What do Tom Brady, Kim Kardashian and Dr. Oz all have in common?
Lying about his steroid use and misleading consumers on his “ancestral” lifestyle to allegedly promote his supplement companies.
The Liver King, whose real name is Brian Johnson, was the subject of a $25 million class-action lawsuit, which appears to have been resolved by settlement agreement. Ironically, one of the side effects of long-term steroid use is liver damage.
Eating fish eyeballs covered in maple syrup.
As a spokesperson for BetMGM, Gretzky has appeared in TV ads promoting the online sportsbook’s “risk free” bets, which may not be as great as “The Great One” makes them seem.
Gretzky has so far managed to skate by without any punishment. But in March 2023, BetMGM was sued for allegedly luring new bettors with offers of “risk free” bets and then not refunding bettors’ original bet if they lost. The lawsuit was voluntarily dismissed in July 2023.
As of June 2024, playing golf with Taylor Swift’s boyfriend.
Promoting his NFT collections with Binance, the beleaguered cryptocurrency exchange that last November agreed to pay more than $4 billion to settle federal money laundering charges. The international soccer star also has a long-standing partnership with the MLM Herbalife, which TINA.org has found using deceptive health and income claims to market its products and business opportunity.
CR7 faces a billion-dollar class-action lawsuit for his alleged role in driving consumers to Binance.
Trying to win Euro 2024 to help bolster his case that he is the GOAT of soccer and not that other guy.
Allegedly selling thousands of bottles of a toxic industrial bleach called Miracle Mineral Solution (MMS) that was falsely marketed as a cure for a variety of serious diseases, including COVID-19, Alzheimer’s and cancer, and attempting to skirt federal regulations by masquerading as a religious organization under the name Genesis II Church of Health and Healing.
In October 2023, Mark Grenon and his three sons, Jonathan, Jordan and Joseph, aka the “Church of Bleach,” were sentenced after a jury found all four guilty of conspiring to defraud the United States by introducing a misbranded drug into interstate commerce following a lawsuit filed in 2020. Mark and Joseph each got five years, while Jonathan and Jordan each received 12 years and seven months in prison. Each of the sons filed a handwritten appeal.
Prison-bound and perhaps questioning their decision to represent themselves during the trial.
Operating not one, but two pyramid schemes – Success By Health and VOZ Travel – after he was specifically ordered to get out of the pyramid scheme business.
In May 2023, a court found Noland in contempt of a 2002 FTC permanent injunction prohibiting him from running a pyramid scheme and from misrepresenting the income potential of people who participate in multilevel marketing. The court awarded more than $7 million to the FTC, which had sued Noland three years earlier.
Looking under couch cushions for change to pay the full amount sought by the FTC? The court also found that claims about Noland’s own wealth were overblown. At the age of 36, the court wrote, Noland “was living (or was about to start living) off credit cards.”
As a brand ambassador for the now-defunct crypto exchange FTX, the Brazilian supermodel and businesswoman appeared in a TV commercial in which she and then-hubby Tom Brady called up acquaintances to recruit them to join the trading platform whose founder now faces a laundry list of criminal charges (including money laundering).
A lawsuit accuses Bündchen, who is also an FTX shareholder, of failing to disclose the nature, scope and amount of compensation she received in exchange for promoting the FTX platform, in violation of securities laws. (Brady is also a defendant, along with a number of other A-list celebrities who endorsed FTX before its collapse.)
The red carpet, of course.
Here’s one tweet that didn’t age well. “To find crypto investments opportunities that met my own rigorous standards of compliance, I entered into this relationship with @FTX_Official,” “Shark Tank’s” Kevin O’Leary said on Twitter in 2021, according to a class-action lawsuit filed last November. That same month, FTX filed for bankruptcy and its CEO resigned amid allegations of defrauding investors.
The lawsuit accuses “Mr. Wonderful,” a former FTX brand ambassador and current FTX shareholder, of failing to disclose the nature, scope and amount of compensation he received in exchange for promoting the FTX platform, in violation of securities laws. (Tom Brady, another TINA.org Wall of Shamer, is also named as a defendant.)
