Complaint Review: Don Lapre / Greatest Vitamin In The World / Independent Advertiser Program - Phoenix Arizona

I was one of those people who was lured in by the TV infomercial claiming you could make up to $12,000 a month doing their program. They said the program was free and wouldn't cost you even a single penny but didn't mention certain fees and other costly options to jump-start your business until after they had you hooked.

I started out with spending $420 in May 2007 just to get started. This was done through their infomercial call-in phone number. I quickly added another $162 in service fees when I was called back by one of their coaches about a week later. In the meantime, I had distributed over 700 flyers and even as many business cards without getting a single hit to my web site. I later found out that people trying to get to my web site were being diverted to other web sites, most likely directly to the company, so I was not being credited, much less compensated for the hundreds of hours and additional personal expenses of printing color flyers and business cards, not to mention gas for my car and hours of leg work walking around distributing the flyers and business cards.

Finally, by July 2007, again when called by the company, I added another $2985 for additional upgrade options that was really supposed to help jump-start my business and get the money coming in due to having additional online advertising and garanteed traffic to my web site, which by the way, went the way of the wind after they announced their company folded a few months later. I was not refunded anything for the services not provided to me.

So, to sum up, in three months I had spent $3567 for a web site, service and sponsoring fees, online advertising and garanteed traffic to the web site and it all went up in smoke when the company folded (went bankrupt).

To add insult to injury, when they announced the company had folded, they indicated they were in trouble back in May 2007, at the same time I was signing up for their Independent Advertiser Program from their TV Infomercial, except the only thing disclosed by them was that they were close to a merger with another company that was supposed to make their company even more successful. After the company folded it was revealed that they were hoping to get bought out by another company that could turn around their financial situation but that did not happen.

Supposedly another company was supposed to buy the business and contact the Independent Advertisers and keep us on. I was never contacted by anyone. Furthermore, web addresses, phone numbers, etc., went the way of the wind as well.

I hope that this situation will eventually come under a class action lawsuit to help people like me to recoup some of our losses. By the way, I never made a single dime on this program and even around $70 I was supposedly credited with on my web site disappeared when my web site disappeared.

I sincerely regret I was so gullible to think I could have a home based online web business that was as good as they advertised. I was also sorry that the attractive lady pitch person turned out to be a liar for Don Lapre, who I have since found out is the biggest liar of all and has had other similar businesses that turned out the same. My only question is why isn't this guy in prison? At the very least the IRS or the FBI should be able to nail this crook.

Jim

Albuquerque, New Mexico

U.S.A.