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Organo Gold Fraud
Organo Gold Coffee Company blends gourmet coffee beans with Ganoderma Lucidum, an Asian herb said to control cholesterol and boost energy, in their blend. Organo also sells Ganoderma Lucidum-blended tea and supplements.
Defendants argue that Plaintiffs lack standing to bring business tort claims. First, they point out that the IR Agreements between Titan Global and CAN do not guarantee specific earnings levels.
Fraudulent Activity
Organo Gold is a multilevel marketing enterprise offering dietary supplements. To do so, they employ independent salespeople (known as independent representatives, or IRs) who sell them. These IRs earn commissions on product sales made both directly and through secondary representatives recruited by primary IRs; commissions can become substantial depending upon which level an IR works at.
Bernardo Chua, an experienced network marketer, established this company in 2008. Together with Shane Morand, they oversee its direct selling platform. Furthermore, it boasts an exceptional compensation plan that pays out millions every month!
However, former distributors of AmeriSciences allege that some distributors engaged in fraud and other misconduct to increase their incomes. They claim they were promised large upfront bonuses to join and then forced to buy more products in order to qualify for them later on; additionally they accuse the company of selling its products at higher prices than competitors.
Organo Gold denied these allegations and claimed they did not engage in fraudulent activity, without providing evidence supporting this position. Furthermore, Organo Gold did not address allegations by plaintiffs that Organo Gold engaged in unlawful telemarketing practices.
The court also rejected arguments that the alleged racketeering acts did not cause actual injury to the plaintiffs. Under RICO, to establish standing, private plaintiffs must demonstrate that an alleged scheme caused them actual economic injury; further, such conduct must have been the proximate cause of their injuries; according to this criteria, interstate wire fraud did not qualify as racketeering activity and thus did not meet RICO requirements.
AmeriSciences was successful in convincing the district court of all of their claims against AmeriSciences on all counts and awarded compensatory damages of $3,461,166. Additionally, Cocheu Gallardo and Buggs were ordered to pay all attorney fees and expenses of trustee. Their decision is currently on appeal with Judge Haynes Graves Duncan making up the Fifth Circuit panel presiding over it.
Misleading Claims
Organo Gold International and Holton Buggs, Jr. are accused of engaging in fraudulent practices against plaintiffs by selling products containing Ganoderma Lucidum fungus that can cause severe health complications or even death. According to the complaint, these products were distributed through multilevel marketing schemes where defendants misrepresented its risks and benefits while mislabelling them as “alternative medicine”, when in reality they are not. Plaintiffs seek damages including restitution, disgorgement as well as punitive and exemplary damages from those defendants.
Plaintiffs in this lawsuit are members of a multilevel marketing enterprise selling consumer goods such as coffee and nutritional supplements. As independent representatives (IRs), these plaintiffs receive commissions on sales made directly by customers as well as those of downstream IRs recruited by them and paid by ACN (the defendant in this case). Commissions typically go back through recruitment of primary IRs recruited by them – also receiving payment when those recruitees recruit new secondary representatives etc.
As a result of the defendants’ fraudulent actions, plaintiffs suffered various injuries. For instance, their recruitment strategy caused Plaintiffs’ downstream IRs to leave Titan Global and become less productive, thus diminishing commissions received by Plaintiffs – this alleged commercial injury is sufficiently specific and concrete that it warrants filing a private RICO action.
However, the Court finds that the alleged misconduct does not meet other requirements for standing under section 1964(c) of the RICO Act; specifically that acts committed were in interstate commerce and caused specific, concrete and particularized injuries to plaintiffs.
The Court rejects the defendants’ contentions that fraud and conspiracy claims are preempted by federal trade secret misappropriation law, noting the jury instruction specifically stating that, in order to establish fraud or conspiracy claims, Cocheu must have received AmeriSciences distributor list and WMS software free of consideration, transferred them with intent to hinder, delay, or defraud creditors; and these transfers were unauthorised.
Fraudulent Payments
Defendants have filed a motion to quash deposition notices and stay discovery pending resolution of their motion for summary judgment. Furthermore, Defendants filed another motion seeking to dismiss Plaintiff’s RICO claims under the Eleventh Amendment.
Organo Gold company operates as a multi-level marketing (MLM) scheme in which distributors buy directly from them at wholesale prices before selling these same products on to others at higher margins for commission. This revenue model generates revenue, hence why this MLM scheme can also be considered a pyramid scheme.
However, this business model presents several drawbacks, such as being illegal in many states and countries and being complex for new distributors to understand. Furthermore, maintaining inventory levels and paying for promotional materials may become quite expensive over time.
Multi-level marketing (MLM) strategies are central to any company’s success; however, these tactics are far from foolproof and have led to numerous lawsuits and fraud accusations in the MLM industry. Unfortunately, some cases even resulted in criminal convictions of their perpetrators.
One man from Florida was recently sentenced to prison for making fraudulent payments to Organo Gold. These crimes included forging checks and wire transfers; according to court findings, these payments were made after receiving an ultimatum letter from them asking him for more money; his response led him to make payment, only later discovering it had been stolen by his wife and daughter.
By providing Content to ORGANO GOLD, you grant it a non-exclusive, royalty-free worldwide, perpetual, irrevocable and fully sublicensable license that allows it to use such Content across social media accounts of ORGANO GOLD (such as its social media pages and websites, apps and email communications) and for promotional and publicity purposes without notification or permission from yourself or any third parties. By doing so, you represent and warrant that you own all necessary rights, title and interests to grant ORGANO GOLD this license.
Negligence
Consumers who fall prey to companies making misleading claims about their products or services can become misled and experience injuries and financial loss as a result. If this has happened to you, organo gold fraud compensation claims may be available – take the following steps to pursue compensation for losses sustained as a victim of organo gold fraud:
The defendants also claimed they did not violate the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), yet the Court found otherwise. More specifically, plaintiffs did not establish that their injuries were caused directly or indirectly by any acts committed by defendants that might have fallen under RICO; neither could they prove that any allegedly fraudulent acts conducted by defendants were the source of said injuries.
Furthermore, the Court rejected ACN’s argument that RICO violations did not provide enough evidence of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud. Instead, the Court found that plaintiffs’ complaint contained sufficient facts supporting claims of conspiring to obtain money through false pretenses through deceptive practices. Furthermore, these claims had sufficient standing as plaintiffs were third party beneficiaries under ACN IR Agreements between themselves and ACN that entitled them to commission payments upon sales made by downstream IRs.
Unfortunately, that has changed. Now we are seeing more than ever the need to develop strategies against the increasing threat from hackers, malware and viruses. By providing Content to ORGANO GOLD, you grant it a non-exclusive, royalty-free worldwide license, in perpetuity. ORGANO GOLD may use, reproduce, communicate, copy, edit, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, post, broadcast stream transmit combine with other materials publicly display your Content either whole or partially on its websites and apps as well as third party accounts such as social network sites as well as for promotional and publicity purposes. ORGANO GOLD may request that you take certain actions related to the creation of your Content, including acting upon any reasonable requests that come your way in producing it and making sure it doesn’t cause emotional distress or abuse to other people, publicly humiliate others without their consent, breach any privacy or publicity rights of third parties, or contain anything defamatory.