Facebook count: down to 571. When's the penny going to drop?
Saturday 31 October 2015
Monday 26 October 2015
Why is Jenny Reluctant to Show Her Own Before and After Photos?
Disclaimer: I have decided to show pictures of Jenny because I believe it is vital to show people how farcical Juice Plus is as a business. It is ridiculous that people like her, who are plainly obese and know nothing about health and fitness, is considered acceptable to sell products designed to aid people live healthier lifestyles. It makes a mockery of the supposed health benefits of their products.
I am not showing the person's photographs to promote, or incite, harassment. I have made sure to omit any potentially-identifying information, including faces of other people in the photographs. I will never, ever, condone harassment of other people.
The following picture is a typical before and after shot that we see from distributors to hype up JP products as magical weight loss busters:
It certainly cannot be denied that the lady in the photos has lost weight. Clearly, she has - and that's fantastic. What these photographs never tell us, however, are:
- the person's diet;
- the person's exercise regime;
- the person's lifestyle.
We know nothing about how this lady lived, ate and exercised before taking JP pills and how it compares to her habits of today. That missing information is crucial. Simply saying "It's because of Juice Plus" is like giving us a jigsaw puzzle with only a couple of pieces. Without knowing the other crucial factors that influence a person's weight, we can in no way say that JP has even had a miniscule effect on the lady's weight whatsoever.
This also raises another question. The time period between those photos is interesting, because May is when Jenny herself became a distributor and joined the JP bandwagon. If this lady is doing so well with JP, then surely Jenny must be as well? She certainly goes out of her way to show off her capsules and shakes, so she is clearly taking the products.
Unfortunately finding these before and after photos prove problematic because Jenny is extremely reluctant to show any photos of herself. Unless it's a selfie, or she's with other people and able to hide most of her body. Then along came the curse of "tagged" photos, where we are able to see the full extent of what five/six months on JP has done for our health fanatic distributor. Are you ready?
Jenny: Picture taken prior to becoming a distributor (April/May 2015?):
Jenny: Brighton Juice Plus conference, October 2015:
And there you have it. How can it be that two women using the same products are yielding spectacularly different results? We know nothing about Jenny's diet, we know nothing about her exercise regime, we know nothing about her general lifestyle.
JP cannot have it both ways. They cannot ignore the effects of diet, exercise and lifestyle choices when it benefits them but also say their products work when people like Jenny clearly prove otherwise. It is frankly unreal.
Jenny, when are you going to give up this farce and accept that you are the last person on the planet who can advise others on healthy life choices? I can think of 576 reasons why you should - because that's your latest numbers that have declined, once again.
Getting advice on health and diet from you is like getting advice on breaking drug addiction from the town junkie.
I am not showing the person's photographs to promote, or incite, harassment. I have made sure to omit any potentially-identifying information, including faces of other people in the photographs. I will never, ever, condone harassment of other people.
The following picture is a typical before and after shot that we see from distributors to hype up JP products as magical weight loss busters:
- the person's diet;
- the person's exercise regime;
- the person's lifestyle.
We know nothing about how this lady lived, ate and exercised before taking JP pills and how it compares to her habits of today. That missing information is crucial. Simply saying "It's because of Juice Plus" is like giving us a jigsaw puzzle with only a couple of pieces. Without knowing the other crucial factors that influence a person's weight, we can in no way say that JP has even had a miniscule effect on the lady's weight whatsoever.
This also raises another question. The time period between those photos is interesting, because May is when Jenny herself became a distributor and joined the JP bandwagon. If this lady is doing so well with JP, then surely Jenny must be as well? She certainly goes out of her way to show off her capsules and shakes, so she is clearly taking the products.
Unfortunately finding these before and after photos prove problematic because Jenny is extremely reluctant to show any photos of herself. Unless it's a selfie, or she's with other people and able to hide most of her body. Then along came the curse of "tagged" photos, where we are able to see the full extent of what five/six months on JP has done for our health fanatic distributor. Are you ready?
