MonaVie Distributor Tom states “Show me any company in the world (with revenue about $1 billion a year) that has that many distributors making more than $160K a year. If you use company’s materials stick to what they say.”

Monavie states they are making $1 billion in revenue though they do not release financial information to support such claims and therefore, this statement remains unproven. See MonaVie – Is MonaVie the Fastest Company to $1 Billion Dollars in … for more information on that.

Secondly, what percentage of any revenue earned was from bona fide sales to persons not associated with the scheme and what percentage is from the investments and purchases from it’s own sales force?! Monavie do not disclose this information either however, judging by Tom’s description that he is consuming everything that he buys, as does his downline (and as does his upline whom he is duplicating), I’d say not much and it serves Monavie well to withhold such a vital piece of information from the public.

Monavie hopes the average distributor is unable to perform basic arithmetic (and this is an accurate assumption in Tom’s circumstances), however we’re able to elicit from the information provided in the 2009 Global IDS the real opportunity that Monavie represents to the average distributor/consumer (again, the distributors are the consumers).

If ALL the distributors were included in the Income disclosure statement (that is, the 87% who did not qualify for commissions – 620,431), the figures would confirm the following facts:

Total distributors = 713,139

Royal Black Diamond and above through to Bronze Executives (2570) = 0.36% of the total sales force.

The above 0.36% of distributors were paid 53% of the total commissions and averaged $1516.70 per week.

Star 1000 through to Distributor level (90,138) = 12.64% of the total sales force and averaged $37.33 per week

$37.33 per week clearly represents a LOSS when all costs are factored into (autoship, training tools, phone calls, travel, attending seminars, etc).

The remaining 620,431 distributors (87%) earned ZERO.

Clearly it’s accurate to say that 99.64% of the ENTIRE sales force LOST money.

The top weighted compensation plan is further confirmed when you consider that those ranked Royal Black Diamond and above through to Ruby Executives (377) who equate to 0.053% of the total sales force received 37.53% of the total commissions paid.

The above group of 0.053% averaged $7227.87 per week.

Even with the Gold, Silver and Bronze Executive earnings included with the remaining distributors (through to distributor level), this group of 92,331 (12.94% of the total sales force) still only averaged $49.13 per week.

Lets not forget again that 620,431 of the sales force earned absolutely ZERO.

Monavie have misrepresented the facts surrounding this farcical opportunity and fraudulently promoted a scheme whereby they elude to inform people as at the time they sign up that greater than 99% of the entire sales force are losing money.

Tom, the hypocrisy lies with a company who has policies and procedures in place which are necessary to ensure the legality of the scheme but which they do no enforce in any way at all, thus leaving the business in the incapable hands of uninformed, gullible and money driven distributors such as yourself.

Originally posted 2010-06-24 20:59:48.

I have to give credit to frequent commenter, mysterious for this for this first chart. It comes from Complete.com which is a well-known website traffic measuring source:

Monavie.com traffic according to Compete.com

You can get a recent update (assuming that you are reading this after July 28th, 2010) on Monavie Traffic by clicking here.

The interesting thing to me is that MonaVie traffic is 1/4th of what it was a year ago. Ouch. It looks like the anonymous tipster that said revenue was down more than 18% may be right.

Some MonaVie distributors will likely throw out some kind of conspiracy theory that Compete.com isn’t accurate. They’ll probably go digging up a bunch of stuff that supports that argument. In anticipation of that, I decided to add a second, even more trustworthy source… Google. Their Google Trends product can tell you how much interest there is in something overtime. It does this by analyzing the data on billions of daily searches… a vast sample size. What does Google say about the interesting in MonaVie? It’s fading.

Interest in MonaVie according to Google Trends

Looking at the chart, you can see MonaVie has been fading since the beginning of 2009. Interest is the currently the same as it was in early 2007… just one year after it started showing up on Google’s radar.

“The shipping bill of lading from November 2008 (#MAEU857273697) shows that EarthFruits received a large shipment containing drums of solids originating from Balboa, Panama (a port city located at the Pacific entrance to the Panama Canal) and arriving in Los Angeles.”

The shipper was Bela Iaca Ind. E Com. Polpas de Frutas Ltda. [translation; Beautiful Acai Fruit Pulps Ltd.]. Bela Iaca Ltd (located in Castanhal, Brazil) was founded in 2003 and manufactures fruit purees that are shipped to buyers worldwide. Their products include acai puree (available in 180 kg drums) as well as bacuri, cacau, camu-camu, cupuaçu, acerola, passion fruit, pineapple, guava, cashew, taperebá, soursop, lime, muruci, uxi, and mango.

