And, thanks for a great site. Keep up the good work. You can’t save them all though (probably the same thoughts from the other side.)

I cleaned up your comment a bit. It will help me address your concerns and allow others to read what you are saying easier.

Credentials – They are only important to you. This website is for those looking for more information before making a buying decision on MonaVie. That’s why I say that Vogel is a space octopus from the plant Kelmar. I could be the absolute most evil person in the world and it wouldn’t impact any of the information in any of the articles. The messenger does not impact the message if the message is based on objective analysis as I do. My hope is that the people making the buying decisions are intelligent enough to realize this. I believe that credentials are only important to Mike, so that he can attack me (as he does in the rest of the email) and draw attention away from the product.

Consumer Reports – I did not compare myself to them. I said that you should think of me as looking out for people’s best interests as they do.

China, Drywall, Wall Street, Toyota, Mercedes, iPhone, etc. – I don’t see what any of these products have to do with MonaVie. The person coming to this website is here to learn about MonaVie, not any of those topics. Some of the arguments made by Mike here are just too off-base to even address. For instance, people don’t buy iPhones only to make phone calls. It seems that Mike just wants to deflect attention from MonaVie rather than refute any of the information in the site.

Testing the Product – This has already been done three times, as Food Tech mentioned and each time it’s back looking bad for MonaVie. I don’t know why Mike is asking for new tests when we have no information that the product or the testing procedures have changed since the last tests. Even if MonaVie did change their product, the tests prove the fundamental point that MonaVie was selling juice that wasn’t nutritious for years. Why would we trust a new version?

GoDaddy / Yahoo – If GoDaddy goes out of business this website will still be fine. Mike, has demonstrated a fundamental lack of knowledge on how the Internet works. I did know that Yahoo has a business website application for $9.99. A Blogger account from Google is free.

Failed Distributor and being a Competitor – Please note that those were a list of bullets of “most popular erroneous assumptions.” So it seems like you failed at reading. So your big “a-ha” moment kind of fails there, doesn’t it?

Falsum in uno, falsum in omnibus – I have no clue the argument you are trying to make here. I agree that false in one thing doesn’t make them false in everything. I never implied that because they wrong about the protein part, they are wrong in other areas. However, if the salesman (a MonaVie Distributor) makes this common mistake as we’ve seen many times before one of two conclusions can be made:
1) Either they don’t know the product well enough… in which case they shouldn’t be selling it.
2) They are purposely trying to confuse the customer into making a purchase by using facts irrelevant to the product.

Either one of the above reflects very badly on MonaVie’s company and it’s product.

Did you have a point? Are you saying that Lazyman is a bully, and is picking on MonaVie?

That’s really too bad. Deal with it.

As for your suggestion about three studies on MonaVie, that’s already been done. AIBMR, Men’s Journal, and the one that I financed.

However, when I posted the results from my study, it was you who called Chromadex and threatened to sue them.

If you feel so strongly about all of the other issues that you’ve mentioned, I suggest starting your own blog. Make it pro-MonaVie, anti-Toyota. Whatever you want. Just stop crying.

To the general public. At the end of the day from my conclusion Juice Scam is working for a competitor. It is stated in his about me page. Do not shoot the messenger.

Here is what he is doing with his website beside and his sidekick – teaming up to respond to an email. I am merely doing what you he is doing here which is cutting and pasting his ABOUT ME Page and nick picking his intend which is what he is doing in general.

About Me

Many MonaVie distributors, preferred customers, or supporters in general come to this site making assumptions about me. So rather than tell you about me, I thought enumerate and dispel the most popular erroneous assumptions:

* I am a Negative Person – Nothing could be further from the truth. I’m quite positive. MonaVie supporters often don’t realize that spending $45 for a bottle of juice is outrageously expensive and it hurts the consumer’s chance for financial freedom. In a tough economy such as this one, I believe most people have better things to do with $5000 a year (cost for a family of four) than buy this juice. In addition to that, I want to clear up the misconceptions that MonaVie Distributors are spreading around the web. Consider me like Consumer Reports magazine, looking out the people’s best interests.