Jenny: Picture taken prior to becoming a distributor (April/May 2015?):
Jenny: Brighton Juice Plus conference, October 2015:
And there you have it. How can it be that two women using the same products are yielding spectacularly different results? We know nothing about Jenny's diet, we know nothing about her exercise regime, we know nothing about her general lifestyle.
JP cannot have it both ways. They cannot ignore the effects of diet, exercise and lifestyle choices when it benefits them but also say their products work when people like Jenny clearly prove otherwise. It is frankly unreal.
Jenny, when are you going to give up this farce and accept that you are the last person on the planet who can advise others on healthy life choices? I can think of 576 reasons why you should - because that's your latest numbers that have declined, once again.
Getting advice on health and diet from you is like getting advice on breaking drug addiction from the town junkie.
Sunday 25 October 2015
When Stupidity Becomes Serious
- She is obese (confirmed from pictures recently uploaded by one of her JP colleagues);
- She has no medical qualifications;
- She has no expertise in dietary nutrition;
Yet here she is making outrageous claims about how JP products not only help lose weight, but can help deal with a wide range of disorders and diseases - including some like Crohns, that to date has no cure.
While I too have no medical qualifications so cannot exactly go in depth with why this is, putting it best, ill-informed drivel, I certainly know how these products would be useless in combating diabetes.
JP capsules, for instance, contain only four specific vitamins: A, E, C and folate. Diabetes, which you may well know about, is a condition where people are unable to produce insulin and as a result get sick and even die if they do not get their levels replenished. My brother is a case in point and as such needs to inject himself with insulin to keep his body in working order. Thus, in order to fight diabetes, it is all about the insulin.
Can Jenny explain to me how a product that has absolutely no insulin can address diabetes? She can't. It is ludicrous to suggest that diabetics should buy a product that has no insulin to help fight their condition; it makes absolutely no sense. It is like giving a surgeon a toothbrush to cut open a patient's chest to conduct heart surgery.
It's fun to dismiss Jenny's delusions of riches, but this is a whole new level of bullsh!t. It is downright disgraceful to play on people's hopes for life-changing products that could help alleviate symptoms of their diseases, when the reality is these products would have zero effect. You have some nerve, Jenny, to think people can trust you to give them advice on diseases as if your ill-informed, uneducated word has as much authority as a doctor's. Shame on you. Shame on you.
Also, Facebook page count down to 577. Nobody can think of anyone interested in joining, and evidently more and more people are getting fed up with her relentless sales pitches. When is the penny going to drop? I say by Christmas.
Wednesday 21 October 2015
Juice Plus's Warped Idea of "Helping" People
A key aspect of this pitch is the idea that by joining JP you get the opportunity to help people. You help people make healthy choices, you guide them on their healthy journey, you can even help people get rich! That's absolutely awesome, right? Who doesn't want to help people live long, healthy, happy lives and be driving around in Mercedes or sitting at home in their big comfy mansions thanks to the riches made from selling pills and shakes on the internet?
In theory, it's a nice idea. In reality, it's bogus, it's misleading, it's unethical and in terms of getting rich is near-impossible to do.
As said in a previous post, JP do not care about the quality of their distributors. You could be a ripped gym rat who knows health and fitness like the back of his hand... or you could be someone like Jenny who is obese, clueless about calories and doesn't have a clue about even the very basics of exercise or healthy eating.
It's therefore amazing how Jenny thinks she is "helping" people. Ignore the fact that if someone had a legitimate question about exercise, she would have no idea how to answer it. Ignore the fact that she knows nothing about calorie counting, so would be at a loss to explain why her customer, despite taking the pills/shakes, is not losing weight. Ignore the fact that she charges ridiculous prices for these products which she stands to gain a meagre profit from.
