Complaint Review: Vemma Nutritition Company - Select State/Province

I was a college sophomore attending UC (University of Cincinnati) in the fall of 2012. A friend from high school (that I hadn't talked to in a while) messaged me on Facebook. He asked me if I was "a business kind of guy" and if I wanted to go to a meeting about energy drinks. Curious, I decided to go. 

On Tuesday night we met up on campus and went into an engineering building. On the way to the meeting, I asked him what it was about, and he kept saying something along the lines of, "I'm not sure man, I got invited to this by someone else myself. We'll just have to wait and see." The room was filled with college students, and all the newcomers were told to try an orange energy drink called Verve! that is supposedly packed full of vitamins. It was tiny, about the size of a can of Red Bull, and it tasted just OK (thought most people I know describe it as tasting like piss). Then they showed about of inspirational videos showing how college kids became rich selling the Verve! energy drink as multi-level-marketers. Then they told us how we could do the same by working for a company called Vemma. They explained Vemma's marketing system. This is an oversimplified explanation, but the jist of it is that the marketer (which they call brand partners) recruit two or more new people two join, who in turn recruit more new people, so on and so forth. The kicker is that in order to join, you must oder either $120 of $500 worth of product, and then continue to buy $120 each month. But every time you recruit someone or someone is recruited by someone you recruited, you get points each month, and these points eventually turn into paychecks. And if you recruit enough people, you get to drive a BMW.

I can't believed I joined. I saw red flags everywhere. First of all, my friend admitted to already being a brand partner, so it was obvious that he lied to me when he said he had no idea what the meeting was about. And I recognized that it was a pyramid scheme immediately. The people kept stressing that Vemma was not a pyramid scheme, claiming that pyramid schemes offer no tangible product and that since Vemma sells a product that it is not a pyramid scheme. But the problem with pyramid schemes isn't the lack of a product, it is the fact that the primary method of earning revenue is to recruit new members, which recquires continuous and unsustainable growth. Also, they kept saying "Do you want to be an entrepreneurs?" even though going around selling someone else's product is far from entrepreneurship, so these people obviously didn't know what they were talking about. They kept using phrases that sounded good, such as "siezing opportunity", "actualizing dreams", "accomplishing goals" but without using hard statistics or saying anything remotely intelligent. They just yelled and said, "yolo" a lot and tried to get people hyped. "Hype" is probably the best way to describe the situation.

Though I saw through all this stupidity, I still thought that maybe I could make money. I couldn't possibly fathom how something like this could be legal, so obviosly there had to be more to it than just being a pyramid scheme, right? I thought maybe the pyramidal marketing structure was just to jumpstart the product's popularity and that it would only be a temporary thing, and that those involved would be reimbursed or something later on down the road. I thought eventually Verve! would be sold in gas stations next to Red Bull and Monster. And the kids at  the meeting did say something about being able to sell the product without recruiting members (turns out later I wasn't paying attention during the meeting and that if you get a non-marketer to buy an order of the product, you don't get paid, you just get your own shipment that month free.) So that's why I joined, I made an account on the website and ordered 500 dollars worth of product.

Then I went home and researched the company online. Vemma Nutrition Company is a multil-level marketing (MLM) company that sells energy drinks, nutritional beverages, and weight management products. The company is based in Scottsdale, Arizona and was founded in 2004 by Benson K. Boreyko. The people at the meeting claimed that it had just got started in Arizona and had just come to Cincinnati, but it was around since 2004, and it always had an MLM structure. Verve would never be sold in stores, I realized. Their claim that Dr. Oz endorsed the company also turned out to be false. And I discovered that the BMW you can earn isn't even yours, it's given to you on a lease and you have to keep doing well in the company or else they stop paying your $600/month lease. Also %70 of marketers, or "brand partners" as they call them, make less than 2k/yr, and 90% make less than 5k a year. And that's not considering the amount spent to join and the $120/month. Another disturbing thing is that youtube is full of testimonials of people assuring that "Vemma is not a scam." And they are right. Vemma isn't a scam, it is legal, but it is still a pyrmid scheme.

Then I talked to one of the kids involved on campus. He explained how they train brand partners to lie to their friends, and that sometimes they have kids who are brand partners act like they are new to the meetings, get all excited, and then pretend to sign up on the computer in order to encourage other kids to do the same. They also have brand partners hype how much money they really have to make other people want to join.

The odd thing is that if a used car salesman were to lie, he or his dealership could easily be sued. But if someone were to try and sue Vemma because their brand partners lied, Vemma could simply argue that brand partners are not employees. Honestly, brand partners are more like customers, because they buy the product. But Vemma doesn't want brand partners to know that they are the customers.  And that's the magical power of the term "brand partner". The people fund the company like customers, but work hard like employees, but without being guaranteed the benefits or minumum wage afforded to an employee. It's a win-win for the company. They also are not responsible for how brand partners train each other, the whole thing is just laissez-faire.

Realizing how bad the company was, I called customer service, and sent the product back. Since it was within 30 days I got all my money back except for shipping. It was a fairly easy process, and I only had to call them back once when they only gave me $120 back instead of the full $500 (they claimed they only found one of the boxes I sent back and claimed I bought the cheaper package.) But I set them straight and did get all of the money back.

Unfortunately, Vemma is still going strong in Ohio and I hear about more and more colleges getting into it. They target college kids because they are more likely to get hyped and less likely to think with reason or recognize a pyramid scheme. This semester (fall of 2013) I was actually approached by a group of students. One claimed that he was invited by his friends to go to a Vemma meeting and wanted my opinion. When I started telling him how bad it was, his friends started to argue. But then oddly he suddenly started quoting more facts about the company than they did. I told him that it was obvious that he was pretending to not be in the company when he was. Then they felt really dumb and walked away. Still up to the same deceptive tactics I see.

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Vemma Nutrition Company

Type	Private
Industry	Dietary supplements
Predecessor(s)	New Vision International
Founded	Tempe, Arizona (2004)
Founder(s)	Benson K. Boreyko
Headquarters	Scottsdale, Arizona, United States
Area served	Worldwide
Key people	BK Boreyko (CEO) Karen Boreyko (co-founder) Lauren Boreyko (co-founder) Brad Wayment (COO) Yibing Wang (Chief Scientific Officer)
Products	Vemma, Verve, Bod·ē, NEXT
Website	vemma.com

Coordinates: 33.643787°N 111.899148°W

Vemma (/ˈviːmə/) Nutrition Company is a privately held multi-level marketing (MLM) company that sells energy drinks, nutritional beverages and weight management products. The company, based in Scottsdale, Arizona, was founded in 2004 by Benson K. Boreyko and family.^[1]