASD case was guilty of “TREASON.” Dozens of Internet Marketers attempted to intervene in the case, filing pleadings from a kit. The pleadings, including one that claimed the government was guilty of interference with commerce for seizing the proceeds of an alleged crime, were downright bizarre.

    Now, Puddy, an Internet Marketer, opines that death is the answer for what he apparently believes should be the entire industry’s problem with The Salty Droid — as though monolithic thinking is the only option and that any person who believed the author could be right about anything should be shouted down and ridiculed.

    Adopting an ad hominem approach, Puddy, the marketing trainer and expert, called The Salty Droid fan an “idiot” — apparently for suggesting the author even could frame a point worth pondering over.  He then called the Salty Droid author a “disgusting little worm,” opining that the author uses “innuendo and false info to slag off other people.” He did not provide any example or any support material to back up his claim The Salty Droid dispensed innuendo and false info. Puddy concluded his comment with the shotgun remark, later denying he was angry when posting it.

    In a later comment, Puddy claimed he knew of two “people who [received] physical threats of violence [because] of the lies on that blog.

    “In one case,” Puddy claimed, “the [person’s] family was also included in the threat.”

    The Salty Droid (SD) author, who was made aware of Puddy’s remarks when contacted by the PP Blog for comment, said he was not surprised that violence had become part of the discussion.

    “I don’t doubt that the scammers also receive threats from the same type of persons that are threatening me,” SD said. “People can react in scary ways when they find out they’ve been the victim of the long con.”

    Puddy’s incendiary comment was posted Aug. 17 and escaped deletion on the WF for days. The comment finally disappeared either late Saturday or early Sunday. How and why it disappeared were not explained. Comments left by the PP Blog and other posters who challenged Puddy also disappeared.

    The PP Blog, which retained its Warrior Forum membership after giving up a volunteer moderator’s job in July 2008, challenged Puddy on his shotgun comment Saturday. The Blog was not alone in challenging the inflammatory remarks. Indeed, other WF members — including long-standing members — also challenged Puddy. Three WF members thanked the PP Blog in the forum for challenging Puddy’s assertion that The Salty Droid author should have a date with death by shotgun blast.

    At least three WF posters asked Puddy to retract his remarks.

    “I stand by my comments,” Puddy said, suggesting that WF members and others who disagreed with him are “brain dead.”

    By coincidence, “brain dead” was the exact same phrase members of ASD used to describe the federal judge presiding over the Ponzi litigation brought by the U.S. Secret Service in August 2008. The word choice did not go over well in the ASD case, either. Nor did Internet Marketers’ explanation that the case against ASD by the Secret Service and federal prosecutors was the work of “Satan” and the equivalent of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States.

    Saturday,  indeed, was another a dark day for Internet Marketing, which already has a miserable reputation for scamming, turning a blind eye to scammers, advocating on behalf of scammers and closing ranks when one of its own is challenged by prosecutors or web critics.

    Although some Internet Marketers — including members of the Warrior Forum — speak out routinely against scams and shady or illegal marketing practices, they often are derided as jealous “haters,” whiners, malcontents and people who cannot stand “success.”

    SD told the PP Blog that he routinely has been subjected to threats.

    “That happens to me all the time,” SD said.  “They threaten with me with all sorts of horrible atrocities . . . in public and in private. They also talk amongst themselves about the possibility of my death with fondness . . . and regularly . . . this in rooms that contain crazily loyal sycophants/cult followers.”

    That the “conversation” at the WF “so quickly deteriorated to that level says pretty much everything you need to know about this ‘industry,’” the SD said.

    Read a recent post titled “The Internet Marketing Syndicate” on The Salty Droid

  • COMING SOON: Author Of The ‘Salty Droid’ Blog Responds To Menacing Comment Made By Internet Marketer; ‘Shotgun’ Remark On Warrior Forum Seen As ‘Dangerous And Violent’

    Many of our readers know that the PP Blog has been subjected to threats, menacing behavior and cyberstalking. Later tonight, we’ll publish an editorial on a highly disturbing incident that occurred last week at the Warrior Forum (WF).

    The Salty Droid, a Blog that unapologetically skewers highly questionable Internet Marketing practices and some of the trade’s most visible figures, was made the subject of a death wish Aug. 17 at the WF.  The PP Blog strongly condemns the event at the WF, the actions of the Internet Marketer who made the incendiary comment and attempts to chill by force of threat reporters and Bloggers who cover IM-related issues.

    Suggesting a critic should be killed with a shotgun to silence his voice  is thuggery — plain and simple. It should not be tolerated. Period.

    Our editorial will include comments from The Salty Droid author.

    “They threaten with me with all sorts of horrible atrocities,” he said about some Internet marketers, observing that the trade has “crazily loyal sycophants/cult followers.”