If Jenny and all the other distributors actually cared about making people's lives healthier they would be in gyms, they would be in schools, they would be at old people's homes. They would do their absolute upmost to advise people about the benefits of exercise and healthy eating which includes eating actual fruit and vegetables as part of a healthy diet. And most of all, they would be doing all this for free.
So, give the charade a rest, and open your eyes to the bullsh!t JP feeds you through hypocritical lines like the above picture. You ARE selling supplements for the sake of making money, you are NOT helping people. It's all about fuelling your own selfish, greedy dreams of making easy money on the internet without actually doing a proper job.
Oh, and on a final note, Jenny pitched another request for the remaining 581 people on her page to add anybody who they thought would be interested in JP's products and/or business. And guess what? Her number actually went up...
... by one. Jenny herself added a poor stupid sap who has joined the "team" who do the "unteamly" thing of competing against each other for business and saturating the market. Everybody else either didn't notice, because they don't care about her junk (and aren't aware of being members of the group) or simply saw it, thought "na", and got on with their lives.
Sunday 18 October 2015
Jenny hits Brighton: JP Conference 2015
This weekend Jenny has travelled more than half the country to Brighton for this year's JP conference. From what I see it is a big get-together of distributors to pat each other on the back for a hard year of selling, recruitment and an opportunity for the bigger fish to keep dangling the promises-of-riches carrot over their heads.
So far, Jenny has posted two updates onto the Facebook page. The first is a cliché photo of her capsules along with the line (paraphrased) "great party last night, glad I took my pills!" Right off the bat this is pretty contradictory as nights out, and the huge volumes of alcohol that goes with it, is a sure-fire way to take in way too much calories. Furthermore these pills are unlikely to be much help as a hangover cure considering the water is extracted from the final product. Three likes, all from distributors.
The second thing Jenny posted is a video of a lady I shall call Clara who gives an emotional pitch about how becoming a JP distributor changed her and her family's life. Apparently she is now raking in about £16k a month and as such both she and her husband have retired from work. Clara also speaks about how first she was "materialistic" and bought flashy cars and Rolex watches, before looking at the bigger picture and investing in her kids and focusing on "helping" people like her down-lines and the public.
Jenny, of course, laps this up and sees Clara as an inspiration, without noticing a few big red flags:
- Clara is an attractive young woman. This may sound trivial, but it is an important point. Every time there is a JP success story, they are unanimously attractive women, usually young. This is telling, as it shows that JP wholly care about image for the brand. Jenny, being fat, has no chance on this basis alone because nobody will take her seriously.
-No detail is mentioned about how Clara makes £16,000 a month. That's £192,000 a year. For Clara to be earning that much requires her to have an insanely high number of down-lines making phenomenal amounts of sales like clockwork.
-The classic JP mixed message is apparent. JP loves to claim that the business is all about "helping" people to make healthy choices and become rich. Yet, the overall message is "join us, become rich". Clara dropped in a few enticing details (flashy cars, Rolex watch, buying a nice house, retiring early) specifically to get distributors thinking about how they could benefit from the scheme. It's not remotely about helping other people, it's about generating greed so that people at the top of the company get more money. Again, it's a classic pyramid scheme.
-The whole conference is a scam. As mentioned previously, a big chunk of JP's income comes not from the sales of the products, but from the distributors who think they're going to become rich. Jenny, for instance, has had to buy a ticket for the conference where there will no doubt be stalls selling JP memorabilia and other products. It's easier to get money from people who believe in the scheme than it is from the general public where a huge number (hopefully a majority) see through the smoke and mirrors of what are essentially overpriced, overrated junk. JP see the conference as an opportunity to fuel the greed of their distributors and get more money from them - that's all they do it for. The real decision making is done by a board in a cushy boardroom. Also, travel and accommodation isn't catered for; Jenny and her "colleagues" are out of pocket there as well.
And by the way, no likes at all for the video. That should be telling for Jenny, but it won't register to her.