Sparing with news anchors and late night TV hosts over his past endorsements of the now-defunct crypto exchange.
Touting cryptoasset Tronix (TRX) tokens on Twitter without disclosing the $25,000 in TRX assets he collected in exchange for the promotion.
The boxer and internet personality agreed to pay more than $100,000 in disgorgement, interest and penalties to settle SEC charges he violated Section 17(b) of the Securities Act by not disclosing the compensation he received.
Making parody videos with his brother Logan, a fellow TINA.org Wall of Shamer.
Allegedly orchestrating an NFT “rug pull” in which he misled consumers into believing they could make money in an animal-themed cryptocurrency game called CryptoZoo that did not work or never existed.
A class-action lawsuit filed in February 2023 accuses the YouTube megastar and several others, including his assistant and manager, of bilking millions of dollars from consumers who purchased CryptoZoo NFTs, which were touted as the gateway to exclusive access to other cryptoassets.
Distributing clotheslines, among other wrestling moves, in WWE.
As the founder and CEO of the now-defunct Silicon Valley startup Theranos, Holmes falsely claimed the company’s blood-testing device could detect a multitude of diseases and conditions from a single drop of blood obtained via a finger prick that could be self-administered at home. After the Wall Street Journal exposed that the technology didn’t work in 2015, government inquiries followed.
In November 2022, a federal judge sentenced Holmes to more than 11 years in federal prison and three years of supervised release after a grand jury convicted her of defrauding investors of hundreds of millions of dollars.
According to reports, out on bond and living in a mansion on the historic $135 million Green Gables estate in Silicon Valley before she must report to prison in April 2023 to begin her sentence.
Allegedly misappropriating billions of dollars in customer deposits obtained through his failed crypto exchange FTX, which he promoted as “the safest and easiest way to buy and sell crypto,” to repay debts owed by his private trading firm, Alameda Research, and to make lavish real estate purchases and large political donations.
SBF faces charges of defrauding customers and investors from the SEC, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. “We allege that Sam Bankman-Fried built a house of cards on a foundation of deception while telling investors that it was one of the safest buildings in crypto,” SEC Chair Gary Gensler said in a December 2022 press release. SBF stepped down as FTX CEO in November 2022, the same month FTX filed for bankruptcy.
The Bahamas, where he reportedly would like to stay.
Selling products, such as a serum called Super Male Vitality that is marketed to “help support normal testosterone levels in men” and increase focus, that independent testing found to be “little more than heavily overpriced supplements with few health benefits, if any,” in order to largely fund his radio and internet conspiracy website Infowars.
Jones has been warned by the FDA and FTC to stop making misleading COVID prevention claims for his Nano Silver personal care products. He has also been permanently banned from most major social media and streaming platforms for spouting hate speech, and sued repeatedly in civil court for a variety of reasons.
Filing for bankruptcy after being ordered by a Connecticut court to pay nearly $1.5 billion in damages to the families of the victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre, which for years he said was a hoax.
Using her showbiz bonafides as the former cohost of two long-running morning talk shows to shill Balance of Nature, a supplement company whose deceptive health claims have been a thorn in the side of regulators and TINA.org alike.
Nothing for Gifford and next to nothing for Balance of Nature, which despite receiving an FDA warning letter regarding unapproved disease-treatment claims in 2019, falsely advertised at the beginning of the pandemic that its supplements could prevent and help treat the coronavirus by boosting the immune system, a TINA.org investigation found.
Apparently not reading another talk show host’s new memoir.
Luring young men to his online academy/affiliate marketing scheme Hustlers University with claims that they could earn thousands of dollars every month, then abruptly closing the “university” after getting banned from multiple social media platforms over his misogynist remarks.
The British kickboxer-turned-TikTok star now finds himself kicked off TikTok, in addition to Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, for spewing hateful rhetoric on the platforms.