CAVEAT EMPTOR.
We live in America and it is everyone choice if they want to spend their money on junk. You are NOT Consumer Reports and you never will be because you are:

a) NOT revealing who you are except that you build website.
b) Had never pick apart any other products besides this one. If you have please lists all related website and most importantly your CREDENTIALS.

I think CREDENTIAL IS VERY IMPORTANT here don’t you think? Since you build website that talked about other inferior products. I want to make sure that we are not reading a post from a high school kid that is being paid by a competitor.:)

How about products that is made in CHINA? Now that is a WHOPPER if you ask me. Hmmm where do we start since their product is still out there in many stores and you are not even talking about it? Shame shame shame.

How about the DRYWALL that was shipped over during the housing boom? If my research is correct some of them are still slipping in from the west coast which I might add – IS MAKING THE HOME UN LIVEABLE and WORTHLESS.

c) I am again questioning your motive here AGAIN. Wall Street is still scamming people everyday but yet I do not see you tailing or talking about GOLDMAN SACHS for the huge debacle in our nation housing crisis and the homeless people that they have since put out onto the streets.

Toyota finally admitted their mistakes after the DOT finds out that they knew about their brakes issues way before they were caught. They have since killed INNOCENT people driving their car. Oh really – killing INNOCENT people is OK when you knew about it earlier on so you can saved monies on the recall.

c) Is a Mercedes Benz worth its price for taking you from point A to point B? If not buy a Hyundai. Simple.

By the way just in case you do NOT know this – Hyundai is getting better with their quality and it is price reasonably well. Simple.

Or an IPHONE? Is it worth the price for making a phone call? Again it is a matter of CHOICE AND THE RIGHT OF EACH INDIVIDUAL, PERIOD.

I am not going to go there with you in relation to other products and that is the reason why I put in etc… SINCE YOU HAVE SOOO MUCH TIME ON YOUR HANDS TALKING ABOUT MONAVIE YOU CAN ALSO DO THE REST FOR US HERE IN THIS FORUM.:)

* I am Unhappy – On the contrary, I’m quite happy. I love what I do. Most of the people reading this have not met me to make that judgment.

I will take a pass on meeting you. AGAIN you are merely cutting and pasting information from other website and merely pointing out comparison. You and your side kick added commentary and compare published docs, which is rather weak without any in depth research.

Spend some money and take it to 3 independent research labs and publish the report here. Now that is what I called research. Again please do not publish passed article. We the audience voted you to be the man. You will need new ones. OK.

On the other hand Consumer Report has their hands on a product. They TEST each product and then write about their pros and cons about them. Not you.

To me Consumer Report is FAIR and BALANCE. They do not build a website and cut and paste what others editors write from each different magazines or websites.

So please do not compare yourself to Consumer Report. You do not have the manpower, research, or the money to do it.

Oh I forgot you build website like GODADDY who does a better job for less and a much better job at that. Why not write about how they create a better mousetrap then you buying and borrowing codes on the WWW and you losing your ass every month hoping that they go out of business.

By the way did you know that YAHOO as a business website application for $9.99?

* I am a Failed MonaVie Distributor – I’ve never been a MonaVie Distributor or involved with MonaVie’s organization in any way.

Now which IS IT?

A FAILED Monavie distributor or never been involved? Do not blame the messenger here.

* I work for a Competitor – I create websites, mostly focused on educating consumers on how to get the most for their money.

Thank you for clarifying. NOW WE ALL KNOW THAT YOU WORK FOR A COMPETITOR. TELL US WHICH ONE IS IT. I AM PUTTING THE HEAT ON YOU HERE..:)

Mostly focused on educating consumers on how to get the most for their money.

