Oprah clearly lists on her site:

Consumers should be aware that neither Oprah Winfrey nor Dr. Oz are associated with nor do they endorse any açaí berry product, company or online solicitation of such products, including MonaVie juice products. Attorneys for Harpo are pursuing companies that claim such an affiliation.

This is a comment that specifically calls out MonaVie and MonaVie distributors. From the date you can see it goes back to January and there are 750 comments (as of 8/22/09), most about how people got scammed by acai products.

It can’t get any more straight-forward than that… or can it?

Oprah announced yesterday that she is suing three Utah companies one of which is MonaVie.

“We know that thousands of people have been misled by these marketing practices,” said Marc Rachman, the attorney for Oz and Winfrey and companies that manage their images and trademarks, on Friday. “Oprah.com has received e-mail in the thousands from people who believe Oprah and Dr. Oz are affiliated with these products and have endorsed them when they haven’t.”

What is MonaVie’s defense?

A top official at Monavie said Friday it was mistakenly put on the list of “Internet scammers” who trade on the reputation of the açai as a health-promoting berry the company makes into a drink product. CFO Devin Thorpe said the company did not promote free trials of products, had a liberal money-back policy and did not say or imply that Winfrey or Oz had endorsed the Monavie açai-based juice.

“We really feel like we’re the victims of these Internet scammers every bit as much as Oprah is a victim of them,” said Thorpe. “Monavie really created the açai business in the United States … And it’s really [Internet scammers] trading on our good name.”

If that’s the case why are there so many comments in the Lazy Man MonaVie Scam comment archives about Oprah endorsing MonaVie? It sounds like MonaVie is profiting from the “Internet scammers.”

Originally posted 2009-08-22 06:14:18.