Don Lapre
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Donald D. Lapre (born May, 1964) is an American multi-level marketing salesman and infomercial personality. His works has involved with such products as The Greatest Vitamin in the World and Making Money Secrets.
His late night infomercials have been described by watchdog groups such as the Better Business Bureau, Quackwatch, and the Rip Off Report as deceptive. The Better Business Bureau of Northern Arizona has urged potential customers to use "extreme caution" when dealing with Lapre's offers.[1] Currently, Lapre pitches a multi-level marketing scheme to sell health products, including a multi-vitamin dubbed "The Greatest Vitamin in the World." In July, 2005, the Food and Drug Administration ordered Lapre to stop claiming that his vitamin products could prevent or cure diseases.
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[edit] Business ventures
Despite having never graduated from high school, Don Lapre has been able to reap millions with businesses selling "get rich quick" schemes to nutritional supplements.
[edit] 1988
Lapre started a dating service and got married.
[edit] 1990
Along with his wife, Lapre started a credit repair business called Unknown Concepts. Customers were duped into believing they could repair their credit, obtain credit cards or other benefits. Instead they were provided with names of companies that might provide them.
Lapre then began selling a 36-page booklet explaining how to recover a Federal Home Association insurance refund after paying off a home mortgage.
He also began offering "900" phone lines. Lapre claimed that by placing "tiny ads" in newspapers he was able to make $50,000 per week.
[edit] 1992
In 1992, Lapre began broadcasting "The Making Money Show with Don Lapre," which promised viewers that they could make money as easily as he had. For several years the show was ranked among the ten most frequently broadcast cable television infomercials. The principal product was Lapre's "Money Making Secrets," a package of booklets, tapes, and common sense tips for placing ads and operating a 900-number business. The product was sold through New Strategies, whose parent company was Tropical Beaches.
Shortly after purchasing the package customers were bombarded by telemarketers offering additional psychic, dating, entertainment, and chat 900 lines, plus free Web sites all requiring additional investments of up to several thousand dollars.
Much of the information in the package, such as newspaper phone numbers, was so old it was inaccurate. Virtually no one made any money during the short time that this idea lasted.
[edit] 2003
Sometime in 1997 Lapre sought to enter the nutritional supplement market. He contacted Doug Grant, a well known "vitamin peddler", to help him develop one. In January of 2003 Torica, LLC began operations in Phoenix, Arizona to market their latest product as "The Greatest Vitamin in the World". A new Don Lapre infomercial soon followed, featuring "The Greatest Vitamin" and Lapre boasting, that "Nothing like this has ever been seen before in the history of the world!" Unlike his previous infomercials, the editing and backgrounds were cheap with lots of repetition.
[edit] Popular culture
David Spade appeared in two sketches doing an impression of Don Lapre for Saturday Night Live.[2]
