What a simple, yet eloquent explanation from one of our readers on the read deal behind UFF’s Money Merge Account (MMA).

UFF is a SCAM.

Borrowing at 8% to cover 6% loan will make you less money.

Paying down your mortgage directly (instead of using HELOC) will put you ahead.

UPDATE: On February 17, 2010, Medifast Inc. filed suit in US District Court, Southern District of California, alleging defamation, violation of California Corporations Code, and unfair business practices. On March 29, 2011, Judge Janis Sammartino dismissed all of Medifast’s claims against me in her ruling on my anti-SLAPP motion.

1. Both Medifast (NYSE:MED) and YTB International have 10 levels of commission payouts. That means on any given sale of actual products or services, the person selling it will receive a small commission, while 9 other levels will receive a total commission exceeding the seller’s commission.

UPDATE: On February 17, 2010, Medifast Inc. filed suit in US District Court, Southern District of California, alleging defamation, violation of California Corporations Code, and unfair business practices. On March 29, 2011, Judge Janis Sammartino dismissed all of Medifast’s claims against me in her ruling on my anti-SLAPP motion.

In a surprise move, the company known for its outspoken criticism of the direct selling industry, the Fraud Discovery Institute, Inc today released a report portraying direct seller Avon Corporation in a positive light (www.frauddiscovery.net).

To prove that Medifast, Inc (NYSE:MED) is a “scheme pyramid” business opportunity as evidenced by its record breaking first quarter earnings in the middle of a recession, the Fraud Discovery Institute, Inc enlisted the help of nationally recognized expert Robert Fitzpatrick, who issued an 11 point comparison between Medifast and Avon showing Medifast comes up short.

The SEC’s Regulation FD is one of those pesky little rules public companies are supposed to abide by. The basic idea behind this rule, called “FD” for “Fair Disclosure,” is to make sure that some parties don’t have an unfair advantage in buying and selling stock.

Although the rule itself has lots of details, it essentially requires an issuer (a public company) that discloses “material non-public information” to do so very promptly and very publicly. This means that a company can’t tell a person or a small group of people some information otherwise unknown to the general public, unless it makes that information widely available to everyone.

A few weeks ago, I posted my opinion on Intuit and QuickBooks on this blog. Essentially the company created a program to get people to sign up for a monthly technical support plan costing $39, and then when that plan was canceled, still billed for the service.

I signed up for this plan knowing I’d never use it and I would cancel the service immediately. I only signed up because it offered me a lower price on the QuickBooks 2009 software I needed to buy. But after going through the cancellation process twice (I wanted to make sure it “took”), I was still billed a monthly fee.

In the Usanan Health Sciences (NASDAQ:USNA) most recent 10-Q filed with the SEC, the company makes reference to restated financial statements:

The idea being proposed is simple: Pay Milwaukee Public Schools teachers more to teach a longer school day so children can learn more.

The response from the teachers union: “We’ve taken a consistent view that doing the same thing longer is going to produce the same results.”

Translation: We’re not teaching children now, and having a longer school day would only have us not teaching more.

White collar crime fighter and reformed felon Sam Antar has done it again. He has exposed the most recent financial statement fraud being perpetrated by Overstock.com (NASDAQ:OSTK) and wacky CEO Patrick Byrne.

Of course, this doesn’t come as any surprise to anyone who has been following the company. Overstock cannot turn a profit, and when management claims they have turned a profit (or managed to record a lower loss than usual), the one thing you can be sure of is that they’ve violated a bunch of accounting rules and are committing blatant acts of financial statement fraud.