So yes, Jenny, while I hope you do enjoy your stay in Brighton, can you at least factor in the cost this whole event and how it squares up to your income from JP sales/down-line recruitment? Surely if this is a lucractive business you'll still be in the black? I very much doubt it.
Note: current Facebook membership at 584.
So far, Jenny has posted two updates onto the Facebook page. The first is a cliché photo of her capsules along with the line (paraphrased) "great party last night, glad I took my pills!" Right off the bat this is pretty contradictory as nights out, and the huge volumes of alcohol that goes with it, is a sure-fire way to take in way too much calories. Furthermore these pills are unlikely to be much help as a hangover cure considering the water is extracted from the final product. Three likes, all from distributors.
The second thing Jenny posted is a video of a lady I shall call Clara who gives an emotional pitch about how becoming a JP distributor changed her and her family's life. Apparently she is now raking in about £16k a month and as such both she and her husband have retired from work. Clara also speaks about how first she was "materialistic" and bought flashy cars and Rolex watches, before looking at the bigger picture and investing in her kids and focusing on "helping" people like her down-lines and the public.
Jenny, of course, laps this up and sees Clara as an inspiration, without noticing a few big red flags:
- Clara is an attractive young woman. This may sound trivial, but it is an important point. Every time there is a JP success story, they are unanimously attractive women, usually young. This is telling, as it shows that JP wholly care about image for the brand. Jenny, being fat, has no chance on this basis alone because nobody will take her seriously.
-No detail is mentioned about how Clara makes £16,000 a month. That's £192,000 a year. For Clara to be earning that much requires her to have an insanely high number of down-lines making phenomenal amounts of sales like clockwork.
-The classic JP mixed message is apparent. JP loves to claim that the business is all about "helping" people to make healthy choices and become rich. Yet, the overall message is "join us, become rich". Clara dropped in a few enticing details (flashy cars, Rolex watch, buying a nice house, retiring early) specifically to get distributors thinking about how they could benefit from the scheme. It's not remotely about helping other people, it's about generating greed so that people at the top of the company get more money. Again, it's a classic pyramid scheme.
-The whole conference is a scam. As mentioned previously, a big chunk of JP's income comes not from the sales of the products, but from the distributors who think they're going to become rich. Jenny, for instance, has had to buy a ticket for the conference where there will no doubt be stalls selling JP memorabilia and other products. It's easier to get money from people who believe in the scheme than it is from the general public where a huge number (hopefully a majority) see through the smoke and mirrors of what are essentially overpriced, overrated junk. JP see the conference as an opportunity to fuel the greed of their distributors and get more money from them - that's all they do it for. The real decision making is done by a board in a cushy boardroom. Also, travel and accommodation isn't catered for; Jenny and her "colleagues" are out of pocket there as well.
And by the way, no likes at all for the video. That should be telling for Jenny, but it won't register to her.
So yes, Jenny, while I hope you do enjoy your stay in Brighton, can you at least factor in the cost this whole event and how it squares up to your income from JP sales/down-line recruitment? Surely if this is a lucractive business you'll still be in the black? I very much doubt it.
Note: current Facebook membership at 584.
Thursday 15 October 2015
Content: Jenny and Juice Plus
Okay. Trained, showered, bed, time to set the scene.
What is Juice Plus?
Juice Plus (JP) is a Multi-Level-Marketing company that sells products they claim to be the "next big thing" to fruit and vegetables. These products come as capsules, shakes, gummy sweets, etc. Their target market are average people who may have various health-based goals such as losing weight, building muscle or strengthening their immune system. As most people these days are less likely to eat fruit or vegetables, JP try to cash in by acting as a substitute (or supplement) into people's diets.
There are plenty of informative websites out there that have researched JP's products, and outwith studies funded by themselves to support their products, they largely call into question their effects. It appears that contrary to being the next best thing to fruit and veg, they're largely a waste of money. For much cheaper, you can get more vitamins from a typical multivitamin or plenty of vitamins, nutrients and fibre from fruit and veg.