The hustle continues on Tate’s website, where he claims to teach “the secrets to modern wealth creation” – for $5,454. This is money he may need to help pay his future legal bills: In December 2022, he was arrested in Romania and charged with human trafficking and forming an organized crime group.
Telling consumers that Verizon lets them trade in their old, busted or broken phone for “a shiny new one” as a spokesperson for the carrier, while fine print discloses, “Trade-in offer excludes phones with battery damage.” As you might suspect, battery damage is one of the most common types of cellphone damage.
After a reader complained, TINA.org published an article alerting others to the terms of the trade-in offer buried in the commercial’s fine print (which also notes that “[i]n times of congestion, your data may be temporarily slower than other traffic,” even if you have a so-called “unlimited” plan).
In addition to her duties as an SNL cast member, McKinnon is playing Carole Baskin in a limited series, “Joe vs. Carole,” released nearly two years after pandemic sensation “Tiger King.”
Looking consumers in the eye and telling them that they’re going to “win big cash prizes up to $10,000” as a spokesperson for HealthyWager, a site that offers cash prizes for meeting weight-loss goals that participants bet on, while fine print notes that, “The number of people who lose their HealthyWager is greater than the number who win.”
TINA.org exposed the fitness guru’s lies in an ad alert. (The ad alert also noted how HealthyWager includes participants’ initial bet in its cash prize calculations to claim that they “won” hundreds to thousands of dollars, when in reality one of the winners barely broke even after wagering nearly $2,000.)
Moving on from her time as a tough-love trainer on the reality weight-loss show “The Biggest Loser.”
Telling older homeowners they can trust American Advisors Group (AAG), the nation’s largest reverse mortgage lender, in TV ads in which he appears as a paid spokesman. In truth, the company hasn’t always been straightforward with consumers.
Nothing yet for the former “Magnum, P.I.” star. But, in October 2021, AAG agreed to pay $1.1 million to settle claims it provided consumers with inflated estimates of home values to entice them to enter into negotiations to open reverse mortgages. Previously, the company was cited for falsely claiming consumers could not lose their homes.
Still rocking one of the most iconic mustaches in the biz.
Promoting a number of unproven products on his podcast, the Joe Rogan Experience, including a chewing gum marketed to enhance cognitive function and a CBD cream that Rogan claims helps fight inflammation and promote sleep.
On the contrary, Rogan recently inked a $100 million broadcasting deal with Spotify.
Contemplating a lawsuit against CNN for saying he was taking a horse dewormer to treat his COVID-19 after he said he was taking a horse dewormer to treat his COVID-19.
Using her neuroscientist credentials and “Big Bang Theory” star power to promote the brain supplement Neuriva as being “backed by real science” and “vetted by a real neuroscientist,” with “clinically tested” ingredients. In reality, Neuriva’s health claims are not supported by reliable scientific studies and are misleading. (In fact, the company responsible for marketing Neuriva is trying to resolve deceptive advertising allegations. Click here to find out why a proposed class-action settlement is unfair for consumers and why TINA.org is advocating for changes.)
What is … not much of a penalty at all? While Bialik has faced criticism over her promotion of Neuriva, “Jeopardy!” announced in December 2021 that she would continue to split hosting duties with record-setting champion Ken Jennings into the new year.
In addition to reading clues on “Jeopardy!” welcoming listeners to her podcast, Mayim Bialik’s Breakdown, which is aimed at breaking down “misinformation and myths” about mental health.
Getting paid to promote a phony diabetes cure. More recently, spamming parents with scary and misleading emails about the domestic threat of socialism to get them to sign up for a kids guide that is falsely marketed as “free.”
During the 2016 presidential campaign, then-candidate Huckabee faced criticism over his former role as a paid spokesman for the Diabetes Solution Kit, telling “Face the Nation” host Bob Schieffer “I don’t have to defend everything that I’ve ever done.”
Going, going, back, back, to … Arkansas.
