SUBMITTED: Wednesday, January 09, 2008
POSTED: Wednesday, January 09, 2008
I am a former employee of LA Weight Loss. I was in management for over three and a half years, and the longer I stayed the more I questioned their methods.
First we started off as a franchise center, and after a month of me being there we were taken over by corporate. Which, by the way, was a shady transaction to begin with. The franchise owner didn't tell any of the employees he had sold the company to corporate, so the "big wigs" just came in one day and took over. Once we were corporate we were forced to start hard selling and hitting the "hot buttons" as they called it. Find out what makes them emotional about being overweight. Was it their clothes not fitting, was it their husband or kids? We were told that "if they cry, they buy." Which was just awful, I was never a hard seller. When we got new employees, most wouldn't even make it out of training. They all quit within the first couple of weeks. They would change the programs left and right, what foods you can and can't eat, changing the supplements to supposedly make them better.
In my few years with the company, I saw my share of success stories. Several of which I remember losing 100+ pounds. But most didn't use the LA Lites. Something that corporate was forcing us to say was crucial, which, turns out they were not. Sure they were tasty, but not a necessary thing to achieve weight loss success. Just another selling point to get hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars out of clients, using any method we could: cash, check, credit card, care credit. Clients didn't need to use the supplements either. But of course we were required to push them on to the people deemed "medically eligible."
One evening I sat watching 20/20 with my now husband, and after the program aired, he told me to get out now! After 20/20, the company issued a company-wide letter stating that none of the statements made by the show were true. But they were. Most everything they said was true. In came the refund requests and phone calls, thousands of dollars refunded, which by the way, if you were a manager a percentage was taken from your paychecks. Which meant you could have a chunk of your check missing without having a clue as to how much it would be! Not a great way to keep your employees. Needless to say, I left! I hated to, because the clients were truly what made my job enjoyable. You really get to know them, and in some cases, know their families. It makes it heartbreaking to leave because I really loved my clients. Helping people is what made the job what it was.
I have been in touch with several people still working for the company, since I left, which changed their name to Pure Weight Loss due to the overwhelming bad rep they were getting. They started to sell some different products along with the name change and people starting getting let go. The area supervisors were among the first to go, they had no idea what was going on. The center hours cut way back and some employees went from working 40 hours to 12 hours and sometimes less. Then they were told that the centers would be closing. They knew something was up, but didn't know it was as big as the whole operation shutting down.
All I have to say to those clients who were still attending the centers is: do everything you have to to get your money back! They may tell you it's not possible, but it is. If you have remaining weeks, whether you're in the weight loss phase, stabilization or maintenance...you CAN get your money back. They owe it to you. They will discourage it, but I do believe it is the law and you can contact the Better Business Bureau. Make sure you get a refund form, get all of the product that is owed to you, IT BELONGS TO YOU!! The owners have done horribly rotten things to both their emplyees and worse yet, the people who made made working for LA Weight Loss and Pure Weight Loss the only reason employees wanted to stay and did stay through all of this, the clients.