The Biggest Loser Former "Extreme Makeover: Weight Loss Edition"
star Michael Giannulis ran a massive scam with his partner in crime Michael Williams.
But it all came to a screeching halt when the Federal Trade Commission stepped in.
A year after appearing on the show and losing over 200 pounds, he fell in with My Online
Business Education or MOBE.
This Malaysian company specialized in getting suckers to pay thousands to learn how to sell
classes that cost thousands.
He found success with the company, but when they were shut down in 2018, he created his
own similar scams through a business called My Ecom Club and ran them with his partner
to the tune of tens of millions of dollars.
The premise of these scams wasn't uncommon; the business promised eager suckers the knowledge
they would need to set up six-figure internet businesses.
The kicker was that these businesses were simply selling the same course materials that
the suckers above had gone through.
It was basically a pyramid scheme.
It all came crashing down in March of 2020, ending with a large civil settlement with
the FTC, the loss of personal assets tied to the businesses, and a lifetime ban on the
two mentoring or coaching people on how to make money online.
The FTC leveled similar judgments against several other defendants tied to MOBE.
Business Acumen Giannulis maintained his innocence until the
bitter end.
He painted himself as a long-time business owner with multiple ventures under his belt
in multiple podcast appearances.
He started out selling poetry as a kid in Tarpon Springs.
Kids running their first business often fail to stick with it in the long term, and that's
what happened here.
From there, he upgraded to a goat farm in Illinois, pulled in by a friend who convinced
him to invest.
Giannulis purchased 500 pregnant goats to start up their ranch.
When that venture sputtered, he moved back to the Tampa Bay area.
Back on home turf, the serial entrepreneur traded big profit for a big frame, peaking
at about 540 pounds.
15 Minutes Desperate to shed his new weight gain, Giannulis
resorted to a reality TV show, ABC's Extreme Weight Loss.
The branch-off of ABC's popular Extreme Makeover series had more than a few success stories
to its credit by the time Giannulis reached out.
At that point, his own efforts to lose the weight had fallen flat, leaving him hanging
around 493 pounds.
Getting on the show isn't as simple as phoning the producers and asking for a spot.
Only the most extreme cases get in; the showrunners don't want anybody to attend the year-long
boot camp unless they're looking to lose at least 50 percent of their total body weight.
To put that into perspective, if somebody is 260 pounds in total and 100 pounds over
their ideal body weight, they're not big enough.
The prospective big losers have to attend an in-person casting call and audition for
the producers.
According to one account from a Michigan man who auditioned but didn't quite make it, the
process is multi-tiered and emotionally grueling.
You start out attending an open casting call with tons of other people.
The producers pick out who they like, sometimes giving out VIP passes to skip the line.
From there, you have to interview on camera and spill your personal journey to the crew.
Moving further along, you must submit a home tape and get signed releases from family members.
Our man in Michigan made arrangements to change his home for the show, only to be let down
via a simple email after a long wait.
Giannulis, of course, did make it.
And after one year on camera, with personal trainer Chris Powell at his back, he showed
his transformation.
While getting rich quick schemes ultimately proved to be a weak point for Giannulis, he
found success with weight loss.
He burned 255 pounds, blowing right past the show's half of your body weight goal.
The whole time, Giannulis' told the same sob story over and over again.
He'd never had a girlfriend.
However, he finally had a lovely lady by his side when the show ended.
MOBE With a girl named Megan on his arm and the
massive weight loss behind him, it's easy to think Giannulis had his happily ever after.
To him, that wasn't nearly enough.
His search for riches eventually led him to My Online Business Education, the scam outfit
out of Malaysia.
Scammy gurus and shady organizations on the internet are eager for you to lay down cash
to take their classes.
In the end, all these classes teach you about internet businesses is essentially how to
sucker people the same way you had gotten pulled in.
These aren't outright illegal unless they're misleading in some way.
The thing is, many are.
MOBE was one such organization, and Giannulis fell for their tricks.
MOBE boasted a 21-step success system, making it look like a legitimate business school.
The reality was that people paid the $49 fee to get in on the ground floor, only to be
called on to spend more.
The endgame for the most dedicated suckers was to shell out at least $2,500 to move through
the program levels.
After spending over $60,000 in some cases, they were expected to go into business for
MOBE instead of for themselves, earning commission on the new subscriptions they drummed up.
This bait and switch attracted the attention of the FTC, which was MOBE's first big mistake.
https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2020/06/12/21/29542980-8415561-Giannulis_and_his_partner_are_required_to_auction_off_personal_i-a-134_1591994756989.jpg Unlike most suckers in these types of scams,
Giannulis followed through with setting up scammy online businesses under MOBE and raking
in millions.
Williams did the same, and the two ran things together.
