Tiny Lies If you were alive in the 90s and
watching late-night TV, you most likely remember Don Lapre's voice. Lapre was a TV-infomercial
king known for his "Tiny Classified Ads" and "The Greatest Vitamin In The World."
He promised people the dream of wealth and good health. He wanted you to believe that all his
outrageous promises could come true, but they never did. Lapre was the king of 90s infomercials.
But just how did people fall for his outrageous promises?
Lapre Background Lapre's story began in
the late 1980s when Don Lapre started his first business—a dating service called the 1828 Club.
Lapre wasn't born the king of making money, and his dating service flopped—hard.
He folded Chapter 7 Bankruptcy for the 1828 Club shortly after meeting
and marrying his wife—whom he did not meet using his dating service.
In 1990 he started a credit repair company with his wife. The pair sold prospective
customers on the promise of fast credit cards with adequate balances. Instead,
consumers would get contact information for banks that were more likely to give loans to people
with bad credit. The Arizona Attorney General decided to charge the couple with violating
the Consumer Fraud act of Arizona. The outcome of this case banned the couple from engaging
in any credit repair services. In addition, the couple had to pay $5000 in restitution.
Failure didn’t stop Lapre, who started selling a booklet that contained a secret
"loophole" to pay off a mortgage using a backdoor insurance refund through the Federal
Housing Authority (FHA). However, this company, along with the advice he was giving, failed.
900 Numbers At the same time, Lapre began to sell "900" phone
lines. If you don’t know, 900 numbers are similar to 1-800 numbers, except the person calling is
paying for a particular piece of information or entertainment, not just customer service.
900 numbers started back in the '80s with AT&T, who would charge callers $0.50 to dial a number.
The service was made popular by ABC Nightline,
who hosted a call-in-poll for who won the Regan versus Carter Presidential debate. By the '90s,
900 numbers were used for adult phone call services, for "get rich quick" schemes,
and for pay-per-minute updates on sports. Lapre claimed that he made $50,000 thousand dollars per
week selling 900 numbers by placing his tiny classified ads in the newspaper!
Don Lapre Show Before there was SEO,
or Search Engine Optimization, there was Don Lapre. While he was a scummy salesman,
he was great at what he did. In 1992 he started broadcasting The Making Money Show with Don Lapre.
This was the start of his infomercial career, and Lapre would make some bold
claims while producing the show. Lapre's scripts sound like a modern-day ClickFunnel
used by dropshipping 'gurus' and Amazon automation' experts.' Just like these
online gurus, Lapre's late-night guru shows would over-promise and under-deliver.
Lapre fired off buzz phrases such as, 'easy-money, 'how to make money fast,
and 'easiest ways to make money like he was Google's search bar. In one of Lapre's episodes,
he talks about vague ways of making 'millions,' including how he makes 'easy money fast.'
Lapre's golden geese for fast cash were his Tiny Classified Ads. As he describes it,
a broke Lapre was working at a department store one
day when he came across a classified ad for cheap items. He bought these items
through a classified ad and sold them for a profit - conveniently using classified ads.
The Making Money Show was taking off, and Lapre was looking more and more
like the results of a modern-day Google search for "making money fast." Go ahead,
Google' how to make money fast and see how many get-rich-quick gurus pop up.
But before there was Google, there was Don Lapre. Call him up and ask, "How do I make money fast?"
and you'll start receiving telemarketing calls offering a variety of services. These services
included dating, psychics, booklets, and more. Customers would complain that they did not want
these calls and did not sign up for them but would continue to receive calls with new offers.
Customers complained that these offers would continue even after being told
no and that in many cases, it was a different company with very
similar sounding businesses. These businesses all tied back to Lapre.
Tiny Classifieds Throughout everything
that Lapre pitched in the 90s, one thing was common - Tiny Classified Ads. Classified ads
were like the Facebook Marketplace of the 90s. In each newspaper, there was a section
of cheap advertisements posted by the public. People might be trying to sell their old desk,
looking for a roommate, or gain traction for their local start-up.
The Classified section was meant to serve regions the same way Facebook Marketplace
helps individuals sell their items. Unlike front-page ads, the classifieds were
low-cost in comparison. Lapre would use these Tiny Classified ads for marketing his "900"
number business, the sale of items he found on liquidation, dating services, and more.
To continue the comparison, Lapre invented modern-day dropshipping before the internet
was popularized. One of Lapre's schemes promised easy money by placing ads for items that could be
purchased wholesale from the manufacturer who would fulfill the order themselves.
Lapre would pay for the cost of the items plus shipping and pocket the profits - claiming
never to touch the product in the first place. The way these products were sold was through
Tiny Classified Ads that someone could purchase in newspapers all over the country. These Tiny
Classified Ads were supposed to be easy to make and even easier to profit from.
For those who are unfamiliar, dropshipping is the process of selling items online through
third-party fulfillment. A seller will post an item for sale. Once the item sells,
the seller forwards the order to the manufacturer who fulfills it. Sounds familiar, right? Lapre was
pushing today's schemes but through newspapers and infomercials instead of Social Media.