Debuting an “immunity supplement” under his wellness brand TB12 in the middle of a pandemic “to stay healthy, strong and resilient for whatever comes your way.” More recently, promoting the now-defunct crypto exchange FTX without disclosing the nature, scope and amount of compensation he received, in alleged violation of Florida state securities laws.
Some medical experts called out the timing of the immunity supplement’s release in May 2020, the same month the U.S. death toll from the COVID-19 pandemic reached 100,000. And Brady is one of a number of A-listers facing lawsuits over their endorsements of FTX, though the collapse of the platform may hurt Brady the most: A recent bankruptcy filing revealed he owns 1.1 million shares of the company.
Retired – this time “for good” – and headed to the broadcast booth after signing a reported 10-year, $375 million contract with Fox. Which ought to soften the blow from any FTX-related losses.
As a partner and celebrity promoter for Snow Teeth Whitening, Gronk attached his name to a company that TINA.org found making unauthorized use of the FDA’s logo in 2019.
Tom Brady’s favorite target on the football field is now one of the targets of a class-action lawsuit challenging claims that Snow’s products provide various teeth-whitening benefits, protect against COVID-19 and have been approved by the FDA.
Doing Gronk things in Florida, where he has reunited with Brady as teammates on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Fifty years after famously guaranteeing his team’s victory in Super Bowl III, the New York Jets legend now promises that Medicare recipients can get the benefits they deserve by calling the Medicare Coverage Helpline, for which he is a paid spokesman. In fact, there’s no guarantee that the benefits will be available in a caller’s region. Also, the helpline is less a government hotline that helps Medicare recipients get coverage than a “for-profit lead generation campaign” that sells callers’ information to licensed insurance agents, according to fine print in TV commercials featuring “Broadway Joe.”
No flags thrown on the Hall-of-Fame QB – yet.
Splitting time between misleading consumers on the benefits the “helpline” offers and Jets fans on the prospects of a return to relevance.
Promoting his Silver Solution supplement on his show as a cure for SARS, HIV and the coronavirus. (Previously, conspiring to defraud the public and running mail and wire frauds behind the cover of Praise the Lord Ministries.)
A warning from the FTC and FDA and a cease-and-desist letter from the New York Attorney General. His previous misdeeds earned him a 5-year stint in federal prison in the 90s.
Recovering from a “broken heart” after suspending sales of his Silver Solution, which failed to make him immune to the law.
Who better to promote your initial coin offering (ICO) than the man they call Money? Three cryptocurrency companies apparently all had the same idea when they asked retired champion boxer Floyd “Money” Mayweather to tout their ICOs on social media. Mayweather scrutinized the strengths and weaknesses of each ICO and based on the data picked the one with the best chance of success. Just kidding. He said yes to them all (including one, Centra Tech, that was later exposed as a fraud by the SEC), pocketed a total of $300,000 and promoted the ICOs without disclosing any of the payments he received.
The SEC hit Mayweather with a left hook that emptied more than $600,000 from his bank account, a drop in the (spit) bucket considering the more than $1 billion in career earnings that Money is reported to have made boxing.
Boxing kickboxers in retirement, apparently.
The King of Snapchat was paid $50,000 by cryptocurrency company Centra Tech to “Bless Up” its initial coin offering (ICO) on social media. Not only did Khaled promote the company’s bogus debit card but he failed to mention he was being paid to do it. Maybe it was the booze talking as Khaled also promoted multiple alcohol brands on social media without letting his young following know that “blue dot pon ya head top” was actually just an ad.
DJ Khaled didn’t have the key to elude an SEC fine for his endorsement of Centra Tech, and was forced to pay more than $150,000. Additionally, after TINA.org outed more than 300 of Khaled’s undisclosed alcohol ads, he “took the top off the Maybach” and removed all the posts.
Presumably sitting down to a bowl of Ciroc Toast Crunch and not posting about it.
