Legal Issues
The FTC has filed a contempt of court action against Trudeau and the companies that market his book alleging that Trudeau is in contempt of a 2004 court order by "deceptively claiming in his infomercials that the book being advertised establishes a weight-loss protocol that is "easy" to follow. The action was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois on September 17, 2007. According to a FTC Press Release, Trudeau claims that the weight loss plan outlined in the book is easy, can be done at home, and readers can eat anything they want. When consumers buy the book, they find it describes a complex plan that requires intense dieting, daily injections of a prescribed drug that is not easily obtainable, and lifelong dietary restrictions.
On November 16, 2007, Trudeau was found in contempt of the 2004 court order for making "patently false" claims in his weight loss book. U.S. District Court Judge Robert W. Gettleman ruled that Trudeau “clearly misrepresents in his advertisements the difficulty of the diet described in his book, and by doing so, he has misled thousands of consumers.” A penalty will be determined at a later hearing. In October 2008, Trudeau was fined more than $5 million and banned from infomercials for three years for continuing to make fraudulent claims pertaining to the book.
Complaints about Trudeau's weight loss system and business practices can be found at the Consumer Affairs website. In summary, the complaints tend to refer to a problem of unsubscribing from the website and its monthly fees as well as the inability to follow the protocol, detailed by Trudeau, in the United States due to product availability and legal reasons.
Read more about this topic: The Weight-Loss Cure "They" Don't Want You To Know About
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