CorVive Clown Con-Man Carnival Barker Spewing B.S. Left and Right

It sure appears as if the carnival barkers at the top of the CorVive MLM pecking order are very comfortable spouting outright lies and also violating their own “Policies and Procedures” as listed here. 

I’ll give CorVive one thing: their “Policies and Procedures” was clearly written by an army of lawyers who want to protect the guys at the top from the Federal Trade Commission as well as any civil lawsuits from unhappy suckers.

He also appears to later violate Section 9 “Earnings Representations” – but we’ll get to that.

The offender is none other than a CorVive clown named James West, who carries the title Cor200. Much like the Scientology cult, CorVive members are moved up the ladder with these ridiculous numbers, which seem to denote how many other cult members he/she has recruited – people in town have publicly crowed about being “Cor4” and “Cor12” – so this James “Jimmy” West is obviously high up and got in on the CorVive scam early since he carries the august title of Cor200.

Jimmy West also intimates that he is close personal friends with the slime ball founder of CorVive Jeremy Fouts. In the video, West claims Fouts didn’t feel well and asked James West to do the Facebook presentation on January 15th at 6:31pm.

I will make my best attempt to link to the video or embed here – I DO have a preserved recording of the video on my personal phone in case somebody with an IQ over 85 realizes how bad this is and takes it down to avoid legal troubles.

The very first thing I have noticed about the carnival barker James West Cor200 is that all his videos are shot from a bizarre angle that only shows his head. I think this is because he is probably morbidly obese, and who the hell would buy nutritional supplements from a huge fat guy? Well, a lot of people, as it turns out. This town is full of them. But let’s get to his ridiculous health claims for these miracle products, shall we?

At the 3:14 mark of the video, James claims “68% of all women in the U.S. are overweight, and the number one reason: they’re not passing waste through their system…and that’s what the CorRenew [product] is gonna do it’s going help promote proper digestion…it helps remove toxins, chemicals, impurities, uh, uh, through proper, uh, elimination…uh..it helps support the immune function, guys, and I’m telling you, that product everybody needs, because I’m telling you, we don’t eat the right diets…we don’t have the right digestion.”

Holy christ!!! Can you jam more lies into a single run-on sentence? I doubt it. THIS is the kind of carnival-barking clown you trust with your health? These are all demonstrable lies….lies from a guy who appears to be near the top of this scheme and also good friends with the scum bag founder, Jeremy Fouts! So, tell me again how this ISN’T a giant scam? My god. If you are jumping in with this idiot, you need to have your head examined.

First of all, the leading cause of obesity is NOT “failure to pass waste through your system”. The cause is eating too much and not exercising enough. Period. NOWHERE in ANY scientific literature is the lead cause of people being fat “failure to pass waste” because “we don’t have the right digestion”. It’s not the second or third-leading cause either. It isn’t even on the list of causes. It is fabricated bullshit from a carnival barker and huckster running a nice scam. James West just made his first of many lies.

Luckily, James West the carnival barker has just the thing to get rid of all those unnamed “toxins, chemicals and impurities” – he just happens to be selling it! (I can’t tell you the price! PM me!). Please Jimmy…tell me what “toxins and chemicals and impurities” your CorVive product removes. Then tell me the mechanism of this removal. You can’t. Because it is a bald-faced lie.

“It supports the immune function, guys”. Really? Which part, Jimmy? Leukocytes? Lymphocytes? B-cells? T-cells? Can you even SPELL “T-cell”? NONE of these claims are supported by a shred of evidence…we just have to take Jimmy’s word for this.

“We don’t have the right digestion”. Ridiculous, outrageous and preposterous lie. I guess the human race has been digesting food incorrectly for tens of thousands of years and the CorVive product called CorRenew will correct this evolutionary oversight. Thank God a fat moron on YouTube informed me of this! He seems quite knowledgeable about biology and physics. I MUST overpay for this product…NOW…so I can “get in on the ground floor” of this fine company and join this gaggle of charlatans awesome team!

More Jimmy West b.s. coming soon!!