The rapper formerly known as Puff Daddy and then P. Diddy before he dropped the “P” for just Diddy had a bigger problem than letting people know what he’d like to be called that month. As the head of marketing for Ciroc, Diddy found himself at the center of a TINA.org probe into the influencer marketing of the vodka and brandy brand. And the findings were not good for the founder of Bad Boy Records: more than 1,700 undisclosed Ciroc ads on Instagram in violation of FTC law. Some of these ads even featured minors and, um, strange imagery.
Given the repeat offender status of Ciroc’s parent company, Diageo, TINA.org filed a complaint against the liquor giant with the FTC. For his part, within a week of being notified of TINA.org’s findings, Diddy deleted every one of his more than 600 undisclosed Ciroc ads. (Sorry, ladies, you’ll now have to go elsewhere to get Diddy’s advice on wearing open-toed shoes.)
Likely thinking up more aliases to further confuse his fans.
Running multilevel marketing companies that twice landed him legal battles with the FTC. The first time, the FTC took him to task for inappropriate health claims tied to a New Vison supplement billed as a cure for ADHD referred to as “God’s Recipe.” The FTC labeled his next MLM venture, Vemma, which sold an energy drink called Verve, a pyramid scheme.
In a court settlement reached in 2016, Boreyko is banned from promoting any business ventures that, among other things, pays any compensation to members for recruiting new participants and from making deceptive income claims and unsubstantiated health claims.
Still promoting Verve, only now he’s doing it for another MLM called Bode Pro. Third time’s a charm?
The actress finds herself on TINA.org’s radar for claiming (without proper scientific evidence) that products from her Goop health and lifestyle line can treat a variety of diseases. From crystals for treating infertility to perfume for alleviating anxiety, illegal health claims abound on the Goop website.
TINA.org reported these findings to the California Food Drug and Medical Device Task Force. In September 2018, the task force reached a settlement with Goop that resulted in a $145,000 penalty and a ban on making deceptive health claims in the future.
Still living and working in La-La Land.
Kept consumers up at night with a number of puffed-up claims for MyPillow, including, at one point, touting the pillow as a cure-all without the appropriate scientific evidence required by law and pushing a deceptive BOGO sale.
In October 2016, the MyPillow founder and CEO agreed to pay more than $1 million to settle a deceptive advertising lawsuit brought by consumer protection officials in California who were aided by TINA.org’s own investigation into MyPillow. Not long after, MyPillow flunked out of the BBB.
More than 100 sponsored Instagram posts by the Kardashian/Jenner sisters, who have millions of followers, that were not marked as ads, as required by federal law.
A TINA.org complaint to the FTC and lots of bad press for the reality TV stars that Cosmo dubbed “America’s First Family.”
Still making bank by plugging products on social media sites.
The Almost Famous actress has angered hundreds of consumers who have found it impossible to cancel their monthly subscription to Fabletics, an athletic-wear company Hudson co-founded in 2013. Unable to cancel, shoppers are saddled with charges for additional clothing they never wanted delivered.
Tons of bad press for the starlet.
Despite the naysayers, Hudson and her company continue to thrive, reporting sales of $159 million in 2020. Clearly, she is not sweating it.
The self-proclaimed nutrition expert with questionable degrees appeared on Dr. Oz, The View and other shows touting green coffee bean extract as a weight-loss miracle. He made millions by using the Oz Effect to sell it and other questionable supplement products through his own companies. The scientific studies he used to promote the supplement were later found to be seriously flawed.
He, along with his companies, Genesis Today and Pure Health, have to refund customers $9 million and can no longer make any claims about supplements or drugs in the future that aren’t backed by two well-controlled human clinical trials.
Behind the curtain with Dr. Oz wondering if the miracle pills they shill will get them out of this jam.
Peddling Miracle Mineral Supplement drops through various websites as a treatment for cancer, AIDS, kidney disease and “lots of other ailments.” Turns out the miracle ingredient is sodium chlorite, an industrial chemical used in pesticides and for hydraulic fracturing that is illegal to sell for human consumption. Even worse, Smith advised customers, including pregnant women, to mix it with citric acid, creating a chemical used to bleach textiles.