Their success in the organization earned them recognition and valuable bonuses.
The FTC's dedication to protecting American consumers led to MOBE's demise in 2018.
The company had to pay fines and reparations to the FTC.
Assets were seized from Malaysia, the United States, Costa Rica, and other scattered operations
around the world.
Over $23 million was returned to consumers who had been taken in by the scam.
My ECom Club MOBE's fall should have been a sign—get
out of the scam world.
Instead, the two friends soldiered on without the support of a larger organization.
Gianullis and Williams called their new venture My Ecom Club.
The pair ran a scam through the club that was similar to what they had previously done
with MOBE.
The big twist with this one was that they got family and friends on board to apply as
owners of shell companies tied to My Ecom Club.
This blatantly illegal action, called credit card laundering, brought the two back into
the FTC's crosshairs.
The two created online ads, local events, and other forms of marketing that made buyers
the same sorts of promises that MOBE had.
The FTC's suit claimed that My Ecom Club even targeted vulnerable populations in the US
and elsewhere, like seniors and veterans.
My Ecom Club and associated businesses also stand accused of preying on poor consumers
by convincing them to get loans, open credit accounts, and do whatever else had to be done
to make membership payments.
My Ecom Club had a setup and pricing scheme similar to MOBE.
The packages started at $2,000 on the ground floor and went up to $40,000.
Allegedly, the pair brought their old teams from MOBE with them.
Almost every detail was the same, even the salespeople badgering victims and setting
up fraudulent sales funnels online.
Giannulis and Williams took in the lion's share of profits in their post-MOBE ventures.
Podcasts Giannulis and Williams seemingly escaped the
MOBE fiasco in one piece.
When they launched their own scammy business ventures afterward, it took the FTC about
two years to figure out what was up and shut them down.
The FTC would have figured out something was fishy, but a few moves they made in between
probably didn't help.
For starters, Giannulis liked to talk on podcasts.
Of course, there were other publicity and marketing moves, but hopping on well-known
podcasts was one of the loudest ways Giannulis could have announced that he and Williams
were back up to their old tricks.
The first such appearance was on a show called Live the Fuel in April of 2019.
The show is tied to a mid-sized online marketing operation called Fuel Up Marketing, along
with several related foundations.
While on the show, Giannulis talked about his goat farm experiences, among other facts
about his personal life.
The appearance on Live the Fuel may have been relatively harmless, but when Giannulis appeared
on the Up Rev Ninja podcast, where he'd appeared before MOBE got hit by the FTC, alarm bells
went off.
Up Rev Ninja is a smaller podcast that focuses on personal growth and professional development,
making a seemingly successful business pioneer like Giannulis the ideal guest star.
His 2017 appearance on the podcast was a typical come-up story, where Giannulis talked about
what he had done before and how he got to where he was at the time.
The 2019 episode, meanwhile, was a bit more focused on Giannulis' business strategies
and approach.
During that podcast, he said consumers will always be looking for a quick buck, and business
owners can use that to their advantage.
He did say, though, that going that route doesn't necessarily have to involve lying;
you just have to convince consumers that they're better off with your help than they would
be on their own.
That sounds like something a get-rich-quick guru would say, doesn't it?
The FTC felt the same way.
Word on how the FTC got back on Giannulis and Williams' trail is sparse and barely mentioned
on the record.
It's not unreasonable to believe the FTC kept tabs on them after MOBE fell, putting them
on a scammer watch list.
There's also a fair chance that a former MOBE victim, or even a jealous ex-partner, was
listening to one of the two podcasts when Giannulis appeared to hawk his story and his
business.
In any case, the FTC somehow caught wind of what was happening.
Settlement This mess eventually led to the FTC slapping
the pair with a monetary judgment of $31.6 million.
This was part of a larger case that included many former MOBE partners that went into their
own businesses after the bigger organization went down.
That judgment was suspended on the condition that the two payout $760,000 in cash and https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2020/06/12/21/29542976-8415561-Also_on_the_auction_block_are_two_diamond_encrusted_Rolex_watche-a-136_1591994757068.jpg
give up assets tied to their MOBE days and independent businesses.
They're also banned from getting involved with teaching people how to make money or
doing any business coaching, barring them from participating in similar scams in the
future.
Giannulis and Williams are essentially unable to run the same hustle that they did before,
but this doesn't seem to have discouraged Giannulis.
He's still running a web business, but this one's a lot more upfront and less complicated.
He's got a website called Sanetris now, where users can pay $37 a year to access a library
of nutrition and fitness videos and other content.
The shady part?
According to the Tampa Bay Times, the listed address for the business is a UPS Store.
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Let us know in the comment section who you trust more, people selling courses on the
internet, or President Biden!