We are so excited, this is like Christmas for us! For over 18 months we have written about Acai scams and Resveratrol Scams. We have explained that Oprah never endorsed any Acai or Resveratrol brands and the same was true with Dr. Oz . People often asked, if the Oprah and Dr. Oz endorsements were bogus, why didn’t Oprah and Dr. Oz sue? Well, they have, and boy o’ boy is it a whammy of a lawsuit!
Oprah Unleashes an Amazing 267 Pages of Legal WhipAs*
On 8/18 we first reported about Oprah suing 40 companies that were selling Acai and Resveratrol and illegally using her (and Dr. Oz) images, comments and trademark. Well, at that time we had not seen the actual court filing - but now we have and it is AWESOME!
Here is a link to the full Harpo Complaint in PDF form -
Harpo Complaint Against Acai and Resveratrol Companies (right click and Save)
You will want to Right Click and Save the above link as it is BIG - Over 35mb and 267 wonderful pages. It may take a few minutes to download - but it is worth it!
Do We Really Expect You to Read 267 Pages of a Legal Complaint?
No. To be honest even we couldn’t get through it all. But here are the quick highlights…
- Pages 1-20 list all the defendants and the products that they market. This is like a Hall of Shame. You can now see a list of all the products that Oprah’s legal team believes infringed on her trademarks. Everyone deserves their day in court and people are innocent until proven guilty, but if you are thinking about buying a supplement mentioned in this complaint, you may want to rethink that!
- Pages 28 - 31 and 38-39 some great screenshots of companies that used Dr. Oz’s image to deceive consumers. It is incredible how deceiving these sites are.
- Pages 54- 80 - THIS IS THE BEST PART! This section lists every defendant and all the websites they used to promote their products. It is utterly depressing - we counted well over 1,000 websites that were used to deceive consumers into believing the Dr. Oz or Oprah endorsed these products.
- Pages 81 - 120 - More exhibits on thousands of companies infringing on the Oprah and Dr. Oz trademarkets. This is an incredible example of all that has gone wrong with pay per click advertising .
- Pages 121-130 - A list of over 185 domain names that contain Dr Oz or Oprah, without their permission.
- Pages 132 - 171 - FORGET WHAT WE SAID ABOVE - THIS IS THE BEST PART! Oh, this is so hard, this whole complaint is so good. Here they list every site, show a screenshot and name the products. You will not believe that all these sites with Dr. Oz’s and Oprah’s photo had absolutely no endorsement from them!
You know - the whole complaint is great - just page through it all. It goes on and on with more exhibits about bogus ads, articles, reviews, press releases, etc. You will never view the internet the same after seeing how low people will go.
A Lie Repeated Over and Over Again Does Not Make it True
In case you can’t tell, we love this complaint. The complaint completely exposes these scammers for what they are - scammers (of course assuming the allegations in the complaint are true). The few companies who are trying to sell reputable acai and resveratrol supplements are terribly hurt by these dishonest sites. In addition, the complaint brings home a point we have been saying for years - just because you read a lie in many different places online, does not make it true.
The companies that were blasting the internet with websites and ads that claimed that Oprah and Dr. Oz endorsed their products were lying to you. They were lying often and lying repeatedly - but this 267 page complaint shows a lie told a million times over still does not make it true.