Smith was sentenced to 51 months in jail by a federal court for introducing misbranded drugs into interstate commerce with the intent to defraud or mislead, smuggling and conspiracy.
Smith is now a free and (hopefully) rehabilitated man.
Allegedly bilking millions of dollars from people who attended his eponymous for-profit Trump University by engaging in an aggressive upselling scheme and then failing to deliver on promises made in advertising that students would learn his real estate secrets.
Agreed to pay out $25 million to settle fraud allegations against the defunct Trump University.
After becoming president of the United States and facing a whole new set of ethical and legal scrutiny about using his position as Influencer-in-Chief to promote his businesses, Trump has returned to Mar-a-Lago — for now.
Willms was deemed the “Dark Lord of the Internet” by the Atlantic in 2013 for his many suspicious Internet ads offering “free trials” that turn into negative-option offers and have hit consumers’ credit cards for hundreds of millions of dollars in unwanted charges. Willms got his start re-selling pirated Microsoft software over the Internet as a teenager before creating a marketing empire selling weight-loss supplements, colon cleansers, and teeth-whiteners with suspicious claims and surprise charges.
The FTC banned Willms from using negative-option offers in his marketing in 2012, and imposed a judgement of $359 million that was suspended upon Willms surrendering bank-account funds and the proceeds from the sale of his house, personal property, and corporate assets, including a $30,000 fish tank and a $12,000 fur coat. Willms had previously settled with Microsoft in 2006, agreeing to a six-figure settlement, to surrender three cars, and to never sell Microsoft products again.
Willms is now pitching vehicle history reports on the sites carhistory.us.org, dmv.us.org, vehiclehistory.com, and vehiclehistoryrecord.com, probably on his way to another lawsuit, another settlement, and then his next scheme.
Everyone’s favorite Jersey Shore washup, Snooki fell back into the limelight with her shocking weight loss transformation. But how did she do it? Snooki endorsed a product named Zantrex in poorly filmed commercials and her own social media outlets. Zantrex promises “Rapid Fat Loss” and “Incredible Energy.”
A class-action lawsuit was brought against the makers of Zantrex for false advertising claims. One of the defendants named is none other then Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi. (The case was voluntarily dismissed in 2016, the reasons for which were not disclosed.)
Causing a lot of meatball drama.
Jenny McCarthy has a lot on her plate. Playing the role of sacked television host, Vemma endorser, and president of an anti-vaccine group could be quite demanding. But she doesn’t stop there, and adds to the list with another unfortunate endorsement. Using her model resume, she’s selling Blu eCigs and gets to have a smoke “without the guilt.”
Maybe all this was to blame for her getting fired from the View? A Senate hearing brought up the images of Jenny McCarthy as an example of a marketing tactic to teenagers. Shockingly it seems as if the ads have disappeared.
Probably thinking up her outfit for her next sketchy product endorsement.
America’s favorite TV doctor has been under scrutiny for touting benefits of a myriad of questionable “miracle” products. TINA.org also questions his cozy relationship with Vemma, an Arizona-based dietary supplement company facing pyramid scheme charges in a court case filed by the FTC.
The tide may be turning against Oz. In 2014, he faced a Congressional subcommittee that grilled him on weight-loss substances he shilled as miracles on his show and a study published by the British Medical Journal found that medical research doesn’t support half of Dr. Oz’s recommendations. Members of the media (well, some journalists anyway) and late-night comedians are also pulling back the curtain on his antics.
Still in the magical land of Oz making sketchy health claims.
In 2002-2003, Barrett began airing infomercials for supplements such as Coral Calcium and Supreme Greens, billing the latter as a cure for multiple diseases, including cancer.
FTC sued Barrett for making false claims about Supreme Greens and Coral Calcium, and in October 2010, a federal appeals court upheld a $48.2 million award against Barrett. In May 2011, Barrett pleaded guilty to one count each of subscribing to a false tax return and misbranding Supreme Greens for the prevention of cancer and arthritis without FDA approval. He was sentenced to one year of probation.
