The Federal Trade Commission has filed a lawsuit against “Dr.” Lindsey Duncan for fraudulently promoting green coffee bean supplements as a magical weight-loss solution during his guest appearance at The Dr. Oz Show.
The self-proclaimed nutrition expert to the stars now owes $9 million damages for false and misleading marketing practices.
According to the FTC, when Mr. Lindsey was called by the Oz team and asked if he knew anything about the benefits of green coffee bean extract on weight loss, he said he did. He actually loved it, his PR team said, although none of his companies – Pure Health and Genesis Today – were selling that product.
Instead, within hours his companies began stockpiling green coffee bean supplements. Also, that evening, the team of The Doctor Oz Show sent Mr. Lindsey “very rough outline of the script” with the questions that Dr. Mehmet Oz was supposed to ask the nutritionist during the show as well as Dr. Oz’s initial phrases.
“You may think magic is make believe — but this bean (hold coffee bean) has scientists saying . . . they found the magic weight-loss cure for every body type. As a supplement, this miracle pill can burn fat fast!,”
Dr. Oz was expected to say about the weight-loss extract.
FTC also reported that Mr. Lindsey had edited the script and added a phrase that recommended viewers to search on-line for the ‘Pure Green Coffee Bean Capsules’ formula.
The producer of the show also asked Duncan whether he could recommend a brand of magical weight-loss bean supplements. He didn’t reply right away but ordered his employees to start selling on his purehealth100.com site the supplements. He also bought from Google a set of AdWords related to green coffee beans to make his site list on top of the search results list.
The next day, he called the show’s producer and told him that he had done some research and the one Company that pops up selling a pill or supplement was www.purehealth100.com.
After his TV appearance, Mr. Lindsey wrote Walmart an e-mail to persuade it to buy his supplements. In the e-mail he said that the had just left a taping at the show that day in which he unveiled to millions of U.S. viewers a magical weight-loss supplement.
You are probably aware of the ‘Oz Effect,’ this will be the Oz Effect on steroids!,”
Mr. Lindsey also wrote in the e-mail.
As a result, the Ozz effect brought his companies a total revenue of $50-million.
Dr. Oz’s team denied any involvement by saying that they had no idea that Mr. Lindsey’s was promoting a scam.
Image Source: Healthy Living for Moms
