Most Annoying Infomercial Charlatans

[Dan Gould]

Maybe I have too much time on my hands on the weekend, but its pretty hard to avoid some of these snake oil salesmen. But the wonderful thing about the Internet is how easily you can find out more about the true backgrounds of some of these people.

The Chutzpah Award has to be a tie between the ForEx scammers (for telling you how wonderful it is that you can leverage a small amount of money into a much bigger position in the market without mentioning that if the deal goes bad, you're responsible for the full amount!) and Kevin Trudeau, who has to be the biggest fraud and slimiest scumbag to walk the Earth.

What a country we live in when Trudeau can be banned from infomercials for life and then turn around and publish a "book" and go right back to doing the same thing. I can only hope that it will only be a matter of time before the feds catch up with him again, and hopefully put him away for a long time.

Edited September 17, 2005 by Dan Gould

[DTMX]

Matthew Lesko aka Riddler-Lite

Don't know if he's legit or not - just know that he's annoying.

[BERIGAN]

Agree about Kevin Trudeau! Arrest him already!!!! My best friend is one of those new agey kinda people, and since Kevin says what he wants to hear,(His patter is just like the more legit alternative folk) he thinks government folks are just out to stop him because of his views! Oh well, no one is perfect.

[BERIGAN]

Matthew Lesko aka Riddler-Lite

Don't know if he's legit or not - just know that he's annoying.

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Oh man are you ever right!!!!!!!!!!(Riddler lite! ) I don't think he is all that legit either...at every bookstore I have worked at, his book ends up being returned a lot.(And the books curl up after sitting on the shelf for awhile, perhaps because they are evil)

Dan, you need to revise your poll!

Edited September 17, 2005 by BERIGAN

[DTMX]

Tony Little

Cheer down, dude...

... and lose the mullet.

[vibes]

Matthew Lesko aka Riddler-Lite

Don't know if he's legit or not - just know that he's annoying.

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Yeah, this guy is a major jackass. I watch less than one hour of TV a week, but I've seen him enough times to be annoyed.

[Dan Gould]

Matthew Lesko aka Riddler-Lite

Don't know if he's legit or not - just know that he's annoying.

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Oh man are you ever right!!!!!!!!!!(Riddler lite! ) I don't think he is all that legit either...at every bookstore I have worked at, his book ends up being returned a lot.(And the books curl up after sitting on the shelf for awhile, perhaps because they are evil)

Dan, you need to revise your poll!

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Yeah, except that I should have made it clear this was the subcategory of charlatans. I agree Tony Little and the other dude are annoying, but as far as I can tell, they aren't frauds.

[connoisseur series500]

Tony Little

Cheer down, dude...

... and lose the mullet.

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I don't know any of the people Dan listed, as I don't watch much TV; but this guy I do recognize.

He's annoying for sure.

[Kalo]

I barely watch television at all, but I've read enough about Trudeau to KNOW that he's evil.

On the other hand, it's hard not to think that anyone who beleives in this kind of shit deserves it.

Unfortunately, P.T Barnum was right.

[Jazzmoose]

I've never heard of these people; where do you find them?

edited to add...

Okay; TV. That explains it. I haven't watched the thing in ages...

Edited September 18, 2005 by Jazzmoose

[catesta]

In my opinion of the people listed, Don Lapre gets the honors from back in the days of the "tiny little ads" scam. By far the most annoying.

Both he and Trudeau should be locked up.

[connoisseur series500]

How about a picture of this infamous man, Trudeau? I want to see how he looks like.

[Dan Gould]

Here's a good detailing of Trudeau's personal/business history, from the Pittsburg Post Gazette:

Against odds, Kevin Trudeau still king of late-night infomercial pitchmen

Neither jail nor fines nor discredited products can stop earnest-faced salesman

Friday, September 09, 2005

By Bill Toland, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Perhaps you'd thought his long-running career as the earnest-faced salesman for memory products and homeopathic cancer remedies had finally ended last autumn, when the Federal Trade Commission banned Trudeau from peddling his cure-all products on television, an unprecedented legal restriction.

Maybe you'd thought he was finished in June 2003, when the FTC took him to court, trying to prevent his Shop America firm from selling the "coral calcium" supplement, which supposedly was harvested from the coral reefs of Okinawa and could cure up to 200 human maladies. He paid $2 million to settle the suit, but he admitted no wrongdoing.

Or maybe you'd thought Trudeau wouldn't even be able to shed his own criminal past, including a credit card fraud conviction for which he spent two years in jail in the early 1990s.

But here he is, back again somehow, appearing on televisions all over Pittsburgh and across the country, despite the FTC restrictions. His book, "Natural Cures 'They' Don't Want You To Know About," has hit No. 1 on the New York Times best-seller list in the hardcover advice category, a month after its re-release. (It was first released in August 2004, then again in June.) On Amazon.com, the online bookstore, only 11 books sell better.