A search for other bills of lading from Bela Iaca uncovered a shipment (#MAEU853684299) on February 23, 2007 of 260 drums (roughly 25 tons) of “frozen acai refined and pasteurized with 12% solids added with citric acid”. This shipment was also to Los Angeles and originated in Panama. The receiver of the shipment was…[drum roll please]…MONARCH HEALTH SCIENCES (now doing business as Monavie LLC).

Note also that the manufacturer specifies that the acai is only 12% solids, which represents lowto mid-grade acai (Type B). The same company also offers higher-grade versions, which apparently Monavie LLC was too cheap to pay for. These include a version that contains more than 14% acai solids (Type A) as well as an even higher-grade organic version.”

So here we have a forensic trail that tells us pretty much exactly how and where Monavie really gets (or got) their acai. As I [Vogel] speculated a long while back, they purchase cheap frozen acai pulp in 180 kg drums from an unaffiliated non-exclusive bulk supplier in Brazil. The drums of acai puree are then shipped by slow boat to Panama, where it is unloaded and transferred to another ship for slow transport to Los Angeles. After arriving in LA, the drums of acai puree are shipped overland by truck to the bottling facility in Utah. Monavie LLC has nothing to do with the harvesting or processing of the acai berries and they aren’t freeze-dried within 24-48 hours of picking.

Of course the big take-away here is in that last paragraph. MonaVie distributors like to say that MonaVie is there harvesting the acai. This is obviously not true. They like to say that they get the best quality acai. Again, the company they buy from has better quality available. MonaVie distributors like to say that MonaVie is there freeze-drying the acai to keep it fresh. That doesn’t seem to be the case either.

Huh, so how about those berries?

Originally posted 2010-03-21 15:18:47.

“The twisted minds at the Arizona factory outdid themselves with this nefarious concoction, a can the size of a bazooka loaded with enough of the sweet stuff to blast your belly with 42 sugar cubes. The most disturbing part isn’t that it masks itself as some sort of healthy juice product (after all, hundreds of products are guilty of the same crime), but that this behemoth serving size costs just $.99, making its contents some of the cheapest calories we’ve ever stumbled across.”

That made me think… what would the nutritional value of 23 ounces of MonaVie look like in terms of calories and sugar? After all, 23 ounces of drink is 23 ounces of drink… and almost every drink in the article is ranked in these terms.

If you were to drink 23 ounces of MonaVie, you’d have 690 calories. That’s exactly twice the amount of the Worst Juice Imposter. 23 ounces of MonaVie is also 69 grams of sugar… the equivalent of 6 bowls of Froot Loops. Arizona Kiwi Strawberry is great in that it won’t hurt your wallet too much with a 99 cent price tag for 23 ounces. MonaVie’s 23 ounce price tag will run you more than $30 in most cases, which can put quite a dent in your wallet.

Originally posted 2010-06-13 12:06:33.

• Vitaminwater Isn’t Healthy, Rules Federal Judge
• Lawsuit vs Coke’s vitaminwater to proceed – judge

The crux of the case seems to be the name of VitaminWater and how it is misleading to consumers. The argument is that the consumers could easily believe it is water and vitamins, where in truth fructose and sucrose play significant roles in the product (and contributes significant calories). The judge’s recent statement about VitaminWater was:

“By including the suggestion that the product will ‘keep you healthy’ or ‘help bring about a healthy state of physical and mental being’ alongside such statements, the quoted language implies that the nutrient content of vitaminwater may help consumers maintain healthy dietary practices. I conclude, therefore, in light of the language and context in which they are used, that the statements on the ‘defense’ and ‘B- Relaxed’ labels constitute implied nutrient content claims which use the word ‘healthy.’ Such claims are in violation of violation of FDA regulations because . . . vitaminwater achieves its nutritional content solely through fortification that violates FDA policy.”

Now, before we get carried away, this isn’t a definitive ruling against Coca-Cola… it looks like it just means that Coke didn’t win a dismissal of the case. However, what caught my eye here is the last statement:

Such [healthy] claims are in violation of violation of FDA regulations because . . . vitaminwater achieves its nutritional content solely through fortification that violates FDA policy.