Just How Overpriced Are CorVive MLM Products? *UPDATED*

The CHEAPEST option starting out (according to carnival barker James “Jimmy” West Cor200 and his hilarious video of lies) is the Ach13ve kit, which STARTS at $100.

Knowing how slime balls like Jeremy Fouts (founder of CorVive) operate, I’m sure there are additional costs in there, but I’ll give slime ball Jeremy Fouts the benefit of the doubt, and go with an even $100.

**UPDATE** – a CorVive huckster on Facebook just told somebody that “the 15-day package you need with XLR8 is $134”. Holy christ…are people REALLY paying $268 per MONTH for stuff you can easily buy for $96 per month elsewhere?? Please tell me they aren’t.

What do you get for $100? [actually $134] A measly 15 day supply of protein powder (CorPower) and XLR8 (their Ketone goBHB supplement).

See all the slick and clever names??? Ach13ve? XLR8? That’s so you don’t notice you are buying the exact same crap everyone else sells for far less. You are paying for the packaging.

As I’ve covered before, there are TONS of protein powders out there that are very reasonably priced. My example was 72 servings for $53 – or about 74 cents per serving. I’ve personally used this powder for 18 years (no, I don’t get paid to say that, nor do I win trips to Mexico).

So – a 15 day supply of the stuff I use costs about $11. But it’s even worse! CorVive only gives you 22 grams of protein per serving and many other (cheaper) places give you 24 or 25 – which is 10% more. So, I’ll be charitable to slime ball CorVive founder Jeremy Fouts again and call it $10.35 cents for MY 15 days supply of whey protein.

[Of course, if you are a guy lifting weights, you need to take in between 150 and 220 grams of protein per day to actually build muscle – so you would need 6 or 10 of these per day, but we’ll ignore that for now. It’s also only 100 or 130 calories, so it is HARDLY a “meal replacement” item, seeing as the average person eats between 1800 and 2800 calories per day, depending on gender]

[ What is goBHB and exogenous ketones? Click here to learn more. ]

So that leaves $89.65 [*updated $123.65*] to be accounted for when comparing normal supplements to CorVive’s over-priced products. I guess that XLR8 stuff must really be good, to cost over $89 for a 15 day supply!!!

Not really. Go to Amazon and search for “goBHB” – there are DOZENS of choices with the same ingredients as XLR8 – and MUCH cheaper. They even use the EXACT same phrases that carnival barker James West Cor200 does! Phrases like “increases mental focus! Supports weight loss!”

After only 30 seconds of searching, I found a product with the same ingredients in the same amounts as XLR8 for $76 (Ketond Advanced Ketone Blend). That sounds like a lot of money, until you realize that is for a MONTH supply…not 15 days. So we cut that in half to $38.

Add my protein cost of $10.35 to the $38 for the goBHB product and you come up with $48.35. Compare this to CorVive “STARTING at $100” price tag, and you are being gouged for over 100% markup!

Why would CorVive charge you TWICE [*UPDATED – almost TRIPLE] what this stuff is worth? Because in a MLM scam, the shit rolls downhill and the money rolls up! It rolls up right up into the pockets of Jeremy and Candace Fouts…the slime balls who started CorVive. In MLM schemes, according to FTC studies, roughly 99% of participants LOSE MONEY.

MORE GOOD NEWS: On EVERY CorVive product, you will notice a little * next to EVERY claim…and later you will read that “these statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease”.

Know what that means? It means you are on your own and Jimmy West (Cor200) the carnival barker and Jeremy Fouts the slime ball can say just about any slippery thing they wish.

They can say absolute crap like “the number one cause of weight gain is the body not passing waste” (yes, James West says this lie over and over)…and that they just happen to have a laxative (yes, it is a laxative, not a ‘cleanse’) called CorRenew. CorRenew has senna in it. Senna is simply a medication used to treat constipation and to evacuate the large intestine before surgery. It does NOT ‘remove impurities and toxins’ – your body does that all by itself.

Remember, there are around SIX HUNDRED MLM schemes in operation right now…and around SEVENTY of those are in the “weight loss, dietary supplements, health supplements” category.

Every one of those MLMS is full of acolytes with eyes full of dollar signs and thinking THEIR pills/potions/powders are special.  They aren’t.