He's achieved the ranking even though few news outlets or magazines have reviewed the book -- the marketing steam behind the popularity seems to be entirely of Trudeau's creation, a novelty in the hypercompetitive publishing business. He's sold nearly 4 million copies, besting such titles as Joel Osteen's "Your Best Life Now" and Rick Warren's "The Purpose-Driven Life."

There's only one explanation for the success, he said. "People who buy the book categorically, overwhelmingly love the book." Then, he said, they pass the good word onto friends and family.

TV infomercials sell all sorts of products -- weight-loss remedies, Bowflex and Total Gym workout machines, steak knives, fishing lures, sex drive pills, Magic Bullet blenders, gizmos that exercise your abdominal muscles.

It's a $100 billion-a-year industry with new entrants every week. And while the infomercials very often exaggerate the effectiveness of the products they sell, few of the ads can match the fantastic claims made by Trudeau -- that he personally knows of natural, herbal cures for herpes, obesity, depression, fibromyalgia cancer.

"If your body pH is alkaline, you cannot get cancer," he says on the latest infomercial. That claim is sandwiched between other assertions: He says heartburn is caused by too little acid in your stomach, for example, and adds that the Asian Diabetes Association promotes an herbal supplement that cures diabetes.

The government and the doctors cover up these natural remedies, he says, to protect the pharmaceutical industry, which wants to keep people sick so it can sell more medicine.

The government and the doctors, naturally, dispute that, and to them, the infomercial's claims are mystifying, if not dangerous. Trudeau's continued ability to persuade Americans to send him money and buy his products, however, is less mysterious.

"Sincerity is a powerful sales tool," said Stephen Barrett, the former Allentown psychiatrist who now operates a Web site called "quackwatch," which seeks to combat Trudeau and other purveyors of "health-related frauds, myths, fads and fallacies."

"He's nice-looking. He speaks with sincerity and enthusiasm."

But sincerity is not the same as honesty, and the FTC, when it tried to kick Trudeau, 42, off the air last September, said, "This ban is meant to shut down an infomercial empire that has misled American consumers for years."

Trudeau has been able to remain on the air because he's pitching a book, not specific medicinal products. Prohibiting an author from talking and marketing his work brings up all sorts of First Amendment and censorship issues that the FTC left alone.

Even so, Heather Hippsley, an assistant director with the FTC's advertising practices division, said the commission continued to monitor Trudeau's infomercials, book and Web site to make sure he's not violating the ban.

"Mr. Trudeau has been in front of the FTC twice, with numerous products," said Hippsley.

"We felt that the ban was appropriate as a remedy."

Trudeau has no illusions about his standing in the medical community. He has no medical training, he's been barred from doing business in Australia, and state attorneys general across the county have investigated Trudeau and his media group, Alliance Publishing Group Inc.

"I'm called a fraud, a charlatan," he said. If he's the fraud, and drug companies are the upstanding citizens, then why is drug giant Merck & Co. the one on the hook for $253 million, following a civil trial surrounding the death of a man taking Vioxx, the painkilling arthritis drug? "They're the ones who murdered 150,000 people, not me," he said, overestimating the deaths, but illustrating his point nevertheless.

And on this point, says Barrett, the "quackwatch" psychiatrist, Trudeau is striking gold.

"There are a lot of people who don't trust the government" and the medical community. "Trudeau has found a way to harvest the public distrust. ... He had managed to find a way to commercialize paranoia."

In his own words, Trudeau has fashioned himself as "an insider who's blowing the whistle," in the mold of a Jeffrey Wigand, who famously tattled on the tobacco industry on CBS' "60 Minutes."

Although -- or perhaps because -- his book is a best seller, Trudeau is still being targeted by state and federal regulators. In New York, for example, the state consumer protection board had been sending letters to television stations, asking them to not broadcast Trudeau's infomercial, or to at least accompany the infomercial with a disclaimer that says, "This book does not contain any cures, remedies or treatments for specific diseases."

But a federal judge told the board this month to stop sending out the letters, after Trudeau filed suit, saying the letters were tantamount to censorship. Trudeau's attorney, David Bradford, said, "Trudeau and Alliance Publishing Group believe that the consumer protection [board's] conduct has caused tens of millions of dollars of damages."

The link shows his mug:

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05252/568248.stm

Here's a link to a compelling analysis of the script of Trudeau's infomercial

http://www.infomercialwatch.org/tran/trudeau.shtml

And a New York State Consumer Protection Board Press Release about Trudeau and his book:

http://www.consumer.state.ny.us/pressrelea...5/august505.htm

[Dave James]

Hands down, it's got to be Don Lapre. He epitomizes everything that's abhorrant about television pitch men. With the kind of faux enthusiasm he can ramp up over nothing and his ability to lie with complete impunity, I'm suprised he hasn't been drafted by Karl Rove to work for the Bush administration.