Lapre loved the word tiny - from his Tiny Classified Ads to his tiny one-bedroom
apartment where he made his fortune. Lapre, however, was facing a not-so-tiny problem. At
the end of the 1990s, millions of people had seen his late-night infomercials for
Tiny Classified Ads. Those who called in were bombarded with additional telemarketing calls,
which cost users $850+ if they were to purchase those products.
The Better Business Bureau received complaints that Lapre's companies were slow to ship.
When refunds were requested for products purchased, they were slow to arrive,
if they arrived at all. The BBB warned consumers that Don Lapre
and businesses that he was associated with were offering too-good-to-be-true schemes
and then not allowing customers to take advantage of the 30-day money-back guarantee.
By the early 2000s, Tiny Classified Ads were replaced with online advertising,
and the gig was up for Lapre.
In 1999 Lapre declared bankruptcy—again. The company's assets were liquidated, and the buyers
of Lapre's company carried on business as usual, posting his infomercials and selling the same scam
products. Lapre was out, and Joseph Deihl picked up the mantle. Lapre denounced the new operator,
calling his business practices unethical. Why? Because Deihl was as big a scammer as Lapre.
Bouncing Back Now that Lapre was
out of his company, he needed another gig. Lapre was friendly with a nutritionist named Doug Grant,
who peddled various diets, pills, and cures. We use the word nutritionist loosely as Grant
was nothing but a fraud since his miracle medicines promised unreal
results. Lapre and Grant joined forces in 2003 with the start of Torica LLC.
Doug Grant peddled supplements associated with "the greatest for that" and "the
best for this" type schemes. Some of these schemes included Optimal Health Systems and
VitaQuest International. Grant claimed to be a "nutritionist," although online bios do
not mention where he went to school. The only mention of schooling was through the American
Holistic College of Health, an unaccredited school that would eventually go defunct.
Before meeting Lapre, Grant pushed products for Optimal Health Systems,
a Pyramid scheme that sold 'miracle' vitamins and diet plans to hungry entrepreneurs as
"independent distributors." These products were neither effective nor easy to sell,
and most "independent distributors" claimed to have lost hundreds to thousands of dollars.
Greatest Vitamin Ever With Grant's ability to manufacture
Vitamins and Lapre's infomercial prowess, the two made a dream sales team. This two in one
pitch promised viewers a pill that provided "all you need for optimal health," as well as one of
the 'greatest' financial opportunities. Lapre was so bold to suggest that this pill could cure or
prevent cancer. For a low cost of $35, a viewer could sign up to be an Independent Advertiser or
IA. The IA would make $1,000 every time they got 20 people to buy the vitamin.
Oh, look, another Pyramid scheme. Some quick math tells us that Lapre's promise doesn't add up nor
make for a profitable business. The Vitamin only costs about $40 plus another $9 for a
30-day supply. Selling 20 vitamins brought in about $900. Grant and Lapre promised $1,000
commission for something they could only net $900 in profit. Lapre would effectively lose $100 every
time one of his IAs hit their quota, and that's not even considering the cost of manufacturing.
As with any Pyramid scheme, the plan only works if the buyers fail to meet their quotas.
If you looked up the "Greatest Vitamin in the World" in 2004, you'd get 22,000 results for
hundreds of people trying to pedal their vitamins. With an abundance of supply and
little-to-no demand, nobody was making any money of The Greatest Vitamin in the World.
After a few years at the top of the Pyramid, the guys got their first warning letter from the FDA.
This letter warned the pair that continuing to market their product as a cure for a laundry list
of ailments that were not proven by science would bite them in the butt. A year later, in 2006,
they received a second warning letter to change the marketing or face the consequences.
Aftermath Lapre's scams finally caught up with
him. Lapre was looking at 41 different criminal charges, including conspiracy, mail fraud,
wire fraud, and money laundering. The Greatest Vitamin in the World was more like the Greatest
Pyramid Scheme in the World. According to the charges brought against Lapre, his scam brought
in $52 Million from over 200,000 people. They only ever paid about $6 Million in commissions.
Sadly, this story does not have a happy ending for anyone. Shortly before the criminal charges
came to light, Lapre knew the end was near. Once the claims came to light, Lapre attempted
multiple times to take his own life. Just two days before he was set to go to trial,
Lapre was successful in his attempt, and found unresponsive in his jail cell.
Officers attempted to revive him, but it was too late.
Lapre left us with a heartfelt message on his website where he stated,
“It did not work out for me with my vitamins but I
believe that being willing to fail is part of having a chance at success”
Lapre was facing a heavy prison sentence for the magnitude of his crimes. At 47 years old,
Lapre probably would have lived out the rest of his life in jail. Whether he would've been
found guilty by a jury, we'll never know. Lapre's death left victims without a resolution and the
family without a member—ultimately a lose-lose situation for everyone involved. Lapre moved
from the classifieds to the obituary, but his legacy lives on as a get-rich-quick pioneer.
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