He likely still has a hand in infomercials. His LinkedIn page says he is executive producer for HomeShopping Europe.
In 2001 and 2002, Khubani ran infomercials for the Ab Force belt, an exercise contraption that purportedly used electrical impulses to help the wearer shape up and lose weight. He sold more than 700,000 belts, with gross sales exceeding $19 million.
The FTC stepped in with a complaint in 2003 to stop what it said were false claims about the belt’s effectiveness. Khubani fought the FTC charges for more than five years, finally agreeing in 2009 to a $7 million settlement. It wasn’t the first time Khubani had run into trouble: He paid more than $900,000 in the 1990s to settle charges that he made false claims about an antenna and hearing aid he sold, and for failing to provide refunds, cancel purchases, and ship products on time.
Still selling things on TV.
Claiming to be affiliated with a government agency, Phil sent over 5 million illegal spam text messages in a 40-day period according to a 2011 FTC complaint. The texts promised to help home owners with loan modifications and anyone who responded, even to say “Stop texting me,” had their information forwarded to marketers.
In 2014, the FTC found that Phil was back to his old tricks. Turns out that he sent more than 29 million spam text messages promising “free” Walmart and Best Buy gift cards.
In 2011, Phil settled with the FTC for $32,000 and was permanently banned from sending spam text messages. Apparently, the permanent ban didn’t mean much to Phil. In May 2014, he was found to be in civil contempt of the 2011 order and has been ordered to pay $148,309 for his latest scam.
Texting in Huntington Beach, CA.
Continuing to endorse Dannon after the company had Curtis mislead consumers in its Activia commercials. The FTC made clear that “[i]n truth and in fact, eating one serving of Activia daily is not clinically proven to relieve temporary irregularity and help with slow intestinal transit time.” Dannon paid the FTC $21 million for the false claims made to consumers in Curtis’ ads.
For Curtis? None whatsoever.
After selling Activia yogurt for seven years, Curtis has moved on to bigger and better things, such as reminding people on Twitter that she sold Activia yogurt for seven years.
While masterminding the largest Ponzi scheme in history, Madoff stole the life savings of thousands of investors.
In 2009, he was sentenced to 150 years in prison for what the judge called an “extraordinarily evil” fraud.
Twelve years into his sentence, Madoff died in April 2021.
Where to start? First, Dr. Jarvik has never been a practicing physician, but that doesn’t stop him from offering medical advice in the Lipitor ads. Second, those scenes of him rowing on that pristine mountain lake? Yeah, that’s not him, it’s a another man, who can actually row and probably doesn’t need Lipitor.
None for Robert. He pocketed a cool $1.35 million for the Lipitor commercials. As for Pfizer, the maker of Lipitor, it had to pull the ads after a congressional committee raised questions about the Jarvik commercials.
Not rowing on a lake, that’s for sure.
Oh, there are so many. Montel is the pitchman for a variety of questionable products, including Tommie Copper, the maker of copper-infused compression clothing that claims you will feel better and live positively if you wear the clothes. He is also a spokesman for Lifelock, which promises to relentlessly protect your identity by charging a fee for many services you can actually get for free. Montel also helped market online lender MoneyMutual, which was ordered in March 2015 to pay a $2.1 million penalty and shut down its high-interest payday loan activities in New York after a government investigation. The probe also resulted in Montel having to withdraw his endorsement.
Williams has been named in a class-action lawsuit against MoneyMutual for allegedly aiding the loan schemes.
Maybe trying to commune with Sylvia Browne, a psychic some called a con artist, he regularly hosted on his show before she passed away in November 2013.
Penélope Cruz is a beautiful woman but perhaps lacking in principle. In her ads for L’Oréal’s Telescopic mascara, Cruz promises, “Lashes that could reach to the stars.” What Ms. Cruz fails to disclose is that she is wearing falsies, that is, eyelash inserts. Well, that’s just plain wrong – not to mention deceptive.
