58. The Pitchman (Don Lapre)

Support for swindled comes from Simply Safe.

For the longest time, I thought home security meant an alarm going off after someone broke in.

But if the alarm is already blaring, it's too late.

The damage is done.

That's a reactive approach, and it leaves you with that awful feeling of violation, even if the intruder runs away.

That's why I switched to Simply Safe.

They've completely changed the game with Active Guard outdoor protection.

designed to stop crime before it starts.

Their smart, AI-powered cameras don't just detect motion.

They can tell you when there's a person lurking on your property.

That instantly alerts SimplySafe's professional monitoring agents in real time.

And here's the game changer.

The agents can actually intervene while the intruder is still outside.

Talk to them through two-way audio, hit them with a loud siren and spotlight.

and call 911 if needed.

It's proactive security, and that's real security.

I trust SimplySafe because there are no long-term contracts, no hidden fees, and a 60-day money-back guarantee.

They've been named best home security systems by U.S.

News and World Report for five years in a row, and I can see why.

Get 50% off your new SimplySafe system at simply safe.com/slash swindled.

That's 50% off your new SimplySafe system by visiting simplysafe.com/slash swindled.

There's no safe like SimplySafe.

Mike and Alyssa are always trying to outdo each other.

When Alyssa got a small water bottle, Mike showed up with a four-litre jug.

When Mike started gardening, Alyssa started beekeeping.

Oh, come on.

They called a truce for their holiday and used Expedia Trip Planner to collaborate on all the details of their trip.

Once there, Mike still did more laps around the pool.

Whatever.

You were made to outdo your holidays.

We were made to help organize the competition.

Expedia, made to travel.

This episode of Swindled may contain graphic descriptions or audio recordings of disturbing events which may not be suitable for all audiences.

Listener discretion is advised.

OHS starts back in 1989 when I found myself in a neurological institute suffering from L4, L5 spine injury.

Before that, I was working full-time finishing my degree in holistic nutrition and exercise.

I got frustrated with doctors not communicating with each other so I could be looked at and be treated holistically.

After not agreeing to exploratory surgery, I left and sought out a friend who ran a progressive rehab clinic.

He was a chiropractor and had many other types of doctors as consultants to help evaluate my needs.

He treated me holistically with adjustments, percussion massage, stimulators, aggressive rehab movements, and many other things like for meditation techniques, even acupuncture.

The only missing link was nutrition, nutrition at the cellular level, ensuring that nutrients could be delivered to help my body heal.

That's where my training came in.

After a car accident in 1989, Douglas Grant wasn't sure if he would ever walk again.

He had grown frustrated with the methods and the results of traditional physical and pharmaceutical treatment.

Nothing these so-called doctors tried ever seemed to work.

And now they wanted to cut into him.

Douglas Grant politely declined.

And the 23-year-old began exploring alternative options, which were based more on nutrition and body optimization rather than pills and surgeries.

And by the end of his recovery journey, Doug was walking again, even running.

In fact, by the end of his journey, Doug Grant was winning gold medals in powerlifting competitions.

He had also completed five professional trainer certifications.

and received a degree in nutrition from the American Holistic College of Nutrition, a school whose name sounds like it's some kind of non-accredited fringe method correspondence program, and that's because it is.

Doug Grant, a brand new man, was inspired to share his wealth of knowledge and experience with the rest of the world.

His passion ultimately became his career in the late 90s when he created Optimal Health Systems, a holistic health company committed to raising the, quote, standard of health and fitness by providing superior systems of extraordinary service, motivational support, and customized nutrition, exercise, and specific supplementation, creating for every individual the expectation and ability to achieve optimal health.

What Optimal Health Systems sold was the end products of what Doug claimed was over a decade of consultations with more than 5,000 health professionals.

There was a complete nutrition supplement, rejuvenation and digestive repair formulas, as well as a cleansing product that claimed to be the quote most unique and effective formula for cleansing the bowels.

Doug's company even maintained a professional advisory council of doctors, researchers, and writers in order to further its mission of discovering and sharing the truth about total human health and optimization.

Doug Grant's company was a huge success.

He was even hired on as the team nutritionist for the Phoenix Suns, his hometown professional basketball team.

After helping an NBA athlete by the name of Danny Ainge and a few of his friends like Charles Barkley, Dan Marley, and a few others, I found myself training many of the Phoenix Suns players out of my little training center called NeutraStrength in Mesa, Arizona.

You know, it was a little place located in the same building as a low-budget crematorium mortuary.

I would tell my clients to see us first or see them sooner.

But back to the story.

Yeah, I'll take it from here.

Because it gets weird.

To put it bluntly, Doug Grant's success ultimately ruined his marriage.

