Len Clements MLM SupporterToday I got an email from Len Clements, the multi-level marketing evangelist and career college graduate who has been a vocal supporter of Usana Health Sciences (NASDAQ:USNA).

Len Clements published five disjointed “rebuttals” to the various reports, videos, and press releases put out by Barry Minkow and Fraud Discovery Institute about Usana. These rebuttals appeared to be a great source of pride to Len Clements, but were almost completely ignored by the media. Even better, the Len Clements writings were totally ignored by Usana, the entity he was so fervently defending.

Not one to be deterred, Len Clements is writing yet another rebuttal to Barry and FDI, this one on both Usana and Herbalife Ltd (NYSE:HLF). And he has been busy researching!

In the last eleven days, Len Clements has made 92 visits to my website. He’s spent hours combing through blog posts and articles on this site.

The purpose of  the rebuttal by Len Clements  is twofold: To attack the allegations of cheating in China (Didn’t that story come out over eight months ago? What’s taking so long?) and to prove a profit motive on the part of the many independent investigators, laboratories, attorneys, and professors involved in analyzing and reporting facts about Usana and Herbalife.

Len W. Clements MLM AddictLen’s even got a folder on his computer desktop entitled “Coenen,” in which he saves copies of certain pages of this website. He’s been perusing my biographies, credentials, the fraud training services I provide, and the articles I’ve written. He’s been searching my site for: usana puts, usana short, usana, SEC is not that stupid, Bradford Richardson, and usana china.

Len’s email today asks if I’ve been paid to do any work on Usana or Herbalife, or if I’ve shorted either stock or bought puts for either stock.

It seems to me there are more pressing questions. I hope Len Clements is prepared to answer some hard questions about Usana and Herbalife. Until Len can answer these questions, his “rebuttal” to all the information produced by Barry and FDI is worthless.

Here are my top five questions for Len:

  • How is it that three unrelated investigators in China, who didn’t know each other and never spoke to one another, independently came to the same conclusion: That Usana is actively engaged in violating China’s laws against multi-level marketing?
  • Can you refute the affidavit of Ricardo Hollander, the former Director of Venezuela and Columbia for Herbalife, which reports blatant violations of Venezuelan laws and the Herbalife ethics policy?
  • How does one explain the fact that Gregory Probert, the former president of Herbalife, was able to sell over $8.6 million of stock in 2008 alone, at an average price of over $44 a share… While the stock is now only in the high $30’s since the revelation that he lied about his credentials. Who has a profit motive, when $8.6 million is on the line and apparently dependent on the market believing management is honest?
  • How many lab tests must prove high lead levels before the companies admit the results are true? A highly regarded laboratory (Bodycote) has tested product after product from Herbalife (and now Usana), and the results consistently show a high level of lead in violation of California’s Proposition 65. (Where are those mystery test results from Herbalife that claim to prove there aren’t dangerous levels of lead?)
  • Extensive research results recently published by Robert FitzPatrick show again that the vast majority of MLM participants never make enough in commissions to even cover their minimum required purchases from the companies. His study showed that in 10 MLMS, the bottom 99% of participants received less than $10 per week in commissions. How is that explained when recruits are lured in with promises of financial freedom if they just work hard enough?

There are plenty of additional questions that I could pose to Len Clements  about

….executives lying about their credentials,

…representations that “Barry lied” with no actual support for those accusations produced by Usana,

Usana insiders unloading stock for several millions of dollars of profits shortly before the release of Barry’s first report,

…tens of millions of dollars of profits made by officers and directors of both Usana and Herbalife through the sale of stock in the last couple of years alone,

…the bogus offer by Myron Wentz to take Usana private (which resulted in a nice little bump up in the stock price),

…and Bradford Richardson methodically exercising his options and immediately selling for a tidy little profit of $2.4 million before quitting (as predicted).

I could go on, but you get the picture. I hope this “rebuttal” by Len Clements is going to rebut all of the independently verified information above (good luck), and I hope it’s going to explain all these instances of lying and inconsistencies and insider profits from sales of stock.

Ready? Go!

15 Comments

  1. Barbara 06/23/2008 at 6:30 pm - Reply

    Tracy, I would love to hear his answers to those question. I actually have one for you in refrence to Proposition 65. We know what California Law will allow for the amount of lead in food products but what is the FDA’s rules for the amount (or the people who regulate vitimines)? I know people have been saying that California’s laws are a little wacky and I feel this is something Len or any other Usana/Herbalife pusher will will try and bring up. I would prefer to stick to the side of caution and only take in what Proposition 65 limits us to. Keep those Usana/Herbalife products away from me and my family.

    As for Len I believe he is fishing for something that is not out there. He will soon be proven wrong and I will be glad to see the day when someone finally shuts him up.