CorVive is not a revolutionary product or idea.  It’s just another MLM – and, according to Federal Trade Commission studies, between 96% and 99.6% of MLM participants LOSE MONEY.

Before you throw money at a slime ball like Jeremy Fouts (who was previously deeply involved in GenesisPURE – a now defunct MLM that sold – you guessed it – nutritional supplements) ask CorVive for an income disclosure statement. That statement will tell you EXACTLY how much money MLM participants make. If they refuse to give you an income disclosure form, you should run the other way as fast as you can.

In the next post, we will delve into the history of hucksters Jeremy and Candace Fouts...how they used to work for GenesisPURE under a scammer, quack and hustler named LINDSEY DUNCAN.

MLM Cults Explained…

The beauty of these schemes is after people fail (and the vast majority do fail), the scheme members who haven’t yet failed blame the victim for their failure. “You didn’t put in enough hours” “You didn’t do it right” “You’re just no good at this” The most sinister aspect of MLM scams is there is no ‘be your own boss’. You’re still working for someone else. That client list you built up after hundreds of hours of harassing coworkers, friends and family? It can likely be taken from you in an instant with no compensation. The most insulting aspect of MLM scams is they go out of their way to insult people working for a living.

It’s extremely ironic to me how the philosophy of almost every MLM is simply a facade of benevolence to cover up their deceitful tactics. Most MLM’s claim to want to help people improve their lives but immediately put them down and degrade them when they choose to call out the company and its tactics by saying “they didn’t work hard enough” or something of that sort.

The thing about MLMs and pyramid schemes is that they will inevitably implode on themselves, they’re unsustainable as a business model. Of course, by the time the company has collapsed in on itself, the people at the top have either a) retired to a nice island, or b) moved on to start another company with the same business model, often leaving those at the bottom with nothing to show for the months/years of their life they wasted other than debt and sometimes a criminal conviction. But please, tell me again how I can make thousands at home selling vitamin powder in a capsule.

Bottom line: If you need 40 people in your network to make a living, then only 1 in 40 people in that MLM can ever make a living.

Whey Protein = Whey Protein = Whey Protein

Protein shakes ARE a good way to get a lot of protein quickly – as opposed to eating piles of chicken breast or fish. However, whey protein is whey protein – and the stuff with fancy packaging and a price so high it allows people to try and win free trips to Mexico is the same as the stuff you can buy on Amazon for 75 cents per serving. Whey protein = whey protein.

Very delicious Rocky Road flavor – $53 for 72 servings. 24 grams of protein per serving and TWENTY delicious flavors! And I make ZERO money by giving you this information.

Another great option is Muscle Milk (also available on Amazon). This is $2.50 per bottle (25 grams of protein and 160 calories), in case you are too lazy to stir a powder into a drink. Of course, if you are too lazy to stir powder into a drink, then you are probably too lazy to do the large amounts of exercise that will enable you to lose 15 pounds in a month…which is why you believe fantastical tales of magic potions that “melt the fat away” in the first place!!

*Disclaimer: I am not trying to win a trip to Mexico by selling you this. Nor am I trying to recruit you into any MLM cult and who tells you to go out and recruit other cult members so I can make money off of everyone you recruit to sell wildly overpriced whey protein. I am just stating scientific fact that 25 grams or protein = 25 grams of protein no matter how fancy the box is.

Wanna Lose 500 Pounds and Make a Million Dollars??? PM Me!!

I feel like I’m living through the Salem Witch Trials…and the entire town has lost its mind. CorVive!! CorVive!! CorVive!!!

“Just take our powder and you’ll lose 50 pounds…all while eating bacon! Unless you want to bulk up and add muscle…then you will add a pound of muscle every 48 hours!! I swear by this…even though I’ve only been using the product for 16 days! Trust me! I know I’m overweight and just started using this product 120 hours ago…I’m not just trying to win a cheap trip to Mexico…I swear!! I just care about you and your long-term health!!”

Yeah, right.

Since I enjoy exposing fraud and stupidity, I must comment on this CorVive nonsense and hucksterism. My jurisdiction doesn’t end at City Hall.