Constant traveling and multiple affairs can really take its toll.

Things were a bit complicated at home, to say the least.

But it hadn't always been that way.

Doug met his wife Faylene in 1993 at a gym he owned.

They were perfect for each other.

Both were recently divorced with children from their previous marriages.

Fayline also had a background in nutrition just like Doug.

and both had been raised in the Mormon church.

They married quickly, had two more children children of their own, and now, thanks to Doug's infidelity, seven years later, it had all come to an end.

Within a year of the separation, 34-year-old Doug Grant had fallen in love with another woman, Hillary DeWitt, the 19-year-old receptionist at his company, the same Hillary DeWitt that Doug's ex-wife Faylene used to babysit when she was little.

Both Doug and Hillary admit that they were crazy about one another, which made it all the more surprising when Doug announced a year into the relationship that he had remarried Faylene.

It happened on a business trip to Dallas in July 2001, Doug claims.

He and Faylene were there together to settle a company lawsuit.

They began to talk about their kids and family and broached the idea of reconciliation.

Afterwards, Faylene traveled to the Mormon Temple in San Diego to ask God for a sign.

She called Doug afterwards.

He told ABC News, quote, I get a phone call bright and early, and on the other end of the phone is Failene.

And she goes, I was told in the San Diego temple from God to remarry you.

Doug couldn't argue with that, so he met his ex-wife fiancé in California, and they drove to Las Vegas to get married at the Excalibur.

Young Hillary was heartbroken.

She punched Doug in the chest when he told her and stormed off her job at Optimal Health Systems and moved back home with her parents.

Within days, Hillary started receiving phone calls and letters from Failene Grant, her former babysitter and co-worker, as well as ex-boyfriend and boss's ex- and current wife, and the two hit it off.

Failene was like a sister, a mother, a spiritual advisor, a best friend, all wrapped up into one for me, Hillary told ABC News.

But some of the things Failene wrote in the letters to Hillary seemed odd.

Failene had become obsessed with death.

She discussed it as if it were breathing down her neck.

And Faleen made a request of Hilary DeWitt just two months into her remarriage with Doug, quote, I want you to be the mother of my children.

I want you to teach them how precious each of my heavenly father's children is and remind them that they are not only precious to heavenly father, but to their mother, who has been physically called to serve her mission elsewhere.

She knew she was going to die, Hillary told ABC, and that it was going to be really, really soon.

The day after that letter was written for their second honeymoon, Doug and Failene Grant traveled to Utah to visit historic Mormon landmarks, which included hiking the canyons of the Timpanogos Cave National Monument.

The newlyweds were admiring the view from 1,000 feet.

When Failene looked up to the sky, she said she could see God in the clouds.

I got up and said, Failing, as I started going to where that rock wall was, a good good 10, 12 feet away, where I could see her.

She slipped.

Doug Grant raced down to the base of the cliff where Failene had fallen 60 feet below.

He found her fully conscious and standing on her feet with no major injuries, only cuts and bruises.

A tree had cushioned her fall.

Doug took Faylene to a nearby hospital just to be safe.

She was released 90 minutes later with a mostly clean bill of health and a prescription for pain pills.

The couple stayed at a nearby friend's house and returned to their home in Gilbert, Arizona two days later.

According to Paul Rubin at the Phoenix New Times, in private conversations, Failene Grant told friends and family that she was supposed to die that day.

When describing what happened, she said, quote, I just fell, and I felt like I was floating, and I didn't scream out.

Failing Grant may have been at peace during her little tumble, but afterwards, she was in a lot of pain, and she was having having trouble sleeping.

So Doug contacted a physician-assistant friend of his named Chad White, who injected Phalene with pain medication and prescribed a muscle relaxant and sleeping pills.

That night, shortly before daybreak, under the influence of her meds, Faline accidentally urinated in the bed.

Doug says he helped his wife into the bathtub, left the room, and fell back asleep.

When he awoke about an hour later, around 7.30 a.m., the house was eerily quiet.

Doug went to check on his wife and found her still lying in the water, unresponsive.

Instead of immediately calling emergency services, Doug carried Failene from the bathtub and placed her on the bed.

He then called Chad White, the physician assistant, who dialed 911 on the way to the Grant home at 7.56 a.m.

Failing Grant was rushed to Valley Lutheran Hospital in Mesa, Arizona.

She was taken off life support and pronounced dead at 4.37 p.m.

on September 27, 2001.

She was 35 years old.

The autopsy revealed that Failene Grant had drowned and that she had five times the recommended dosage of sleeping medication in her blood.

The police had assumed her death was accidental.

The coroner's report listed the cause as undetermined.

