Complaint Review: Food Addiction Intensive LLC - Cincinnati Ohio

I refused to sign an agreement just drawn up by Joan Ifland, owner of the Facebook paid membership group “Food Addiction Intensive” in May 2017. I have been a paying member and volunteer of her Facebook group, where she practices her Food Addiction Training LLC business since January 2016. Because I refused to sign the newly created agreement, she kicked me out of the program and banned me totally from the Food Addiction Intensive. This business  is registered in the state of Ohio as a corporation under the name “Food Addiction Intensive LLC.” 

This agreement was not in effect when I and a group of us joined when it first began in January 2016. In May 2017 she drew up and required all members of the Intensive to sign this agreement. She demanded we sign and agree to these restrictions after she had accepted our membership request and taken our money. It said that we could not market to any other Intensive members at any time, even after they left the group. It also stipulated that if we joined any other Facebook groups, exercising their own rights under the Constitution to join groups of our choice, that we were required to ask her permission first. She also included in her new restrictions and demands that current members of the Intensive were not allowed to join any other  Facebook group that was started by a previous member of the Intensive.

There are hundreds of such groups on Facebook addressing the topic of food addiction, some of which require payment, as does Joan Ifland's, and others which are free to the public. She solicits members from another group founded by her, called “Food Addiction Education,” which itself is a free group, with a membership of over 11,000 members. She also advertises to foreign countries such as Australia and the United Kingdom, which has resulted in a mass influx of people in the last two months. There were over 200 paying members at last count when I was still a member in her paid Food Addiction Intensivve. The potential of her soliciting new members into her paid Food Addiction Intensive part represents the potential and danger of her exerting her illegal and unfair trade and business tactics on a large number of people. The agreement she quickly drew up and gave me the ultimatum regarding would unfairly stifle competition and free trade and the consitutional rights of US citizens and other countries engaging in free trade.

When she issued the agreement and "asked" me to look at it in June 2017, I told her I needed time to think this over. I had joined another free support group called “Food Addiction Struggles” which was my own personal choice to help me, exercising my rights under the US Constitution to do this.

Joan Ifland drew up the anti-compete restrictive agreement I believe, because she objected to me joining a group that a former member of the Intensive Patti Ceraso, whom she had kicked out, had started. However there had been no signed agreement or restrictions or mention of this subject or topic of restrictions ever mentioned before, since I had joined the Food Addiction Intensive in January 2016. 

I told her I saw no reason why I could not remain in both groups. The new group was not a paid membership club, but a support group like thousands of others. . The day after I told her I needed to think about this ultimatum, Joan Ifland ousted me from her group after 1.5 years being a member. She barred me from all activities and participation in her group totally.