Lest you feel the need to succumb to these outrageous MLM claims, let me expose some scientific truths about the human body when it comes to weight loss and/or muscle building…you might just save $1000 and STILL lose the weight:

First Rule: the only way to lose fat is to burn more calories than you consume. Period. The First Law of Thermodynamics (conservation of energy) states that energy cannot be created or destroyed….only transformed.

Fat is stored energy. In order to lose weight (fat), you must expend more energy than you consume. Period. End of sentence. Potions and pills and powders will not “melt fat”. It is literally impossible. Anyone who says otherwise is either deliberately lying or is too lazy/stupid to learn the basics of the human body and caloric intake/expenditure. Or maybe they are just trying to win a trip to Mexico! LOL. Seriously. MEXICO!!! The place they are reduced to begging people to travel to, due to drug murders.

A pound of fat contains roughly 3500 calories. If you wish to lose a pound of weight every week, you must run a caloric deficit of roughly 500 calories per day. In other words, you must eat 500 calories less than you burn. A calorie is a calorie. You can eat 2000 calories worth of McDonalds and Twinkies and as long as you burn 2500 calories…you WILL lose a pound a week. Period.

Likewise, if you eat 3000 calories of kale and spinach and cauliflower every day and burn 2500 calories, you will GAIN a pound a week. This is a scientific fact. It is not in dispute. Anyone who says otherwise has no idea what they are talking about. Or possibly retarded…or, trying to win a trip to Mexico.

The ONLY thing that matters is calories in versus calories out. Period.

Overpriced CorVive potions and powders and pills do NOT enter into the equation. Simply burn 500 more calories than you consume, and you WILL lose weight. I know that isn’t sexy. It is quite boring. But it costs nothing and it WORKS. If a clown tells you to spend hundreds of dollars on some fancy packaging of vitamin B12 and whey protein and you will lose 20 pounds a month? Well….that is a lie. It is a lie they tell you to get you into the scheme and make money for themselves…and maybe win a trip to Mexico. Seriously….MEXICO!!! LOL.

I ACTUALLY saw a CorVive video where one of their carnival barker huckster con men stated that most people are overweight in this country because their body “isn’t getting rid of all the waste” – and of course, you needed a “cleanse” to “detoxify” (they never specify what these “toxins” are, of course) and you need the CorVive detox to lose all that weight.

Statements like that are borderline fraud, in my opinion. You don’t need “cleanses” to “detox” your system. Your liver, kidneys and colon have been ridding your body of waste since the day you were born. If they didn’t, you’d be dead already. Cleanses and “detoxes” are absolute, 100% scams.

These hucksters of the latest fad or powders will never come right out and admit that you just need to eat less calories (partly because it doesn’t fit with their gimmick, partly because people don’t want to hear that they have to [GASP!] count calories or [GASP!] eat less of them, and partly because it’s hard to make money off of something that is simple, obvious and free.)

BUT every successful fat loss diet makes you do it anyway. How? By getting you to do things that just so happen to restrict or reduce your calorie intake. For example…

  • Eating less carbs means you’re eating less calories.
  • Eating less fat means you’re eating less calories.
  • Eating less “dirty” junk food means you’re eating less calories.
  • Eating less processed foods means you’re eating less calories.
  • Eating less grains means you’re eating less calories.
  • Not eating after 7pm causes you to eat less calories.
  • A raw food diet, vegan diet, paleo diet or any remotely similar diet eliminates many of the foods you were regularly eating, which means you’re now eating less calories.

Noticing a trend? In every single case, less calories end up being eaten. And like magic, it causes you to lose fat. But what some people incorrectly think is that it was the reduction in carbs, or fat, or grains, or sugar, or junk food, or processed food, or not eating after 7pm or ridiculously overpriced powders and pills or whatever else that made it happen.

It wasn’t.

It was the reduction in calories that indirectly came as a result of all of these other things. Sure, these “things” are what caused the deficit to be created, but the deficit itself is what actually caused you to lose fat.