Products aside, there is an ethical issue with JP too. Like all MLM companies, a huge slice of their income comes from the distributors they recruit to sell the products for them. For a £50 start-up fee, people with no expertise, experience or even basic knowledge in health, fitness and nutrition can become distributors and sell these products to the wider world.
Distributors can also earn money by recruiting other people into the franchise and the sales that their "lower line" "colleagues" make. Thus, in what would be a bizarre business model for legitimate businesspeople, they are motivated to recruit more "team members" into the business for commission. What this means, of course, is that the more people recruited into the firm, the more customers who become businesspeople, the more competition for remaining business in local catchment areas, and the more money made by people at the top. Does that sound familiar? It should, because JP is a typical pyramid scheme that is legal only because they have products to sell unlike classic scams.
What's the beef with this one distributor? Who is she?
"Jenny" is someone I know of who I used to have on Facebook. She has a long history of trying (and failing) to become fit and healthy by going to the gym, only to ruin it by overeating. Her diet has always been horrendous, she clearly has no clue about calorie counting, and as a result has always been overweight. By my reckoning I believe she is now obese based on her most recent photographs.
Her name isn't actually Jenny, but for the sake of anonymity I am calling her Jenny out of respect for her right to privacy and freedom from personal attacks and harassment.
I have no personal issue with her, I am sure that JP aside, Jenny is a lovely person. Unfortunately, she is a perfect example of the kind of person who can easily be manipulated into scams. Since she added me to her community page, I have been astonished with the utter rubbish she posts to sell products. Clearly, as mentioned above, she has no clue about health, fitness or nutrition. She simply sees what other distributors post, and runs with it.
JP do not care about the quality of their distributors. There is no screening process. As a result, people like Jenny, who are clearly not fit (literally) to advise people on healthy life choices, are recruited into the firm. As such, we live in a crazy world where fat, unhealthy people are selling health-based products to the public. And that's just sad.
Why this blog?
So many crazy claims have been made that I felt compelled to start documenting these incidents. I have already had to report Jenny to the Advertising Standards Authority once for false advertising (stay tuned for a future post), which they acted upon, and it's funny seeing her posts get hardly any "likes" (apart from other distributors) and her followers slowly go down day by day, week by week. Clearly very few people care about her sales.
Jenny also acts as inspiration for my own personal fitness journey. As documented in previous blog posts - I think - I myself was at one stage very overweight, probably borderline obese. For the past year and a month, I have gone on my own journey of losing weight, building muscle and tweaking my diet to ensure the right amount of calories depending on muscle gain or weight loss. Apart from taking BCAAs and drinking protein shakes - that are far cheaper, and that I don't worship as "miracle products" - I have never taken a single shake or capsule from a company like JP. It's therefore a slap in the face that someone like Jenny thinks she is in any position to advise people on healthy life choices. How about sorting yourself out first before worrying about others? Maybe then you would attract some business if people saw your wonder products work on you, yourself.
I don't know how often I'll post stuff, but whenever I feel like it, I will. Stay tuned...
What is Juice Plus?
Juice Plus (JP) is a Multi-Level-Marketing company that sells products they claim to be the "next big thing" to fruit and vegetables. These products come as capsules, shakes, gummy sweets, etc. Their target market are average people who may have various health-based goals such as losing weight, building muscle or strengthening their immune system. As most people these days are less likely to eat fruit or vegetables, JP try to cash in by acting as a substitute (or supplement) into people's diets.
There are plenty of informative websites out there that have researched JP's products, and outwith studies funded by themselves to support their products, they largely call into question their effects. It appears that contrary to being the next best thing to fruit and veg, they're largely a waste of money. For much cheaper, you can get more vitamins from a typical multivitamin or plenty of vitamins, nutrients and fibre from fruit and veg.
