SOME JAPANESE GUY IS STALKING ME.
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I work a lot of night shifts, always have, probably always will. I usually get home around 3 a.m. and sometimes watch a bit of TV before bed. I've caught the tail end of all kinds of infomercials this last year: H20 Mop, Scalp Med, Debbie Meyer Green Bags -- all kinds of stuff. Kevin Trudeau's Natural Cures they don't want you to know about.
I have this almost compulsive obsessive habit of checking amazon.com every time I catch the tail end of an infomercial just to see whether or not what they're hawking on air is a piece of junk. Sometimes, it's surprising, sometimes the stuff you expect would be the worst product in the world and everyone wants their money back (perfect example being the Fishing Pole Pen) actually score high reviews. Most of the time though, two minutes of research would save everyone all kinds of embarrassment and pain. Like with that Scalp Med stuff which promises to grow back hair, here's some real testimonials of people who tried it which contradict slightly from the commercials claims:
"Hi, I've been using it for about 2 months or so and I've also started having vision problems. All of a sudden my eyes have started hurting and my vision has started getting blurry. Right before or around the time when I had just started using the product, I had gone to get my vision checked which leads me to think that its been my continuous use of scalpmed that is causing me to have problems now. I plan on complaining to the company. Oh and by the way, I haven't seen any new hair growth."
...
"Been using Scalp Med for about 6 months. It does appear to stimulate hair growth. Unfortunately, it also inflames my scalp. This problem started about 1 month ago. Burned it so bad that the skin peeled off like a sunburn. Stopped use for 2 weeks to heal. Tried it again last night and scalp was on fire within 10 minutes...had to jump into shower and wash it off."
...
"I began using Scalpmed about 3 weeks ago and I already see a change. I bought this product because of my hairline. I was beginning to lose a lot of hair in the front middle part of my hair. Of course my hair has been receding for sometime now but I am I very happy that my hair is starting to grow back. The problem is that my vision is going bad. I can’t read things that are far away anymore."
People are stupid, very stupid. Hey Jim! I hope you enjoy fixing that receding hair line at the cost of, you know. YOUR SLIGHTLY MORE IMPORTANT VISION. SOMETHING THAT'S JUST A LITTLE BIT MORE CRUCIAL TO LIVING OUT DAILY LIFE. Not to mention by 50 none of us we'll look sexy anymore anyway, let's not lie to ourselves guys. Very few of us we'll be that 50 year old grandma who has 12 kids from the BowFlex commercials who could rival the six pack I have going on - let alone bench press me 600 straight times before breaking a sweat. Which actually brings me to another gripe of mine, female body building. How can anyone find it sexy?
Gahhh. I'll try to draw puking on the internet in ASCII form, hold on.
O<~~~~~~ | / \
Okay so that didn't really work, but you get the point right? I still find it disgusting. It's sometimes interesting to do back ground checks on the people who are selling items when they announce their names; like Billy Mayes or Kevin Trudeau. Billy Mayes actually has somewhat of a credible history, he's worked as a salesmen for 12 years selling various home cleaning products at trade shows. Eventually he was picked up by a CEO of a company to sell his items on the home shopping network and from there became a popular TV persona. I guess that's as a deep and back breaking as infomercials get, like the dream of dreams for everyone wanting to get into the intricate insides of the telemarketing or home shopping field. Still, Billy's a cool cat. Probably not someone I'd trust with a new born baby but if I had a garage of stuff I wanted to sell that was once popular in the 70's, oh you'd better believe it baby; he'd be #1 on my speed dial. Kevin Trudeau, oh my. Here's some of the stuff he's accomplished in his life outside of selling books that claim to cure cancer: (According to wiki)
1990-1991: Larceny and credit card fraud
In 1990, Trudeau posed as a doctor in order to deposit $80,000 in false checks, and in 1991 he pleaded guilty to larceny. Trudeau had used the credit cards of eleven customers of the mega memory product to fraudulently charge approximately $122,735.68.[11] He spent two years in federal prison because of this conviction (Choi, 2005). Later, in his book Natural Cures, Trudeau claimed that he has since learned from his experience, and is now motivated to help people rather than merely to make money for himself.
1996: SEC and various states
Trudeau began working for Nutrition For Life, a multi-level marketing program in the mid 1990s. However, in 1996, his recruitment practices were cited by the states of Illinois and Michigan, as well as the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Illinois sued Trudeau and Jules Leib, who was his partner, accusing them of operating an illegal pyramid scheme. They settled with Illinois and seven other states for $185,000 after agreeing to change their tactics. Michigan forbade him from operating in the state. A class action lawsuit was filed by stockholders of Nutrition for Life for violations of Texas law including misrepresenting and/or omitting material information about Nutrition for Life International, Inc.'s business. In August 1997, the company paid $2 million in cash to common stockholders and holders of warrants during the class period to settle the case. The company also paid the plaintiffs' attorney fees of $600,000.