What's really sad is that for any of these scammers to exist, there have to more than a few people who go down for their lies. That's the scary part. These guys aren't any different televangelists, it's just that they're selling something a little different . The bottom line for both is identical. They're just looking to separate you from your money.

Speaking of televangelists, has anyone ever come across Robert Tilton? He makes any of these other guys look like they're still in grammer school. A genuine master scammer. I thought he'd disappeared for good after the infamous "prayer string" debacle, but he's back and better than ever. One of the funniest things I've ever seen is called "The Farting Tape" where someone went in and superimposed various and sundry farting sounds over Tilton's meanderings. Absolutely fall down funny.

Up over and out.

[Free For All]

One of the funniest things I've ever seen is called "The Farting Tape" where someone went in and superimposed various and sundry farting sounds over Tilton's meanderings.  Absolutely fall down funny.

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Apparently there are several "editions' floating around, but here's one I found....

Robert Tilton farting video

[Alexander]

My vote is for Tom Vu. The Vietnamese busboy who scammed his way to the top through the old "devalued properties" con.

Always surrounded by beautiful women (who otherwise seemed to have nothing whatever to do with him), Tom would scream at the couch potatoes at home in broken english:

"Some people say to me: 'Tom! I have no time to come to your free seminar' (pronouced SEM-i-NAH). Well, MAKE TIME!!!!"

I heard he went up the river for fraud in the early 90s. Too bad. Tom was one of more entertaining scammers (although Don LaPre is pretty horrible too).

There's some video about halfway down this page...

Edited September 18, 2005 by Alexander

[7/4]

All of those Christian charlatans annoy me.

[catesta]

One of the funniest things I've ever seen is called "The Farting Tape" where someone went in and superimposed various and sundry farting sounds over Tilton's meanderings.   Absolutely fall down funny.

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Apparently there are several "editions' floating around, but here's one I found....

Robert Tilton farting video

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[Stereojack]

Apparently there are several "editions' floating around, but here's one I found....

Robert Tilton farting video

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Yes, I've surfed past this ass! Never caught his name before.

Don Lapre is not merely a blast from the past. I swear I've seen him within the last couple of days. Pure slime!

What amazes me is that these guys are obviously making money. Kevin Trudeau has been so ubiquitous in the last decade, that I have trouble believing that there are any suckers left. That's my problem, I keep forgetting the vastness of human stupidity.

[Man with the Golden Arm]

One of the funniest things I've ever seen is called "The Farting Tape" where someone went in and superimposed various and sundry farting sounds over Tilton's meanderings.  Absolutely fall down funny.

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Apparently there are several "editions' floating around, but here's one I found....

Robert Tilton farting video

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you gotta see > # 4! < that one is just sublime. this guy that makes them really came into his own (err) on that installment.

Edited September 19, 2005 by Man with the Golden Arm

[BruceH]

I barely watch television at all, but I've read enough about Trudeau to KNOW that he's evil.

On the other hand, it's hard not to think that anyone who beleives in this kind of shit deserves it.

Unfortunately, P.T Barnum was right.

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If memory serves, Trudeau was dealt with by The Daily Show as well. Truly an evil scumbag.

[Soulstation1]

[Ron S]

One of the funniest things I've ever seen is called "The Farting Tape" where someone went in and superimposed various and sundry farting sounds over Tilton's meanderings.   Absolutely fall down funny.

←

Apparently there are several "editions' floating around, but here's one I found....

Robert Tilton farting video

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←

you gotta see > # 4! < that one is just sublime. this guy that makes them really came into his own (err) on that installment.

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I practically farted watching both of those, I was laughing so hard. Here are editions #1 and #2. The way that the sound effects match up with the language in #2 is especially hysterical.

Edited September 19, 2005 by Ron S

[Dan Gould]

FWIW, Kevin Trudeau, who was the subject of an expose on 20/20 Friday night, is now selling that pile of crap he calls a book at $14.95 so he must be getting a declining return of suckers/infomercial. I had to get up early to take care of the dogs this weekend (the wife's away) and I had a strong urge to just sit on the couch and dial his 800 number over and over again, informing each operator that they work for a fraud and a con man. Probably wouldn't have done anything to reduce their sales but it would have felt good for five minutes or so.

[Randy Twizzle]

Though it doesn't have an official spokesperson, the "Girls Gone Wild" infomercials are clearly some of the most disgusting and despicable infomercials currently running. Even worse are the videos themselves. They represent the worst aspects of our hedonistic and exhibitionist culture. Everytime I view one of them I come away depressed about the future of our civilization; and the lighting is really bad.