Class Act
By Skip Roberts December 1992 (c)
If you've been reading your newspapers lately, you've undoubtedly come across the beginnings of the latest, greatest, and most innovative MLM idea to co me down the gun barrel in years. called Class Act.
Class Act is short for "class action." You've heard of a class action lawsuit? Well, that's the product! Class Act, a below ground floor opportunity that gets downline groups together to sue other MLM companies.
It's a fantastic idea.
An MLM company whose product line is suing other MLM companies (and top distributors too) o n behalf of a group of people who were once with that MLM, but now are Class Act's distributors, and those distributors get paid a percentage of the settlement as their compensation.
I love it.
Now how does Class Act file suit against these nasty MLMs? Easy, the pyramid laws. They ask for damages on behalf of the named distributors (and tens of thousands of others too shy to use their own names), because all those poor people were suckered into the MLM company under false pretenses; bought inventory they couldn't unload (mostly because they were front loaded with bogus product right?) and suffered heartache, headaches, and wallet aches from which they are seeking relief from the courts by way of twoble or treble damages.
So who has been sued?
FundAmerica, Diarnite, NuSkin, Nikken, Benchmark Enterprises, Omnitrition (Jerry Rubin) for starters. Yo, Class Act is after all a class act. They only go after MLMs and MLMers with deep pockets.
Sadly, NuSkin and Benchmark settled out of court, so there was some money there, but not the big bucks volume Class Act distributors hoped for. But this thing with the Omni guys and Jerry Yippie/Yuppie has some real profit potential.
What's really terrific about this latest lawsuit is that the Class Act guy whose name's on the suit against Omnitrition, Shaun Webster, isn't even in ole Jer's downline. He just named Jerry cause Rubin's a big hitter he saw on a video. (Jerry is such a high profile publicity pig. Karma what?)
Anyway, evidently some lying creep from Omnitrition seduced this poor slob to sig n up with pie in the sky earnings claims this guy was too stupid to disbelieve. Rubin claimed he made $60,000 in his very first year, and hell, if he could do it...Webster lost $2,800. But that's nothin ', all the other distributors who've been ripped off probably total losses of $30 million, maybe more. See, poor Webster couldn't sell the products. No matter that Omnitrition has a million happy/hyper WOW consumers running around the world – the suit says the products are just a shell for a pyramid scam. Thank God we have a white knight like Class Act to save us from such sharpies as Jim Fobair and Roger Daley.
BAD BLACK NIGHT IS MORE LIKE IT!
Okay, enough fooling around.
The law firm that's doing most of the suing and suing is Lieff, Cabraser, Heimann -NOT a class act by anyone’s standards, especially we in MLM.
To their credit, and their only credit as far as I can tell, they also went after Tom Vu. Who? No money down Tom of early morning cable TV fame. No doubt he deserved it. But these guys are going after MLMs like hit and run ambulance chasing pros -which is just what they look like.
My guess is they have a marketing department scouring the woods for unhappy distributor losers to make cases for.
Big market that.
MLM companies with enough money will settle out of court just to shake off the nuisance value and avoid all the bad press, which is something they cannot afford. This isn't about justice. This is about easy money and lazy lawyers. It’s interesting to note that the different suits these guys file read almost identically. Boiler plate class action lawsuits!
Damn. Just get a PC and a law degree and you are in business! Just aim at vulnerable MLM companies and that's Big Business!!!
The danger here is very real and scary.
Omnitrition is a good, solid company. Jim and Roger (especially now that Ralph Oats is gone) run a solid legit ship. No matter what you personally think of the products, they are very real and sell in the many millions to people who love 'em. The fact that ex-distributor Webster (w ho by the way never complained to the company -just brought the suit out of nowhere) couldn't sell the stuff has nothing to do with the company’s founders, or even Jerry Rubin. Do suppose Webster wasn't old enough to remember Jerry?
My friends, here’s one you’d better bitch about. Time for some good old 60's radicalism. This Lieff, Cabraser, Heimann outfit of San Francisco is an establishment worth bringing down.
Give them a call and tie up their phones. (415) 956-1000. Picket and protest their offices. Embarcadero Center West, 275 Battery Street, 30th Floor, San Francisco, CA 94111. Put LSD in their drinking water. If you've got some extra cash lyin' around, SUE THEM!!! Call it a no-class action lawsuit.
WAKE UP PEOPLE! Quit signing up losers. No, it’s NOT just a numbers game. We may be the wave of the future, but there are lots o f sharks out there dying to eat us for lunch. This bunch of lawyers just happens to be particularly distasteful.
You know why the law firm of Lieff, Cabraser, Heimann never go to the bench don't you? 'Cause the cats keep covering them up with sand.