Second Rule: It is literally impossible to gain four pounds of muscle per week. Even if you are a teenager who is just starting out lifting weights AND you are genetically predisposed to gaining muscle easily, the BEST you can hope for is MAYBE 3 pounds of muscle per MONTH. More realistic is 1-2 pounds of muscle per month…and that is still on the high end. Anyone who says otherwise is either lying or on steroids. Or selling you something for their own gain. Telling beginners that they can gain massive amounts of muscle in one month is setting them up for failure and possibly injury.

If you STILL don’t believe me, and you think all that slick re-packaging of old ideas is REALLY all it takes to lose weight, then ask yourself why there are so many fat people walking around this country. If there was an easy potion to take and lose huge amounts of weight, obesity would be long gone. Clearly, it isn’t.

MLM structures have been around since the 1980s – Amway, Herbalife, Juice-Plus, etc, etc, etc…and ALL the people selling it thought they were going to make a fortune. 99% of them did not. Only the weasel circus barkers at the VERY tip-top make any big money. The rest of the suckers are left with empty bank accounts and disappointment. Don’t be a sucker.

Fun Fact: Harker Heights Spends FAR Less on Government Salaries and Benefits Than Lampasas Does

When I see our city government write a check for around $116,000 every single month to Scott and White (page 39 of City Council packet) for their gold-plated health care plan, I get to wondering if other cities are reaming their taxpayers just as hard. So I went looking.

Harker Heights is just about 35 miles down the road, so I figured that was a good place to start. They are 400% bigger than Lampasas, but located in the same general area. I was mainly curious about the city manager and information systems expenses, since that is where we seem to spend an exorbitant sum. They don’t break out those departments in quite the same way Lampasas does, but I was still able to find some startling facts.

Harker Heights lumps a bunch of people into the “Administration” department. According to their latest budget, that department includes 21 full-time employees (see pages 77 and 78 of the 2017/2018 approved budget) – including such titles as City Manager, Assistant City Manager, Human Resource Director, Technology Director, Assistant City Secretary, Human Resource Clerk, Records Management Coordinator, etc, etc.

For those 20 or 21 people (depending of whether you use the 2017 actual or the 2018 estimated number of employees), the City of Harker Heights spent the following (page 80 of approved budget):

  1. Salaries: $818,900
  2. Overtime $8,000
  3. Worker’s comp $6,500
  4. Health Insurance $76,900
  5. Social security $63,300
  6. Retirement $124,400

Somehow they managed to spend only slightly over $1,000,000 for salaries and benefits for those TWENTY important people! Amazing. Health insurance was only $77,000 for those employees for the entire year – or less than $4,000 per employee.

Lampasas now spends almost $1,400,000 per year on health insurance ($116,000 per month multiplied by 12) for roughly 110 employees – or over $12,000 per employee. Truly amazing.

The retirement number, even if you include the Social Security line item, works out to just over $9,300 per employee….as compared to over $14,000 for our “important people” (see below).

Let’s look at just FOUR of our “important people” as we have in the past.

All figures are taken from the most recent approved budget:

City Manager and Information Systems combined (4 employees):

  1. Salary $349,000 ($87,000 each)
  2. Insurance $49,689 ($12,422 each)
  3. Retirement $56,389 ($14,097 each)

Health insurance for just those four people is costing the city almost $50,000 per year…yet Harker Heights manages to provide insurance for their entire 20-person “Administration Department” (which includes many of the same titles) for only 50% more. Incredible.

I noticed that elections for Lampasas city council, mayor, etc are fast approaching and that many of the current members have re-filed and plan to run again. Here is a thought for those running: maybe this time around, you can all ask a few more questions about the huge sums of money being spent in our town and maybe take ten or twenty minutes to do a little research to see if all the stuff Finley throws on your plate is legit….rather than unanimously approving everything on the table? You know….stuff like $100,000 for an A/V system that originally bid out at $34,000. Or why we spend $1.4 million a year on health insurance.

Just a thought.

Another $54,580 to ASJ

A new year….a new change order for City Council to rubber stamp. This time for $54,580. A new roof here…”aesthetic upgrade” there….pretty soon you are talking real money! Don’t worry…just head on out back to the money tree and grab another 50k for the Old City Hall debacle. Plenty more where that came from.

