I’m excited to say that I have a piece on the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) Swift Blog. It’s my story about how I was scammed by Kevin Trudeau.

Kevin Trudeau spent a night in jail last month and then his living expenses were cut off by a judge the following week, so I’ve decided to share my story. This is how I fell for Kevin Trudeau’s lies, how I realized I was being deceived, what I learned from it, and how I use my experience to try to help others. It’s not fun admitting you’ve been had, but not exposing this fraudster wouldn’t be great, either.

In 2005, I started experiencing severe pain that persisted even with strong painkillers. It became so bad that I had to quit my job and band, deplete my savings, ruin my credit, and put my life on hold to figure out what was wrong and to get treatment. I had to have several surgeries over the years and I continue to take medication for it to this day.

While I was going through the worst of this ordeal, I became very frustrated with the U.S. healthcare system. It took a long time to even find out what was wrong due to referrals and approvals, among many other issues, and I had some bad doctors, improper medication, and a failed surgery that made my affliction worse. Since my condition made me unable to work, I had to go a year with no income and without a life while I waited in pain. I nearly got evicted, all while creditors were hounding me for bills I could not pay.

Read the rest at randi.org

I am currently working on a post about how I was scammed by Kevin Trudeau. He is in the news again since he spent a night in jail last week. One of the things I wanted to point out is that he is involved in fakery far beyond what you may have seen on his infomercials. Some believe that Kevin’s victims are people who are “dumb enough” to fall for his lies and are just getting what they deserve. But you could simply buy just one of his books, realize it was filled with false information and throw it away, and you’d still be dealing with him years later due to that one purchase.

I was once a believer in him from reading Natural Cures “They” Don’t Want You to Know About and More Natural “Cures” Revealed but I eventually realized both were filled with quackery. I then began getting credit card charges for items I never bought. It was a losing battle trying to fight those charges, so I ended up having to get a new card to stop more charges from coming.

I put it all behind me, but then a couple years later I received this strange letter in the mail. The only things I have edited in this are my legal name, address, and account number. Other than that, this is verbatim: (more…)