1998: FTC fine
In 1998, Trudeau was fined $500,000 to be used for consumer redress by the FTC, relating to six infomercials he had produced and in which the FTC determined he had made false or misleading claims. These infomercials included "Hair Farming," "Mega Memory System," "Addiction Breaking System," "Action Reading," "Eden's Secret," and "Mega Reading." The products included a "hair farming system" that was supposed to "finally end baldness in the human race," and "a breakthrough that in 60 seconds can eliminate" addictions, discovered when a certain "Dr. Callahan" was "studying quantum physics."
2004: FTC contempt of court and injunction
In June 2003, the FTC filed a complaint in the Northern District of Illinois against Trudeau and some of his companies (Shop America (USA), LLC; Shop America Marketing Group, LLC; and Trustar Global Media, Limited), alleging that disease-related claims for Coral Calcium Supreme were false and unsubstantiated. In July 2003, Trudeau entered into a stipulated preliminary injunction that prohibited him from continuing to make the challenged claims for Coral Calcium Supreme and Biotape.
In the summer of 2004, the court found Trudeau in contempt of court for violating the preliminary injunction, because he had sent out a direct mail piece and produced an infomercial making prohibited claims. The court ordered Trudeau to cease all marketing for coral calcium products.
In September 2004, Trudeau agreed to pay $2 million ($500,000 in cash plus transfer of residential property located in Ojai, California, and a luxury vehicle) to settle charges that he falsely claimed that a coral calcium product can cure cancer and other serious diseases and that a purported analgesic called Biotape can permanently cure or relieve severe pain. He also agreed to a lifetime ban on promoting products with infomercials. However, that did not restrict his right to promote books via infomercials.
2005: Trudeau v. FTC
On February 28, 2005, Trudeau filed a complaint against the FTC in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, seeking declaratory and injunctive relief. Trudeau also filed a motion for preliminary injunction, which the court denied.
The complaint charged that the FTC had retaliated against him for his criticism of the agency by issuing a press release that falsely characterized and intentionally and deliberately misrepresented the 2004 Final Order. That conduct, Trudeau asserted, exceeded the FTC’s authority under 15 U.S.C. § 46(f) and violated the First Amendment. The Federal Trade Commission responded with a motion to dismiss the complaint for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1), and for failure to state a claim for which relief can be granted under Rule 12(b)(6).
The district court granted the FTC’s motion to dismiss. First, the court concluded that it lacked subject-matter jurisdiction because the press release was not “a ‘final agency action’” under “section 704 of the [Administrative Procedure Act]”, 5 U.S.C. § 704. Second, the court held, “in the alternative, that Trudeau’s claims failed to state a viable cause of action as a matter of law.”
Trudeau later filed an appeal which resulted in the unsuccessful attempt to reverse the previous court's ruling.
2005: Trudeau v. New York Consumer Protection Board
Trudeau filed a lawsuit on August 11, 2005, accusing the New York State Consumer Protection Board of violating his First Amendment rights by contacting television stations in New York state and urging them to pull Trudeau's infomercials promoting his book Natural Cures "They" Don't Want You to Know About. Trudeau won a temporary restraining order on September 6, 2005 prohibiting the Board from sending letters to the television stations. The temporary restraining order was replaced by a preliminary injunction. However, Trudeau lost a motion to have the Board send a "corrective letter" to the television stations and subsequently dropped all claims for monetary damages. The case is still in litigation.
2007: FTC contempt of court action
The FTC has filed a contempt of court action against Trudeau and the companies that market The Weight Loss Cure 'They' Don't Want You to Know About, alleging that Trudeau is in contempt of a 2004 court order by "deceptively claiming in his infomercials that the book being advertised establishes a weight-loss protocol that is 'easy' to follow." The action was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois on September 17, 2007. According to an FTC Press Release, Trudeau claims that the weight loss plan outlined in the book is easy, can be done at home, and readers can eat anything they want. When consumers buy the book, they find it describes a complex plan that requires intense dieting, daily injections of a prescribed drug that is not easily obtainable, and lifelong dietary restrictions.
--What a classy guy! ;D
If only all infomercials could be advertised like this instead, maybe we'd be set:
I'd still buy that ladder. That's some fine advertising there, I tell you what.
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