The BLAST –

What got me started on this entire crusade, back in the day, was a meeting in 2006 with a sales rep for Tunguska Blast.  He was a very nice blonde fellow in a very nice suit – and while I don’t remember his name, here in 2008, I do remember the very expensive watch he wore and the carefully cultivated image of quality he offered as he spoke to a good forty people in the meeting room of a local hotel.

It wasn’t my first exposure to a scam – but it was one of the most abjectly repellant ones I’ve ever seen.

I tasted his fruit juice, and listened to his speil.  I watched as he preached to the crowd and pulled people in to the idea of not only getting very very healthy, but getting rich while doing so.  After all, if you’re going to have a panacea – what better way to sell it than to get a multilevel marketing scheme going at the same time?

I was less brave, then, and while I didn’t fall for the pitch, I didn’t stand up and say anything either.  To this day, I regret it.   Consider this, then, me standing up.  So.  Let’s take a long, hard look at Tunguska Blast.

Now, let me start this by saying I like fruit juice as much as the next guy, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with getting a shotglass of free fruit juice.  It even tastes pretty darned good.   

And check this out!  It does all /sorts/ of neat stuff:

 

from the tunguska blast website -

Wow.

 

I mean, look at that – Energy.  Stamina.  Immune System.  Mental Clarity.  Physical Performance – is this fruit juice or a marital aid that helps you remember your anniversary?

*cough* 

Here’s another blurb from the tunguska site:

Tunguska Mist sprays are proprietary blends, formulated with more than 20 different adaptogens, plus other herbs and plants known to be rich in phytonutrients. Because they deliver clear benefits, adaptogens are generating enthusiasm worldwide. CyberWize is the leading seller of adaptogens in the world, with each of its powerful Tunguska Mist formulas blending up to 14 adaptogens into fast-acting sprays targeted to support specific body systems.

Now.. remember, I’m no scientist.  I’ll be the first to admit that – but as I sat in the speil listening to the excited and happy consumers of this stuff, as the personal testimonials began to mount, I realized that this was far more than mere fruit juice.   This stuff cured cancer, caused weight loss, satisfied spouses, and made the work day more bearable.  The more you listened, the more you realized that it wouldn’t feel out of place for someone to loudly announce that it allowed you to walk on water and made the blind see.  It’s That Good.

My personal hookum detector started to go off.  

When the very well-dressed man started talking about how YOU could GET RICH with a multilevel marketing plan if you just bought in now?   I knew I had a real winner on my hands.

Let’s start by stating a real truth here, folks:

No one actually gets rich without work.  Not even if a man in a nice suit with a Rolex tells you otherwise.

Multilevel Marketing is a variation of the Ponzi Scheme, which is a grifter’s trick that’s been around forever.  In a classic Ponzi, a man walks up to you and claims he has a surefire investment opportunity, capable of remarkable returns without any risk at all.  All you have to do is get five friends to buy in, too – and they’ll go out and get their friends, and soon enough you’ll start seeing returns as everyone’s big investment matures!  And if you’re on the top of the pyramid, you’ll get a little piece of everybody underneath you.  It’s a scam, though – don’t forget.  The grifter pays you out of the ‘donations’ given from those below you in the pyramid, and pockets twenty cents out of every dollar.  As long as he keeps getting new members, he can keep paying folks down the pyramid to go out and get him more members.  

Of course, it eventually hits critical mass, and the people at the bottom never see a return on their initial investment.  There’s nothing being invested, after all – the wealth is all being funneled to the folks at the top of the pyramid.  Thus, the ‘scam’ part.  When no new members join, the bottom falls out, and everyone’s honestly left with nothing at all.

Multilevel Marketing is quasi-legal, while a Ponzi scheme isn’t, because your membership in the program also involves buying something.  There’s a manufacturing chain and a product sold – you can’t be a member of the pyramid without pumping cash into it every month, and you get something for your trouble.  Thus, it really is an investment to be part of the pyramid, and every locked-in buyer you can get underneath you should theoretically funnel you a little cash.  Get a lot of locked-in buyers, and profit, right?

Well, it’s not that simple, either.  Classic MLM pyramids have an upper limit on how many people can be on your direct ‘tier’ – the people below you that funnel you the highest proportion of their monthly buy-in.  Once those slots are full, you’re now into diminishing returns:  you’re getting ‘customers’ under your own people’s tiers, and the money they put in is funneled first to them, then to you.  This ensures they  go out and recruit, too, you see?

I hope you’re starting to see the trouble, though.  How much markup do you have to have to be able to pay all these people?

When I went to this marketing meeting, they were selling four thirty-two ounce bottles for about $200 (in fact, they still are:)

Tunguska Blast, 32oz – 4 Pack 
A Powerful Dietary Supplement 

Four – 32 Fl Oz Bottles

———  $210.00

 

… or, roughly, $1.62/oz.   PER OUNCE.  By comparison, a tropicana twister from your local convienence store runs about a buck-twenty, or something like six cents an ounce – and you likely consider that more than a bit overpriced.

Check out the new marketing plan from their website!

Tunguska Mist – Juice X 
Daily essentials in a liquid spray 

.75 Fl Oz – 30 Servings

———–  $24.99

 

…. $33 per ounce.  You are paying THIRTY THREE dollars for ONE OUNCE of fruit juice in a snazzy binaca bottle!  (Yes, it’s $25 for less than an ounce, but… c’mon.)  

But that price is offered to all members, oh, with requisite discounts and the like to ensure you feel like you’re getting a deal.  The bottles look pretty darned good, too.   

The thing is – if it offered some sort of significant health benefit, you’d be all over this, right?  Right?   Well – here’s the ingredients list (for the stuff that isn’t just fruit juice – I got this from their website - check the ‘ingredients’ link at the bottom of the page.):

- Eleuthero, Chineese Magnolia Vine, Manchurian Thorn Tree, Hawthorne Berry, Sargent Viburnum, Licorice Root, Maral Root, Russian Mountain Ash, Chaga Mushroom, Golden Root, American Ginseng, Korean Red Ginseng, Jiaogulan, He Shou Wu…

… the list goes on. Nummy, hmm? Every ingredient is rife with amazing and good things, “…enchances cell communication”, says the entry on Coji Wolfberry, “unsurpassed in its ability to provide deep, primordial energy” reads He Shou Wu.

… these are null phrases.   They are utterly, and completely, meaningless.  What the heck is primordial energy?  HOW does it enhance cell communication?  

You.  Are buying.  Fruit Juice.

In other words, this ultimately becomes the worst kind of scam:  multilevel marketing to help you get rich (and it never will) coupled with an appeal to holistic health using meaningless catchphrases and obfuscated claims to benefit.  Worse, it’s functionally equivalent to going to wal-mart or your local pharmacy and buying these nutritional suppliments in pill form for a quarter of the price, and  (if these suppliments actually do do anything more than a good multivitamin offers) likely a quarter of the effectiveness due to dilution.. nowhere do they say just how much you get, after all.  Only that it’s in there.   There are appeals to authority – the whole page full of references to research papers with not a single link in sight, for instance, and images of test tubes and beakers.  There are appeals to ancient wisdom, red herrings all over the absorption rate based on delivery system – it’s an absolute mess designed to get you to do one thing:

Give them money for fruit juice.

Really, really expensive fruit juice.

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