Chapter 16/Picketing questionable businesses

Mr. Loyd:

Again, many thanks for your super effort. You accomplished in a few days what I had been unable to settle in over a year.

Miriam Stallsmith
Green Bay, WI

In addition to "Rip-off of the Month," I also use another one of my TV techniques to expose and warn about con artists. I picket local hotel meetings advertised in those infomercial get-rich-quick schemes.

Recently, I recently warned consumers about a California business asking for as much as $70,000 for vending machines. The company was holding hotel meetings throughout Wisconsin.

Standing outside the hotels, I told consumers the company paid a million dollars to the federal government for misleading consumers. Many invitees turned around and went back home. We confront these companies because when out-of-state companies take your life savings and leave, it's really hard to get the money back. We warn consumers before it happens. In a Milwaukee Journal story, the Federal Trade Commission called this strategy innovative and "unique that they would be doing this and to be as aggressive as they have."

Here is story about that a Milwaukee TV station did when I led a picketing party:



Another out-of-state company cancels when WI Consumer Protection pickets:



Often company managers get mad and will come outside and argue with me and try to convince me they aren't doing anything wrong.

When that doesn't work, they may call the police on me. Most of the time, that doesn't work because I've already told the police what I am doing. In fact, most of the time, I call the police for protection.

I was assaulted a year ago in Madison handing out warnings. The seminar manager tried to rip the papers out of my hands, setting off a chain reaction and the 75-year-old man I was handing a warning to teetered and almost fell on the pavement. I filed charges, but the company left Wisconsin in a hurry. More recently, I was confronted by an angry seminar man, saying I was "talking food out of his baby's mouth" and reducing his income by "thousands of dollars."

Some people wonder why I would spend a Saturday morning standing in front of a hotel knowing that some kind of confrontation will occur. For me, it is actually a rewarding experience. Virtually all of the people I warn say "thanks" and really mean it. You know that you are protecting their life savings.

Finally, you get to see and confront these questionable salespeople in person. Most often conartists like this mislead people by telephone and you never see them.

Lately, I've also been picketing restaurants where meetings are being held. Out-of-state companies send postcards to consumers offering a free restaurant dinner to those who will listen to their sales pitches.

One company's postcard says, "learn what prominent physicians and major medical universities have to say about our safe and easy way to get healthy and stay healthy; relieve pain; sleep better, improve circulation, reduce inflammation."

At the restaurant, the invitees learn the company is selling magnetic mattress pads.

But the U.S. Food and Drug Administration says to date, no manufacturer has ever presented data demonstrating the effectiveness of magnets to relieve pain and offer other therapeutic benefits.
Despite a myriad of testimonials by companies selling magnet therapy, it is actually an unproven remedy.

More than 70 Wisconsin residents complained they paid as much as $1000 to four magnetic mattress companies that have been referred for prosecution.

The products didn't work and the companies didn't honor their money-back guarantees. Now the companies are out of business.

"While the health magnet industry hasn't offered credible evidence that its products work," says Lynnette Horwath of the Arthritis Foundation-Wisconsin Chapter, "people who are hurting spend $1.5 billion a year on them for every conceivable illness. These products probably don't cause physical harm, but they are be dangerous to your wallet."