YOU KNOW THERE ARE LOTS OF OTHER PRODUCTS OUT THERE THAT ARE OVERPRICED AND INFERIOR. PLEASE SHARE THEM WITH US. AGAIN WE VOTE YOU TO BE THE MAN SINCE YOU HAVE SO MUCH TIME.

You might want to join GO DADDY or YAHOO. You might do better there since your research is pretty much cut and paste info and you can have a monthly steady income and stock options THERE.

I do not participate in any MLM businesses nor do I have anything to do with juice sales.

You can usually tell when someone is on the losing side of the argument when he/she resorts to attacks of the messenger (me). This is a classic debate tactic called Ad Hominem, which is Latin for “argument against the person.” Wikipedia gives an example:

“An ad hominem argument has the basic form:

Person 1 makes claim X
There is something objectionable about Person 1
Therefore claim X is false”

Thus just because I make a claim and you find something about objectionable it does NOT mean that my claim is false. One should be wise to not shoot the messenger.

You have tried to add some Latin language to your blog here but let’s try this:

Falsum in uno, falsum in omnibus which is “false in one thing, false in everything” against the person

This Latin phrase means “false in one thing, false in everything”, and it is often used to label someone found to be wrong on one issue to also be wrong with regard to other issues.[4]

This is a logical FALLACY because being found incompetent in one respect does not imply that one is incompetent in all other respects.

This is an example of an ad hominem argument and a special case of the association fallacy.

The last thing that I’d like to address is why I’m anonymous. I don’t think my name or qualifications are relevant to the information on this site. I back up my facts with sources liberally, so you don’t have to take my word for anything. Just about anything that you see that doesn’t have a source referenced is because it’s common sense. For instance when someone says that acai has the protein profile of an egg, I point out the fallacy of the logic… since MonaVie has 0 grams of protein per serving. You don’t need to be a protein expert to know that if the final product has no protein, the protein profile of one of the ingredients is of little value.

I agreed with you on the protein part. Again I referred to – Falsum in uno, falsum in omnibus. That does not mean that they are wrong in the others. Got it?

Again if you are a competitor I believe FULL DISCLOSURE and A LEVEL PLAYING FIELD is the most important here. You will need to clarify who you are working for and that is how we create a PLATFORM for FAIRNESS and BALANCE DEBATE and we can then discuss your product that you represent as well.

By the way I am creating a website from Yahoo for $9.99 including having numerous of my sidekick to response to you. I hope you submit my comment here because I want the people that read your blog that you are nothing but a COMPETITOR AT THE END OF THE DAY FROM YOUR ABOUT ME PAGE.

I think Mr. Tune brought a squirt gun to a forest fire. He clearly is in way over his head.

If he has any rebuttal at all, it’ll be some cut and paste from a MonaVie propaganda sheet.

Pretty pathetic………..

Fact is you have no clue where Monavie’s Acai comes from you found nothin with truly substantial evidence you can google things allday it ain’t fact.

Everything you stated means little and is not significant at all. Some things you said are baseless some are true but are not important at all. I will address all of this later as you are are really a loser………

Product and Price Issues

1. Monavie juice is made from low grade non-organic acai puree (approx 11%) purchased from non-exclusive bulk manufacturers in Brazil. We have proved this based on the shipping bills of lading for raw materials received by Monavie’s head office.

2. The amount of acai in Monavie juice is not disclosed, which leaves people with no way to know how much acai they would be getting for the stratospherically high retail price of $39-$45 a bottle. The juice is not made from pure acai but rather is a concoction of various fruit juice concentrates, many of which are very mundane and cheap ingredients, like grape and apple juice concentrates. Thus, although it is advertised as “acai juice”, as near as we can tell, it is nothing more them acai-infused grape juice. At $4 a bottle, this detail might not matter so much; but at $39-$45 a bottle, it matters greatly.