  2. Len Clements 06/23/2008 at 6:30 pm - Reply

    Interesting. When I simply asked you if you had been paid to help Minkow with his report, and if you were short Usana or Herbalife, I would have though your response would be…

    “No”.

  3. Tracy Coenen 06/23/2008 at 7:02 pm - Reply

    The FDA guidlines allow lead of 0.1 ppm for candy:

    http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/pbltr.html

    This article suggests that the FDA doesn’t regulate lead in vitamins, but I don’t know how reliable it is or when it was published:

    http://www.menshealth.com/cda/article.do?site=MensHealth&channel=nutrition&category=vitamins.supplements&conitem=8309dab97c550110VgnVCM20000012281eac____

  4. Barbara 06/23/2008 at 7:22 pm - Reply

    Thanks Tracy I appreciate the feed back…

  5. Pedro Menard 06/24/2008 at 4:17 am - Reply

    Len Clements, Mr. knight in a shiny armour, hero and protector of MLM’rs in general and renowned author of the “zealots” series… here he comes again.

    Mr. Clements, I have something to ask you myself, although I’m pretty sure you’ll simply ignore this request: I would like you to come up with a solid, reliable, backed-up research about income values regarding USANA, you know, like Mr. FitzPatrick has done: how many people earn a profit, how many lose money, how many actually sell products to third-party consumers, what’s the average annual income for lower rank salespeople (costs subtracted), haw many quit the business during first year, etc., etc, etc,

    I’m sure you won’t have any problems putting all this data together as I’m sure USANA will be very happy to provide you with real information, taken directly from their databases. After all, they must be eager to prove their business is profitable for everyone.

    You come up with these figures and I’ll eat my hat.

    Best Regards,

    Pedro Menard.

  6. Brendan Smith 06/26/2008 at 8:00 am - Reply

    That’s a sneaky statement Tracy :-

    ‘A highly regarded laboratory (Bodycote) has tested product after product from Herbalife (and now Usana), and the results consistently show a high level of lead in violation of California’s Proposition 65.’

    Are you implicating Usana in containing high lead levels? If So I’d appreciate the data, as the link supplied in your article does not mention USANA at all in terms of voilating Proposition 65.

    Its a bit like saying that the Tax office has investigated Enron (and now Tracy Coenen) and the results show fraudulent accounting practices.

  7. Tracy Coenen 06/26/2008 at 8:12 am - Reply

    You’re too lame to use Google so that makes me sneaky?

  8. Tracy Coenen 06/26/2008 at 8:25 am - Reply

    Awwww… Pedro! I wanted to see if he could find that on his own!!! 🙂

  9. Pedro Menard 06/26/2008 at 8:39 am - Reply

    Brendan,

    There’s your data:

    http://www.frauddiscovery.net/june20/106490ReportBcombo.pdf

    You can still “google” it if you want…

    Best Regards,

    Pedro

  10. Pedro Menard 06/26/2008 at 8:41 am - Reply

    Oooops, (double posting)

    Tracy,

    Next time I’ll signal it with a “spoilers ahead” sentence.. 🙂

    BR.

  11. terminatedramp 07/02/2008 at 9:26 pm - Reply

    Tracy,

    Have you had a chance to read through Len Clement’s Cheating In China Rebuttal yet? I had a very hard time reading through it, as I thought it was very unprofessional and focused more on insult than substance. And I don’t believe the rebuttal offered a single shred of evidence to disprove the illegal recruiting in mainland China.

    Also, I’m curious as to why the Cheating in China issue never materialized into a bigger story. What’s your take on all of it?. Is Len Clements right, that it was all a bunch of nothing? Or is there simply no interest in prosecuting pyramid scheme perpetrators?

    – Term

  12. Tracy Coenen 07/02/2008 at 9:32 pm - Reply

    Yes, I read it. I didn’t write anything about it because, quite frankly, there wasn’t much to it. It was an unprofessional piece (no surprise) and really had no substance to it. I don’t have a good feel for what happened with the China information. Three separate investigators came to the same conclusion about Usana’s activities in China, but I don’t know why we haven’t heard anything more.

    I did get a kick out of Len referring to Barry as a “former felon,” and then having no idea why that was funny. Do you think he’s figured it out yet?

  13. […] The Fraud Files Blog again […]

  14. Joe Sailor 12/29/2019 at 11:56 am - Reply

    Happy New Year’2020!

    It’s been a while since the last post here, yet I’d like to add just a tiny remark that most of ‘shinning multi-level under-knights’ became “successful” [fraudsters] only after (1) leaving another ‘great’ company and (2) organizing their OWN Mickey-mouse office…

    The only way to be ‘successful’ in MLM–at the expense of others’ mass loses–is to self-assign as #1 by organizing a shebang.

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