2 April 2024
In this long-awaited, and likely anti-climatic, final instalment, we'll look at the other business dealings of Yasmeen Clark and Jono Spark. Given that their “silent” partner is an alleged and non-existent Persian court bureaucrat, their non-Pascha branded ventures are unexpectantly… mundane?
26 June 2023
After the legal troubles and tabloid journalism of the 1980s, as I documented in my last article about ZAP, the furor around ZAP died down to barely a whisper. While the group claimed membership in the thousands, it's estimated that true numbers were much lower and, if it is still even running, it is likely limited to just the most hardcore believers these days.
9 January 2023
I spend a lot of time on Youtube and I often opine, as others in the anti-MLM sphere do, that the Youtube algorithm loves to show me ads that are not reflective of my viewing habits. I've seen more than my fair share of business gurus using their outdoor voices to sell me limited time offers for unmissable business opportunities. Maybe it is due to being in the Antipodes, but instead of seeing Grant Cardone or Tony Robbins shilling their seminars, I get an affable kiwi who does her darndest to convince me that I too can make tens of thousands of dollars a month selling on Amazon, with the New Zealand mountains serving big “playground of the rich” vibes.
5 September 2022
Stuff.co.nz: The Tupperware Party is over
8 March 2021
I'm guessing that Jami-Lee Ross, head of the failed conspiracy themed political party Advance NZ, has run out of money. Why else would he be planning to flog useless anti-5G pills to us?
4 November 2018
SleepDrops is a New Zealand company which sells small vials of liquid drops which are supposed to help you get to sleep and stay asleep. Their ingredients are a mixture of small doses of herbs and very small (homeopathic) doses of herbs. A look at the Scientific Research page on their website shows that there's a dearth of research for any of the ingredients in the SleepDrops products, and absolutely no research on the SleepDrops formulation.
28 October 2018
HRV has had to pay out $400k for bad claims it made about its water filters. The interesting thing about this case, in my opinion, is that the fine was given because it was shown that HRV didn't have the evidence for its claims when it made them.
18 June 2017
An article in the Herald this week talked about several innovations that were showcased at the Hamilton Fieldays event. Unfortunately, one of the products, DermaShield, appears to be very much pseudo-scientific.
18 September 2016
Mark Hanna at the Society for Science Based Healthcare has complained recently about the Napier Courier's column written by a local homeopathy business, called "Homeopathy Hub". the weekly column made many daft claims about the effectiveness of homeopathy, such as:
1 February 2009
A company making pills which falsely claimed to enhance women's breast size has been fined $100,000 for breaching the Fair Trading Act (National Business Review, 16 December).