Michael Gehart joined Visalus in February, 2010.

Visalus
is a weight loss MLM company founded in 2005 by Blake Mallen and Nick Sarnicola.

Gehart had no prior MLM experience when he signed up as a Visalus affiliate.

He was recruited by

Vito Torriciano, a part-owner of the company, (at a) meeting with Nick Sarnicola, and with a few other ViSalus distributors.

In addition to co-founding Visalus, Nick Sarnicola was an employee and top earner between 2010 and 2016.

This position purportedly saw Sarnicola sit atop ‘
several massive “downlines” of distributors and customers
‘.

Gehart (right) claims he joined Visalus on the representation

he could purchase ViSalus product at a so-called “wholesale” price for an opportunity to re-sell to others at a “retail” price.

In a lawsuit filed on June 29th, 2017, Gehart claims that was a lie and that Visualus operates as an “illegal pyramid scheme”.

Gehart’s summary of Visalus is pretty much that of an affiliate autoship recruitment scam;

ViSalus provides little opportunity for a distributor to actually earn any sort of income off of product sales alone.

Worse, ViSalus prevented distributors from actually effectively selling the product they were required to buy, by, among other things requiring the distributors to not sell the product they need to buy except at a high mark-up.

New distributors who paid for the right to distribute was averaging less than two

customers as listed in the database, and those customers typically bought a far lesser amount of product than the distributor did.

Upoin signing up Gehart was placed in Nick Sarnicola’s Visalus downline and given a $2500 monthly advance “to build his business”.

Gehart grew his Visalus business and earned approximately $2000 a month. This was on top of “under-the-table payments”, which Gehart claims Sarnicola paid him for recruiting Visalus affiliates.

Just shy of two years into his Visalus distributorship, Gehart approached Visalus management with an offer to sell Visalus products on Amazon.

Visalus management allegedly consented, and with permission Gehart purchased “millions of dollars” worth of Visalus below-wholesale and resold them at the wholesale price.

The Amazon program was done under the radar.

The storefront never identified Gehart as the seller or that he had an affiliation with ViSalus.

This was encouraged by the Defendants, who wanted Gehart not to publicize the new channel to other distributors, as, ostensibly, the MLM word-of-mouth and personal pressure sales were effective.

One of the reasons why Defendants “allowed” this channel, as Mallen explained to Gehart through a subordinate, was that it provided a good place for ViSalus to dump excess inventory.

This effectively undercut attempts by Visalus affiliates to sell products at retail. Through Amazon, Gehart made Visualus products available nationwide at wholesale cost.

While this was going on, Gehart alleges Nick Sarnicola reassured other Visalus affiliates of the com

🤖 Quick Answer

What is Visalus and when was it founded?
Visalus is a weight loss multi-level marketing company established in 2005 by Blake Mallen and Nick Sarnicola. The company operates by recruiting distributors who purchase products at wholesale prices to resell at retail prices, while building downlines of additional distributors and customers beneath them.

Who is Michael Gehart and why did he join Visalus?
Michael Gehart joined Visalus in February 2010 as an affiliate with no prior MLM experience. He was recruited by Vito Torriciano, a part-owner, at a meeting with co-founder Nick Sarnicola. Gehart was represented that he could purchase products at wholesale prices for retail resale opportunities.

What role did Nick Sarnicola hold in Visalus?
Nick Sarnicola co-founded

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