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  "documentTitle": "Herbalife, Ltd. (HLF)",
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  "authorName": "David Klafter",
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  "presentationDate": "2014-11-06 00:00:00",
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  "notes": "This is a page from a formal letter/report, likely legal or regulatory in nature, focusing on exposing corporate misconduct.",
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      "text": "In addition to making deceptive income claims in their own right, many senior Herbalife distributors also run online recruiting businesses that teach paying customers how to lure new recruits into the Herbalife scheme, and provide them with the tools to do so. The profiles that we have published are filled with examples of online businesses that sell recruiting scripts, “decision packs,” and access to training seminars where new distributors are taught how to use deceptive income claims and high-pressure sales tactics to recruit new distributors.",
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      "text": "Of course, “mak[ing] a fortune” is not a realistic prospect for anyone other than the very few distributors at the top of the Herbalife pyramid, many of whom were friends with the founder of the company or arrived in the early years. While a few people ascend to the upper ranks annually, there is very little turnover, year on year, among the most successful distributors.",
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      "text": "To pick just one example, a script published by President’s Team members Maurice and Sandra Smith, which they tell distributors to use when talking to new recruits, directs those distributors to “maintain control of . . . the conversation by not jumping around following [recruits] with their questions.” Rather, distributors are told to respond to questions by saying “let me ask you just a couple of things real quick so I can best answer everything for you – okay? (more of a statement than a question).” They are also told to obscure the cost of using the Smiths’ proprietary “system,” instructing distributors to explain, if a recruit asks about the cost, that",
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      "text": "Or you could attend an Herbalife Extravaganza. At the Herbalife 2011 Extravaganza in Las Vegas, Founder’s Circle member Susan Peterson told attendees that, if they were not getting rich in Herbalife, “it’s wrong” and that they were taking things for granted:",
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      "text": "The distributors who made these statements did so in violation of Herbalife’s own rules. Indeed, the TAB Team Production Bonus Application and Agreement requires every distributor seeking commissions to agree not “to misrepresent Herbalife’s . . . earnings opportunity,” and Herbalife Rule 8-J gives you “absolute discretion” to “take whatever actions or measures” you “deem[] necessary and appropriate” in response to these violations. We urge you to use that power and make an example of the senior distributors whose deceptive conduct is a matter of public record. Herbalife’s rules still permit you to address these violations and to impose appropriate sanctions that will send a salutary message to the entire network that standards will be upheld vigorously and evenhandedly.",
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      "text": "A lot of us, we built our organizations not when it was easy but when it was hard. When it was terrible. When it was tough. And to make a fortune in the tough times is really something. But to make it in the easy times you would think everyone would do it and to not do [it] is just to me wrong. I mean if you are not getting rich today in Herbalife, I’m going to be honest, it’s wrong. It’s really wrong. It means you’re taking things for granted.",
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      "text": "4. Sales of Recruiting Materials",
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