Archive | Herbalife

Posted 30 September 2020

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit has ruled that Patricia Rodgers and fellow plaintiffs can proceed with a federal lawsuit that is seeking class-action status against 44 top-level Herbalife distributors. The Court’s ruling overturned lower court rulings that Herbalife could compel arbitration.
Reference: Alpert B. Herbalife faces a fresh legal hurdle. Barron’s, Sept 25, 2020

The Appeals Court order summarized Rodgers’ situation this way:

Patricia Rodgers filled out the paperwork to become an Herbalife member in June 2010. Some six months later, she claims, she traveled over a hundred miles to Orlando, Florida, to attend her first large Herbalife recruiting event, the “January Spectacular.” According to Patricia, the keynote speaker at this event was a highly successful distributor who told the attendees that if they simply put in enough time, money, and effort, then they, too, could achieve life-changing financial success. . … Read the rest

Posted 02 September 2020

Multilevel marketing company Herbalife Nutrition, Ltd. has entered into a deferred prosecution agreement to resolve federal charges that it conspired over a ten-year period to bribe to Chinese officials and falsify its accounting records to promote and expand its business in China. Under the agreement, Herbalife admitted to violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and promised to pay penalties totaling more than $123 million. By 2016, Herbalife’s business in China accounted for $850 million, which was about 20% of its worldwide annual net sales.

Reference: Herbalife agrees to pay $123 million to resolve Foreign Corrupt Practices Act case. US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York news release, Aug 28, 2020

MLM Watch has an archive of information about Herbalife collected over more than 30 years that includes regulatory actions and lawsuits against the company.

Source: Consumer Health Digest #20-34, August … Read the rest

Posted 21 October 2019

Oct 10, 2019 Harriet A. Hall, MD

Science-Based Medicine

A case of fatal liver failure in India was attributed to Herbalife products, adding to many other reports from around the world. Analysis showed Herbalife products contain heavy metals and other contaminants. The products have not been scientifically tested, and in the absence of evidence of benefit to human health, they can’t be recommended.

Herbalife is a multilevel marketing company that sells nutritional and weight loss supplements in 94 countries. After many complaints, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) investigated the company. In 2016, they described Herbalife as a scam disguised as healthy living; the company was fined $200 million and ordered to restructure its business and issue refunds to 350,000 Herbalife distributors. Herbalife has also been sued in Belgium and Israel. There have been over 50 reports of liver toxicity attributed to Herbalife products in Spain, Israel, … Read the rest

Posted 16 April 2018

“South African actor has us in stitches with this Herbalife parody”

“The comic mind behind the video pokes fun at the pushy sales reps, their “get rich quick” beliefs and the sheer volume of problems the product claims it can solve”.

“Director Matt Keeson and actors Vere and Emma Tinsdale also deserve props for their role in this clip, filmed entirely in a Newlands flat. There’s singing, dancing and even some partial nudity”. 

The Erbalife Song

Phillip Black, the man who created this shared the one piece of advice he would give the Herbalife distributors: “Please stop pretending to be my friend and selling me shit I don’t need.”

Source: The South African

Posted 19 October 2017

Herbalife, a Los Angeles-based MLM company that sells nutrition products and weight-loss supplements, and dozens of its top-earning distributors were sued this week in a class action complaint over alleged civil racketeering (RICO) violations.

The 82-page complaint, filed in federal court in Florida, claims:

[t]he Herbalife success story is a fraud; a predatory scheme intentionally rigged against newcomers playing by the rules. The success claimed – and promised – by Defendants at Circle of Success events across the country is impossible to attain under its own terms.

A little over a year ago, Herbalife agreed to a $200 million settlement with the FTC that required it to revamp its compensation system to reward distributors for sales to customers rather than for recruitment. According to the complaint filed Monday,

But untouched by the FTC’s action . . . is the single most effective fraud in the