ETHICS AT THE GAMES BRUCE KIDD AND BRENDA COSSMAN DISCUSS SOCHI AND LGBTQ ISSUES PG 12
VOL. CXXXIV, NO. 17
James Flynn
ASSOCIATE NEWS EDITOR
“Meet me at the food court in Square One.” This summer, Munawar Peer, a second-year student at the University of Toronto, received a text from a student in his organic chemistry class asking him to meet. “It seemed weird because he’d never asked me to hang out before,” said Peer. In the food court, the student led Peer to a table with five other students, where he was asked to sit down. “At this point, I had no idea what it was about,” said Peer. “They started talking about energy drinks, and how I could be a millionaire based on this idea.” One of the students then pulled out an iPad, and instructed Peer to enter his credit card information and pay
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO’S STUDENT NEWSPAPER SINCE 1880
$500. “They said it was a massive opportunity that I had to sign up for right then,” Peer continued. He rejected the offer. The six individuals were affiliates for Vemma Nutrition Company — a privately held company founded in 2004 that sells energy drinks and natural health products. The company markets its products through affiliates who purchase product from the company at wholesale, and then market the product to other consumers. Some have alleged that Vemma operates like a pyramid scheme, while others have alleged that some affiliates end up getting ripped off. According to Vemma’s Income Disclosure Policy, 74 per cent of Canadian affiliates earned between $0 and $1,178 in 2012. According to the company, these amounts do not include profits earned on the resale of prod-
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ucts to consumers or other affiliates. In Canada, the low-income cut-off is around $21,000. CONSUMER COMPLAINTS Consumer advocates have targeted Vemma in the past. According to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by TruthInAdvertising.org, an independent advertising watchdog, the Federal Trade Commission (ftc) has received at least 40 complaints about Vemma and its products. In 1999, the ftc also accused New Vision International of “unfair or deceptive acts or practices, and the making of false advertisements.” New Vision International eventually transferred its business operations to Vemma. Benson K. Boreyko — Vemma’s founder and Chief Executive Officer, and cofounder of New Vision International — was named in the complaint.
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The complaint was eventually settled, and Boreyko agreed not to make claims about the efficacy of any products without “competent and reliable scientific evidence, that substantiates the representation” until 2019. While there has been limited mainstream media coverage of the company, a number of blogs serve as forums for ex-Vemma affiliates to voice their concerns with the company. The company is also facing a class-action lawsuit in California, which charges the company with “fraudulent, deceitful and unfair business practices.” According to the lawsuit, “As part of Vemma’s business practice, once a consumer purchases its Verve Product via Vemma’s online website, Vemma knowingly or negligently, and without prior disclosure, charges consumers for additional Verve Product that they did not purchase or agree to purchase.”
According to a spokesperson for Vemma who declined to give her full name, signing emails as “Breeana E.,” affiliates earn compensation in one of two ways: “First, when the distributor purchases the product at wholesale from Vemma and sells it to the general public, he or she retains any profit on the sale. Second, the independent distributor may be paid a commission on product sales...by the distributor and product sales by other distributors sponsored in to the distributor’s sales organization.” “No commissions are paid for sponsoring or introducing other people into Vemma,” the spokesperson continued. Affiliates can, however, benefit from recruiting; according to the Vemma website, a monthly fee for product delivery is waived if an affili-
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NEWS
COMMENT
ARTS & CULTURE
SCIENCE
MedSoc questions its UTSU membership
How should Canada engage with Sochi?
Acceptance opens at U of T
Women & Wikipedia
The Medical Society discovered, at the seventh Student Societies Summit meeting, that its members pay fees to the union. utsu says fees are justified because MedSoc members use utsu’s clubs and services, but MedSoc has now conducted a servey that suggests otherwise.
The Winter Olympics are on the horizon. In the wake of pervasive anti-LGBTQ sentiments and legislation in Russia, how can Canadians ethically enjoy the games? Need we intervene at all? This week, read two student perspectives on the issue.
Ivy Leagues; vip booths; scholars; ballers; and one big, fat lie: welcome to the world of Acceptance. Set in Singapore, Acceptance follows the story of Rohan Patel, a student from India in a highly competitive high school, who considers Cornell a safety school.
According to a 2010 Wikimedia report, only 13 per cent of Wikipedia editors are female. This statistic is troubling, given the “anyone can edit” collaborative nature of Wikipedia. There are ways, however, of bridging this gender gap.
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