News

Aug 20, 2023

Consumer task force secures $1.1M in false advertising suit against dietary supplement maker

SANTA CRUZ — A dietary supplement company has agreed to a $1.1 million settlement agreement in a false claims lawsuit brought in part by Santa Cruz County’s consumer protection team. The agreement

SANTA CRUZ — A dietary supplement company has agreed to a $1.1 million settlement agreement in a false claims lawsuit brought in part by Santa Cruz County’s consumer protection team.

The agreement with Evig LLC, which does business as Balance of Nature, was announced this week in the wake of a February 2021 suit brought by the California Food, Drug, and Medical Device Task Force in Napa County Superior Court. The task force is comprised of 10 district attorney offices, including Santa Cruz, Alameda, Marin, Monterey, Napa, Orange, Santa Clara, Shasta, Solano and Sonoma counties.

According to the original lawsuit, the Utah-based Balance of Nature advertising allegedly claimed its products could prevent, treat, mitigate or cure serious disease conditions such as diabetes, arthritis, heart disease, fibromyalgia and cancer. The company offered dietary supplements purporting to be fruits and vegetables that are freeze-dried, powdered and placed in a capsule.

“The company went so far as to recommend that customers take 12 capsules each of its Fruits and Veggies supplements if they had been ‘diagnosed with life-threatening illness[.],'” according to a Santa Cruz County District Attorney’s Office media release.

The claims, according to the complaint, were not “competently and reliably” scientifically validated.

The complaint further alleged that Balance of Nature violated California’s Automatic Renewal Law by enrolling customers into an automatically renewing subscription program, for which they were charged a recurring monthly fee without clearly disclosing the terms of the program.

The judgment terms require Balance of Nature to pay $250,000 in customer restitution. California residents who purchased a Balance of Nature product in the past six years will receive a notice on how to claim a refund. Balance of Nature also was fined $850,000 in civil penalties and investigative costs.

The judgment prohibits Balance of Nature from engaging in any of the unlawful conduct described in the complaint going forward.

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