The Advertising Standards Authority of Great Britain found the ads misleading and ordered L’Oréal to disclose the use of false lashes in the future.
Obviously Penélope’s not reaching the stars with her own lashes.
It’s tough keeping up with even one Kardashian. Kim’s shameful acts over the years include pitching unproven QuickTrim weight-loss products; failing to mention any side effects of a morning sickness drug that she was paid by a drugmaker to tout on Instagram; failing to label other Instagram posts plugging a variety of brands as ads (a habit she shares with her sisters); and, most recently, promoting a cryptocurrency on Instagram without disclosing how much she was paid to do so.
As part of a $1.3 million settlement with the SEC, Kim agreed to give back the $250,000 she was paid to publish a post on Instagram about a crypto asset security called EMAX tokens. In addition, the FDA sent Duchesnay, the maker of the morning sickness drug Diclegis, a warning letter over Kim’s promotional posts and TINA.org has filed complaints with the FTC regarding the lack of advertising disclosure in her sponsored posts.
With an estimated net worth of $1.8 billion, a $1.3 million fine probably isn’t going to change Kim’s life too much (though she also agreed to not promote any crypto securities for three years under her settlement with the SEC). Which is to say, you can probably find her plugging products on Instagram.
In 2004, Trudeau was permanently prohibited from making infomercials – the one exception — to promote books if he did so without misrepresenting the content of the book. That honesty requirement was just too hard for this ex-felon to follow. His latest shameful act involves violating an FTC consent order 32,000 times by deceptively marketing his book, The Weight Loss Cure “They” Don’t Want You to Know About, in infomercials.
Trudeau was ordered to pay $37.6 million to the FTC, which then returned $6 million to consumers to reimburse those who purchased his diet book. If Trudeau wants to make another infomercial about a book, he’ll also have to pony up a $2 million performance bond.
In jail, after a jury found Trudeau guilty of criminal contempt and sentenced him to 10 years for making deceptive claims about his weight-loss book. The FTC has also called Trudeau’s Global Information Network a pyramid scheme.
According to Fiat, its commercial of J Lo shows her “driving a Fiat 500 Cabrio as she travels through the streets of Manhattan to the Bronx where she grew up.” Only problem is that it isn’t J Lo driving around in the Bronx but some J Lo look-a-like. Ms. Lopez shot her scenes in LA.
We’ll have to see what Karma has in store for her.
No doubt, she’s in LA.
Peter Popoff is self-proclaimed faith healer and prophet. He rose to prominence in the 1980s by preaching the “gospel of prosperity” on TV, promising cash rewards directly from God to his supporters. In 1987, James Randi, a stage magician and skeptic, exposed Popoff as a fraud, demonstrating how he used a radio earpiece to receive information from his wife gleaned from prayer cards to deceive people into thinking he could somehow divine secret information about them out of thin air.
After Randi’s exposé aired on The Tonight Show, Popoff lost most of his supporters and had to file for bankruptcy.
By the late 1990s, Popoff recovered and started preaching impossible financial and medical miracles again, this time targeting the black community. Popoff continues to preach and sell miracle products on the BET network and through the mail to this day.
Doctoring a photo of model Filippa Hamilton in 2009 to make her waist appear smaller than her head in an advertisement for Blue Label jeans. (In reality, she’s a size 8.)
None, but according to a spokesman for Ralph Lauren, “we have learned that we are responsible for the poor imaging and retouching that resulted in a very distorted image of a woman’s body. We have addressed the problem and going forward will take every precaution to ensure that the caliber of our artwork represents our brand appropriately.”
Painting?
Selling America on a diabetic-inducing diet and not telling them the health risks associated with such a diet; then pimping a $500-a-month diabetic drug they’ll need to take after consuming a steady Deen diet.
A scary illness: Ms. Deen has type 2 diabetes, which doesn’t go away and requires medication forever.
After her deposition in a discrimination lawsuit leaked to the media, Ms. Deen saw her two shows dropped by Food Network and her contract terminated.