The above is something that is commonly known as the Jelly Bean Rule defined by the FDA on May 19, 1994. The idea behind it is that one can not claim jelly beans are healthy just because they are low in fat, sodium, and cholesterol. According to Wikipedia, the Jelly Bean Rule specifically states, “It says foods low in fat, cholesterol, and sodium cannot claim to be ‘healthy’ unless they contain at least 10 percent of: vitamin A, vitamin C, calcium, protein, fiber, or iron. The FDA also made a policy that companies could not fortify foods with the sole intent of making that claim.”

MonaVie has been claiming for sometime that their juice is healthy. It would appear that they can do that since a serving of MonaVie has 25% of the RDA of vitamin C. However, I believe that vitamin C to be fortified (I don’t believe it is natural for an ounce of juice to have 25% of the RDA of vitamin C). If that vitamin C is fortified, then MonaVie seems to have been running afoul of the FDA’s jelly bean rule for years.

Of course that all changes with MonaVie Essential… a new generation of fortified juices. Oh wait, it doesn’t change because MonaVie has once again fortified the product. This time they are fortifying even more with vitamins A and E, B6 and B12, and fiber.

If people are this upset over the misleading name of VitaminWater, I can’t imagine what they’ll say about the illegal health claims that MonaVie has been making for years.

Imagine, instead of trying to work your way up to the top of the distributor pyramid, you could just start out at the top. Seems like a sound plan to me!

Originally posted 2009-12-14 12:23:39.

it’s worth noting the inconsistency across the labels. The US label clearly shows that it’s 3 grams of sugar, while the Canadian label shows that it’s 4 grams of sugar. Also Canadian MonaVie is only 20 calories per 30ml (ounce) while the American MonaVie is 30 calories. Those are some big differences. I don’t know how one can claim MonaVie has any science to it’s blend, when it can’t even be a consistent drink across two neighboring countries.

In the past distributors have claimed MonaVie to be a low-sugar drink. If we are to believe the Canadian label it has 32 grams of sugar per 8 ounces… which is more than most 8 ounce drinks I’ve come across. I guess when I asked if MonaVie is the Worst Juice in America, I should have asked about Canada as it would have come up as having 25% more sugar (though fewer calories). I don’t know why someone wouldn’t just take another juice and put it in their shot glass instead… it would be the same or less sugar than the Canadian version. It would seem like there’s nothing special to distributors’ of MonaVie being a low-sugar drink – just the size of the serving.

Originally posted 2010-06-19 02:54:59.

I remember a while back that Monavie was running a promotion in which they were offering top distributors the chance to win a seat on the Virgin Galactic space shuttle. Here are a few examples of distributors using the Virgin Galactic promotion to lure new prospective Monavie distributors:

• Topgunmonavie.com
• Get-monavie.com
• Ron-yeap.blogspot.com
• JuzMonavie.com

In the original version of an Inc. magazine article on Monavie, Dallin Larsen was quoted as follows:

“We’ve contracted with Virgin Galactic, and whoever reaches the top will earn a trip to outer space. So we’ll be able to say that MonaVie’s a company that takes you in, around, and out of this world.”

However, I noticed recently that MonaVie retracted the statement and is now denying that they ever had any deal with Virgin Galactic.

“The original version of this story, which appeared in the October 2009 issue, incorrectly stated that MonaVie contracted with Virgin Galactic to send its distributors on a commercial space flight. The two companies do not have a formal contract.”

Originally posted 2010-05-10 09:23:05.

Originally posted 2010-05-06 06:42:27.

[If the video is not loading or if you can't get to the blog post then MonaVie realized that their mistake and took down the video.]

The video is a short story from JP Richardson. I’ll quote just a couple lines of it:

“My neighbor knew I was in pain.”
“She handled me these two bottles and said, ‘Hey these two bottles… I want you to try this. It may help your pain and there’s a chance to make some money.’”

MonaVie’s own blog says that testimonials must conform to approved statements and must be subject to “typical results.” So MonaVie had the choice to send their compliance team out to prevent these unapproved claims and chose not to… Not only that, but they took it the extra step and used the testimony themselves to promote the product.

It’s a real easy case for the FTC to show that MonaVie profiting from the unapproved claims. There’s a direct link to a neighbor making the unapproved claim and JP Richardson’s Gold status (Gold distributors make MonaVie a lot of money). It’s quite interesting to see MonaVie corporate (not just the distributors) sending conflicting messages. It’s another reason why MonaVie is a scam… you don’t see any juice brand in your grocery store saying such things.

Originally posted 2010-03-12 06:46:40.