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| Seal of the United States Federal Trade Commission. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
Trivita Settle with FTC?
According to leaked letter to its affiliates, Trivita has settled a demand from Federal Trade Commission against its alleged false health claims regarding its Nopalea related products. Nopalea, also known as prickly pear (a type of cactus), is reputed to have some healing properties and is often pushed by so-called alternative medicine proponents in the same manner as prior fads such as noni, mangosteen, and acai berry products.
Report by Courthouse news showed that FTC filed the demand on July 11th. However, this did not seem to have received any news coverage. http://www.courthousenews.com/2014/07/11/69432.htm
According to leaked letter as published on BehindMLM (and thus far, unverified), the settlement involves stop making false claims, and paying a large fine with no admission of wrongdoing and no stop of sales of such products (provided no further misleading claims are made). All affiliates must acknowledge the new restrictions or their commission will be withheld pending acknowledgement.
EDIT: FTC's own press release just dropped:
http://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2014/07/cactus-juice-marketers-pay-35-million-refunds-consumers-deceptive
SEC opposes Merrill's "motion" to release 4 million for "expenses"
James Merrill, co-owner of TelexFree, out on bail, had previously filed a motion to release over 4 million dollars in one of the frozen accounts to pay for his legal defense. And SEC has filed an answer to that, explaining that James Merrill have plenty of assets available including accounts of several hundred thousand dollars, not to mention possible other sources (one of which is the house he used as bond to get himself out of jail). Why was he asking for 4 million in possibly tainted funds from alleged Ponzi scheme TelexFree? And since he haven't been indicted (merely charged), how much is his lawyers charging to require that much money, beyond what he has now?
