The acai berry juice distributor MonaVie began in 2005. A controversial multi-level marketing based business, They have been criticized for their business practices, false health claims, and misleading advertising. Dallin Larsen, the company’s current CEO was once involved with Royal Tongan Limu juice which the FDA shut down in 2003 for making false claims and they have been subject to many lawsuits. The acai scams include both worthless products and deceptive recruitment techniques.
MonaVie sells their products with the technique known as multi-level marketing. Legal in over 100 countries including the United States, multi-level marketing has been referred to as a legal pyramid scheme. The companies that practice it have been criticized for exploiting their distributors’ relationships; exaggerating their compensation; emphasizing recruitment rather than sales and marketing; fixing prices; and cult-like behavior.
As with other multi-level marketing companies, MonaVie compensates its sales people through a highly complex incentive program. This plan is described in their brochures with colorful charts and and a variety of acronyms designed to entice with luxurious rewards and bonus programs.
In their program the distributor builds two legs to their downline but only qualify for commissions and bonuses based on the shorter leg. The longer leg is essentially useless since bonuses end wherever the shorter leg ends. They also focus on recruiting rather than selling their product with promises of higher earnings for those who bring more distributors into the fold. They require their distributors to purchase at least four bottles a month. Since those bottles rarely actually sell the distributor must eat that cost as a loss. If the distributor doesn’t make these minimum purchases they aren’t allowed to claim their commissions.
Sold at $40.00 a bottle of Acai juice are expensive. However they have little actual value. The acai berry has become a superstar of the health food world and they are touted as a source of vitamins, minerals, phytonutrients, amino acids, and antioxidants. The MonaVie website promises amazing health benefits. According to them, acai berry based juices numerous benefits include promoting healthy joints; balancing cholesterol levels; strengthening the immune system; increasing energy; and protecting the body from the damage caused by free radicals.
In studies carried out by Chromadex labs, however, MonaVie’s juices were shown to contain extremely low levels of the phytochemicals related to antioxidant action and the antioxidant vitamin C. Contrary to MonaVie’s marketing, there is little evidence that polyphenols from fruit have antioxidant value in the body or that MonaVie’s highly publicized oxygen absorbance capacity has any function in the body. While it is true that in the controlled environment of the laboratory polyphenols function as antioxidants, in the body they are nearly nonexistent. The Linus Pauling Institute, the FDA and the European Food Safety Authority have all reported that polyphenols don’t function as antioxidants after being digested.Rather than being absorbed into the body they are transformed into metabolites and excreted.
Technically legal like other multi-level marketing based businesses, MonaVie earns a profit not by selling its products but rather by recruiting sales people. It uses flashy brochures to entice people to join and promises bonuses, higher earnings and rewards to members who bring new distributors into the flock. This model benefits a few people at the top while often costing those at the bottom a small fortune. Even when the juice is sold, it has little real nutritional value and is advertised with misleading and even false claims.
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