Products aside, there is an ethical issue with JP too. Like all MLM companies, a huge slice of their income comes from the distributors they recruit to sell the products for them. For a £50 start-up fee, people with no expertise, experience or even basic knowledge in health, fitness and nutrition can become distributors and sell these products to the wider world.
Distributors can also earn money by recruiting other people into the franchise and the sales that their "lower line" "colleagues" make. Thus, in what would be a bizarre business model for legitimate businesspeople, they are motivated to recruit more "team members" into the business for commission. What this means, of course, is that the more people recruited into the firm, the more customers who become businesspeople, the more competition for remaining business in local catchment areas, and the more money made by people at the top. Does that sound familiar? It should, because JP is a typical pyramid scheme that is legal only because they have products to sell unlike classic scams.
What's the beef with this one distributor? Who is she?
"Jenny" is someone I know of who I used to have on Facebook. She has a long history of trying (and failing) to become fit and healthy by going to the gym, only to ruin it by overeating. Her diet has always been horrendous, she clearly has no clue about calorie counting, and as a result has always been overweight. By my reckoning I believe she is now obese based on her most recent photographs.
Her name isn't actually Jenny, but for the sake of anonymity I am calling her Jenny out of respect for her right to privacy and freedom from personal attacks and harassment.
I have no personal issue with her, I am sure that JP aside, Jenny is a lovely person. Unfortunately, she is a perfect example of the kind of person who can easily be manipulated into scams. Since she added me to her community page, I have been astonished with the utter rubbish she posts to sell products. Clearly, as mentioned above, she has no clue about health, fitness or nutrition. She simply sees what other distributors post, and runs with it.
JP do not care about the quality of their distributors. There is no screening process. As a result, people like Jenny, who are clearly not fit (literally) to advise people on healthy life choices, are recruited into the firm. As such, we live in a crazy world where fat, unhealthy people are selling health-based products to the public. And that's just sad.
Why this blog?
So many crazy claims have been made that I felt compelled to start documenting these incidents. I have already had to report Jenny to the Advertising Standards Authority once for false advertising (stay tuned for a future post), which they acted upon, and it's funny seeing her posts get hardly any "likes" (apart from other distributors) and her followers slowly go down day by day, week by week. Clearly very few people care about her sales.
Jenny also acts as inspiration for my own personal fitness journey. As documented in previous blog posts - I think - I myself was at one stage very overweight, probably borderline obese. For the past year and a month, I have gone on my own journey of losing weight, building muscle and tweaking my diet to ensure the right amount of calories depending on muscle gain or weight loss. Apart from taking BCAAs and drinking protein shakes - that are far cheaper, and that I don't worship as "miracle products" - I have never taken a single shake or capsule from a company like JP. It's therefore a slap in the face that someone like Jenny thinks she is in any position to advise people on healthy life choices. How about sorting yourself out first before worrying about others? Maybe then you would attract some business if people saw your wonder products work on you, yourself.
I don't know how often I'll post stuff, but whenever I feel like it, I will. Stay tuned...
A Blog Series on a Juice Plus Peddler
I have decided to start documenting this woman who used to be on my Facebook and who added me to her Juice Plus community group.
Basically, this woman is extremely overweight, if not obese, but thinks she is in a position to encourage other people to buy her "healthy" Juice Plus products. Juice Plus, if you are not aware, is a Multi-Level-Marketing company that recruits as many people as possible to sell their products on to friends and family. It is a barely legal pyramid scheme.
I am in a rush to type this introductory post, as some people actually have a clue about general health and fitness, and I would quite like to get my gym session done. In a nutshell I will now semi-regularly/routinely/whenever I feel like it post updates on this ham scammer's latest escapades in her quest to become a millionaire by doing nothing but spamming pictures and cheesy motivational sayings on a Facebook page.
The next post, possibly later tonight, will properly outline the state of play.
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