3. Product testing by Chromadex Labs (hired by Men’s Journal) and AIBMR (hired by Monavie) has collectively demonstrated that Monavie contains low levels of vitamin C, polyphenols, anthocyanins, and proanthocyanadins (confirmed by comparison with USDA data), and that it has a low ORAC score (22 units/mL) relative to other common foods. The bottle label gives no indication that Monavie is a good source of any nutrient other than vitamin C. Lastly, it contains negligible amounts of fiber, which is responsible for many of the health benefits of fruit.

4. Monavie contains sodium benzoate, a particularly unpopular preservative that has received negative attention in the media and is being widely phased out in beverage manufacturing. No other juice products use it. Neither should Monavie, but because of the long lag time required for distributors to unload their high-priced stockpiled inventory on a non-receptive market, the preservative is necessary to keep the juice from rotting. Adding this preservative, however, negates all claims about the product being “natural” or “wild-crafted”.

5. Other acai products (e.g., Sambazon) contain higher-quality organic acai and sell for much less than Monavie. Other non-acai based fruit juices (e.g. Welch’s grape juice) offer AT LEAST comparable nutrition and more antioxidants but sell for about 1/25 the price of Monavie. Neither of these other types of products contain sodium benzoate. Fresh fruit (clearly the preferable option over a synthetic processed juice) is more nutritious than Monavie and sells for a fraction of the cost. Monavie has no demonstrable benefits over any of these far less costly alternatives.

6. Ingredients in Monavie, such as glucosamine, plant sterols, and beta-glucans, that are being widely touted by distributors, are in fact commonplace, inexpensive, and easy to obtain elsewhere.

7. Monavie was recently implicated as the cause of fetal abnormalities in a published medical case report, and in another review article, it was indicated that Monavie can cause complications during therapy with anticoagulant medications, which is very common among the elderly.

Business Opportunity Issues

1. The IDS clearly shows that Monavie is a losing proposition for the vast majority (more than 90%) of distributors. It shows that most do not even earn even minimum wage and yet it does not even reflect the cash outlay for inventory (juice purchases), sales tools, or “training” events. If these are factored in, it can be inferred that most distributors probably lose money.

2. Despite the low payouts and widespread losses, the original founding members of the organization (the executive Black Diamonds, many of whom came over with their networks from other MLMs) are reaping massive profits, apparently fueled to a large extent by sales tools revenue rather than juice commissions.

3. Fresh unopened cases of juice can be purchased for LESS than wholesale price on E-Bay from buyers who have excellent reputation ratings. This alone negates the viability of the business model for distributors. It remains unclear whether these sales represent distributors leaving the business and selling unsold inventory, distributors who are selling the juice at cost to remain eligible to receive commissions and bonuses, or product being shipped out the back door by the company or its executive distributors.

Issues With the Company

1. The most notable element of Monavie advertising is the use of illegal claims that Monavie can cure, treat, prevent, or mitigate the symptoms of diseases. The number of examples are too numerous and striking for the company to continue to claim that they are not responsible for these claims. We have seen numerous examples of high-level company executives and executive distributors who have openly encouraged the use of disease treatment claims.

Notable examples include videos of Brig Hart soliciting testimonials of miraculous cures from distributors, and Ralph Carson encouraging similar testimonials from distributors at the Indy 2010 meeting, and audio recordings from late-2005 in which Dallin Larsen touted Monavie as an arthritis remedy.

But the most egregious example of all is the video in which Black Diamond executive Jason Lyons appeared at a recruitment/sales pitch meeting accompanied by Lou (Louis B.) Niles, who, although dressed in surgical scrubs and claiming to be a cancer specialist, is in fact not a doctor and had previously been court-martialed and jailed for numerous offenses including rape and perjury. The video, in which Niles promotes Monavie as a treatment for cancer, has since been widely used by distributors to promote Monavie, and both Lyons and Niles have remained active distributors.

