NZ Skeptics Articles

Everyone's lying to us

11th April 2023

In this week’s newsletter I’ve taken a deep dive into a spam email trying to flog me snake oil, and found a funny coincidence at the end of the rainbow. I’ve also written about some of the more sneaky tactics I’ve seen the church of the Eastern Lightning use to try to attract new members, and keep them in the church. And finally Bronwyn has returned to Multi Level Marketing schemes (MLMs), detailing Prüvit and their health food products - I’m very tempted to make a joke about the food pyramid!

Mark Honeychurch

Buddha Stones and the Wishing Machine

Mark Honeychurch - 11 April 2023

Buddha Stones and the Wishing Machine

Despite my regular attempts to unsubscribe from some of the more egregious nonsense I receive in my email, spam still gets through - at this point it seems there's a mailing list that I signed up to that is able to subscribe me to new lists quicker than I can unsubscribe from existing ones. And, to be honest, I don't mind that much. My spam filter is able to deal with most of the fluff, and the stuff that does get through is often great fodder for this newsletter. To that end, I recently received an email titled “The BUDDHA STONE Money Magnet Kit!” which intrigued me:

Ketone MLM Prüvit: Water, Lead, and a distributor with no problem being problematic

Bronwyn Rideout - 11 April 2023

Ketone MLM Prüvit: Water, Lead, and a distributor with no problem being problematic

It has been a while since I wrote about an MLM properly and, in some ways, Prüvit is both the best and worst MLM to dip into. The health and wellness claims it makes are of great interest to Skeptics, but despite the social media and YouTube furor that the organisation and its distributors create, Prüvit doesn't have a Wikipedia page. It can take a bit of work to get a sense of its history.