"Hi Gary,
I was doing a bit of research and came on your website. Have you perhaps heard of a company and product called MonaVie?
Please find information of some of the world class amateur and professional athletes who trust MonaVie for better energy, enhanced clarity and performance during hard and strenuous exercise.
etc"
Hendrik
______________________
Gary responds:
Sigh! Barely a week goes by without being approached by somebody peddling one of these get rich quick pyramid schemes masquerading as super-duper health products.
Especially ones like Mona Vie. So you are telling me we should guzzle more of this overpriced jungle juice? While you are at it, why don't you clear even more Amazonian rainforest for plantations, forcing the natives out of their tribal homelands?
You can salve your conscience from selling this environmentally destructive product by throwing a few cents per sale in the direction of the homeless you helped make, now living in the slums of Brazil.
(Mona Vie costs about NZ$70 per bottle. By comparison, one can purchase products for around NZ$50 that makes up 10 or so liters.
"MonaVie is a nutritional beverage company that distributes beverage products made from blended fruit juice concentrates with açaí pulp powder and purée through a multi-level marketing (MLM) business model. Marketing claims made about the products suggest that they provide antioxidants and health benefits. MonaVie has been the subject of recent media controversy, and several sources have questioned both the product's value and the legality of claims regarding its reputed health benefits. The manufacturer of MonaVie products, as well as some of its senior distributors, were involved in four lawsuits between 2007 and 2008." (Wikipedia)
Read more Wikipedia about Mona Vie here.
To learn more about what I think of Multi Level Marketing pyramid schemes, please go here.
Do you have a question?
Email Gary: gary at myotec.co.nz (Replace the "at" with @ and remove spaces). Please include any relevant background information to your question.
Wow, somebody has done zero research on Mona Vie, it's product, and the company, with the exception of maybe two minutes spent on the internet finding the bad without knowing the story behind it. Clear the rainforest? If you must know, the rainforest was being cleared BEFORE Mona Vie got there. People were paying the locals to cut down the palm trees for a 12 to 14 inch section which is used as a salad garnish, "hearts of palm," and that killed the tree, giving that certain local a 1 time monetary benefit of $.50 per tree. Now with Acai, there is SUSTAINABLE harvest, meaning the trees are NOT cut down, and the locals have income year round, not to mention that now Acai is the #1 Agricultural export, even above lumber! And Mona Vie happens to be the largest exporter of Acai in the world. All this means that Mona Vie is HELPING the economy in Brazil, not hurting it. The author of this article actually takes away any validity that could have been in it when he posts a link to a competing product that he is selling. Come on, man, people are not stupid.
ReplyDeleteI stick to what is said of yet another pyramid scheme.
ReplyDeleteIn my book, anybody who fells the Amazon nowadays is doing wrong by the planet.
Talking about validity, anonymous comments lack validity as far as I am concerned.
I disagree with you about your pyramid scam assessment, but let's set that aside. Your remarks about Monavie and the rain forest are totally off base and demonstrably false. Harvesting the acai berries from living trees is the only way to get the fruit, and it is a totally sustainable and responsible use of that resource. To suggest that this somehow involves clearing the Amazon and ripping off the people there is totally irresponsible, and any halfway serious effort to research this would have shown you that.
ReplyDeleteSo, what's the difference between felling rainforest for acai palm oil plantations?
ReplyDeleteA pyramid scheme is a pyramid scheme no matter the frills or what one calls it.
Came across this site while searching for 'acai'... Why would picking acai berries be any different from picking apples or pears or blueberries? The trees don't get cut down to get the fruit... That's not logical. The tree survives and produces more fruit next season.
ReplyDeleteGo on Kate -clear more amazonian rain forest and replace it with a monoculture plantation that is sustained by pesticides etc.
ReplyDeleteGary, you have only scratched the surface of the Mona Vie scam. The largest groups are run by former Amway scammers, and make many more times from the tools they sell their downline than from the advertised business. Read this and pass it on to everyone you know: http://texsquixtarblog.blogspot.com
ReplyDeleteTex
ReplyDeleteRead this:
http://blog.garymoller.com/2011/04/more-about-multi-level-marketing-rip.html