2. Shortly before founding Monavie, CEO Dallin Larsen was the VP of sales and marketing for Royal Tongan Limu juice (Dynamic Essentials). His efforts were responsible for the MLM company: (a) being shut down by the FDA, (b) having millions of dollars worth of inventory destroyed in a landfill pit, and (c) triggering a multi-million dollar class action settlement. Distributors were left high and dry when all of this took place — no product, no company, no job — despite all of the time, effort, and money they expended based on Dallin Larsen’s promise that RTL would be bigger than Microsoft (the same claim that they are now making about Monavie).

3. Monavie and executive distributor Kevin Vokes were cited by the FDA for numerous violations pertaining to the illegal adverting of Monavie as a disease remedy/treatment.

4. The company puts an inordinate focus on recruitment rather than retail sales, which raises the red flag that Monavie is in fact a thinly-disguised product-based pyramid scheme. Distributors loathe reciting the true retail price of Monavie and instead claim that the juice can be had for more cheaply or for “free” if one were to become a distributor — this is further evidence that the intent is not to retail the juice but rather to push people into becoming distributors.

5. The company operates a “charity” (MORE Project) from its corporate HQ. It is run by the CEO’s sister-in-law. Despite the fact that it has existed since 2006, no financial data have been released to the public and the organization’s IRS990 form has not been released (and may never have been filed with the IRS). Thus MORE has solicits donations without the usual oversight that reputable charities operate with. The organization is funded by the distributors who are encouraged to have monthly donations automatically deducted from their commission checks. In contrast with the company’s claim that they are “helping to give back” to the Brazilians, mainstream media reports indicate that companies like Monavie are helping to drive up the price of acai in Brazil so that the people who depend upon it as a dietary staple, can no longer afford it.

6. The company has invoked so called “experts” who upon closer inspection, have very dubious credentials. Examples include Alexander Schauss and Ralph Carson, who list PhDs in their resumes that were in fact obtained from mail order diploma mills (California Coast University and Donsbach University, respectively). Distributor Jose Allongo (founder of the Monavie advisory board) was hailed in Monavie advertising as “physician of the year”; a title which in fact Allongo purchased by making a $5,000 donation to the Republican National Campaign Committee.

7. In addition to Lou Niles, Monavie has also employed other high-profile felons. Executive distributor Phil Driscoll served prison time for tax evasion and bilking funds from his “charitable” Christian ministry (Mighty Horn Ministries). New distributor Kevin Trudeau served prison time and has faced numerous convictions for illegally advertising his line of dietary supplements as wonder cures. Monavie was even in the center of a political scandal involving the Finance Minister of the Bahamas who illegally tried to reduce the import tax rate on Monavie to benefit his sister, a Monavie distributor.

8. In the past year, the Better Business Bureau has rated the Monavie company at “F” to “D-minus”. The BBB is a widely respected consumer protection agency, and their extremely low ratings of Monavie serve as a clear warning.

9. Monavie was recently sued by Oprah Winfrey and Dr. Mehmet Oz for fraudulently using their names/likenesses in Monavie advertising. Monavie was previously sued by Imagenetix for falsely claiming that Monavie contained Celadrin.

If anyone doubts the veracity of the details, I can repost the supporting references, which we have already discussed in great detail. If anyone is thinking of attempting a rebuttal to my post, I advise that they research the facts carefully before commenting, because we have done so already and we have systematically dismantled the usual pitiful excuses that have been presented by distributors to date. Make sure to not repeat their mistakes. Notice that there is no hatred in the details I presented; I am not pitching a product; I am not a competitor; I am not criticizing MLM in general; I am not a failed distributor; I am not envious — these are the typical ludicrous and feeble arguments raised by distributors to avert attention from the facts. I am merely presenting facts about Monavie that we have uncovered through our diligent research.

The weight of the evidence against Monavie is crushing. No right-minded individual could ignore it or conclude that Monavie is anything other than a blatant and atrocious health fraud pyramid scam. Those who might attempt to discredit this information, or me personally, simply have no basis for doing so other than to protect their own selfish financial interests. Any revenue made from selling Monavie is blood money — made at the expense of cheated consumers, defrauded medical patients, and poisoned fetuses.