Another unanimous decision (White absent) to torch taxpayer funds on the “wow factor” vanity project that is the hallmark of the Talbert administration.

Another Smoking Gun Found – IT Department Told To Re-Bid Contract in Jan 2017…That Never Happened

Well I have finally found the exact dates for our smoking gun.  It was well-hidden deep in one of Monica’s monthly IT Department reports.  Please turn your attention to City Council packets from January 23, 2017 page 80 and find the following from Monica’s report dated January 4th, 2017

Under “November and December projects” (in other words, this happened the previous month right at the end of 2016) it says:   “Contacted A/V vendor to discuss upcoming A/V project at old city hall/new scope/proposal“

Then under “January projects” it says: “Obtain (3) quotes for old city hall A/V project”

In other words, somebody on City council or at City Hall decided the project wasn’t fancy enough in December of 2016 (“new scope”) and wanted a bunch more bells and whistles for Christmas.  Monica was told to go obtain three NEW quotes…and Broadcast was clearly dumped right here.  That is bad enough.  But it gets worse….

So I went looking for these new quotes in the next few City Council packets.  The next packet, from February 23rd, shows nothing.  There are no monthly reports from the IT Department there nor does Finley mention anything.

The February 27th packet (page 100) shows more of the same – that her “February project” is to “obtain (3) quotes for old city hall A/V project“….as seen below:

There are no quotes in this packet.  Nor are quotes ever mentioned again.  The very next packet from March 13, 2017 starts talking about Azbell as if they have been there all along (pages 89-95 item 7.2)…to wit: “we have been working with Azbell Electronics on a concept and design for this project that will be brought to Council at a later date if Council so desires”

No mention of cost, of course.  That shocker comes much later.

So…somebody at the end of 2016 decided “we want more bells and whistles!  We want more TVs!  We WANT MORE COW BELL!!” and told Monica to get three new quotes.  Monica wrote this on her “to do” list several times.  I doubt she just invented that out of whole cloth.

Then, just as suddenly, Azbell is decided upon and no quotes are gotten.  Almost as if someone changed their mind and said “hey…don’t worry about it…I know a guy at Azbell who will set us up, man!”

If that IS how it went down, that would be very bad for that person.  As we know from before this would be grounds for dismissal, according to the City Personnel Handbook:

2.07 Gifts and Gratuities: A city officer or employee may not accept any gift or free services from contractors, vendors, or other persons that might tend to influence his or her official actions or impair his or her independence or judgement in performance of duties for the city.

2.08 Conflict of Interest: A member of city council, the mayor, or an employee of the city shall neither have financial interests, direct or indirect, in any contract with the city, not be financially interested, directly or indirectly, in the sale to the city of any land, materials, supplies or service.

3.08 Employment of Relatives (Nepotism): Nepotism is the showing of favoritism toward a relative.  The city forbids the practice of nepotism in hiring personnel or awarding contracts.  A person who is related within the second degree by affinity (marriage) or within the third degree by consanguinity (blood, including adopted relatives) to any member of the city council or to the city manager may not be hired.

 

Who Gave The Order to Dump Broadcast Works and Give No-Bid $96,000 Monstrosity to Azbell Instead?

So…I have searched every set of minutes and City Council packets from August 2014 (when Broadcast Works was awarded a $34,000 A/V contract for the new council chambers) all the way up to March 2017 (when Monica Wright appeared in a city council meeting and informed us all that Azbell would be doing the (no bid) work…which ended up being quoted at $84,000 – which quickly became $96,000)…and guess what?

Not a SINGLE mention of Azbell Electronics in all those thousands of pages.  Not one.  No mention in the minutes…the packets…Monica’s monthly IT report (where it lists everything she has been up to, like buying refrigerators)….nowhere at all.  It apparently just happened magically one day.  Everyone just woke up one morning and forgot about Broadcast Works simultaneously, I guess.

That tells me this decision had to happen in one of those “closed-door, executive council sessions” I keep reading about.  Far away from the prying eyes of taxpayers.  There is simply no way Monica would be allowed to make this big of a decision on her own.  It had to come from City Council, the mayor and/or Finley deGraffenreid.  There is no other possibility.

So, the question is….who and why?