Not even 24 hours after his wife died, Doug Grant was meeting his ex-girlfriend Hillary DeWitt at a local park.

According to one of Hillary's friends, Doug put his hands on Hillary's hips and told her, quote, I miss these.

The two were married less than a month after Faline's death.

This decision by Doug naturally caught the attention of Falene's family, many of whom still worked for him at Optimal Health Systems.

Both the quick marriage to Hillary and the fact that he did not immediately call 911 when he discovered Falene's body had raised some eyebrows around town, including those of a detective at the Gilbert Police Department, who decided to investigate further.

However, Doug and Hillary defended their marriage by claiming it was what Failene wanted.

There were letters and journal entries from the late woman that helped their case, including one dated a few days before her death that expressed the desire for Doug and Hillary to marry immediately so they could sit together as husband and wife at her funeral.

Life is beautiful beyond our comprehension, Faline wrote.

I hope each and every one of you have the most glorious life ever to be had.

Many of Failene's writings often articulated this vision for Doug and Hillary, which she sometimes referred to as Doug's vision.

He dreams it every night now, Failene once wrote.

Investigators believed Doug had manipulated his wife into accepting her fate.

In 2005, a friend of Doug Grant's named Jim McKelia offered Falene's family new information about the case in exchange for $10,000.

The family contacted the police about the extortion attempt and arranged a meeting that was secretly recorded in which McKellia described to the family how Doug Grant physically held Failene's head underwater while she was in a drugged state.

Investigators threatened to charge Jim McKellia for extortion unless he attempted to lure a confession out of Doug Grant while wearing a wire, which he would eventually try to do but was unsuccessful.

McKelia would later retract his version of events, telling the Phoenix New Times, quote, Doug is an asshole, but I can't honestly say if he did or didn't kill Failene.

But even without the help of a star witness, Detective Cy Ray, who had been accused of withholding evidence and tampering with witnesses in the case, was confident he could prove that Douglas Grant killed his wife, telling the suspect, quote, I wholeheartedly believe, without any doubts, that you killed Faline.

I believe that I can prove that it was a financially motivated crime, for the most part.

You stood to gain roughly $400,000 in doing so, and you did collect the majority of that.

That's true.

When Failene died, Doug Grant received about $300,000 as the sole beneficiary of her life insurance policy.

Jim McKellia had also claimed that Doug feared that Failene would eventually leave him again, and he'd be responsible for paying almost $3,000 a month in child support and alimony.

There was also Failene's share of the settlement from the business lawsuit that had sparked their remarriage.

But all totaled, was that enough money for Doug to murder the mother of his children?

That would be left up to a jury to decide.

Doug Grant was arrested and charged with first-degree murder on July 14th, 2005.

The trial, which began in November 2008, included four months of testimony that detailed the lies and the love affairs and the greed that led to the death of Failing Grant.

We, the jury, duly unpaneled and sworn upon our oaths, do find the defendant Douglas D.

Grant as to count one first-degree murder unable to agree.

We, the jury, do find the defendant on the lesser included offense of second-degree murder, unable to agree.

We, the jury, do find the defendant on the lesser included offense of manslaughter guilty.

After 12 days of deliberation, the jury found Doug Grant guilty of manslaughter, mostly for not making the call to 911, a Class II non-dangerous felony.

Doug was sentenced to five years in prison, thanks to the pleas of leniency from family and friends, and he was released after serving just a little more than four.

After getting out of state prison in 2013, Doug Grant rejoined his wife Hillary and their new baby girl he had left behind.

Doug also relaunched his business, Optimal Health Systems, where he continues his mission of motivating, educating, and empowering you to be the best you that you can be.

Hello, I'm Doug Grant, the founder and chief formulator for Optimal Health Systems.

Interestingly enough, and the reason we're talking about Doug in the first place, is that back in the year 2000, right before the mysterious death of his wife, Doug Grant was also the chief formulator of a vitamin called the greatest vitamin in the world.

It was a miracle product/slash business opportunity that was sold via late-night television infomercials by a charismatic and recognizable pitch man named Don Lapri.

Years later, the greatest vitamin in the world would prove to be a scam for those who bought into it, and it would prove to be the last straw for the man who sold it.

A television salesman's various products and schemes help him ascend from rags to riches, back to rags again on this episode of Swindled.

They bribed government officials to find accounting for clear violations of the A State Law.

Dummied up its books and records into high ballots.

Support for swindled comes from simply safe.

For the longest time, I thought home security meant an alarm going off after someone broke in.

But if the alarm is already blaring, it's too late.

The damage is done.

That's a reactive approach, and it leaves you with that awful feeling of violation, even if the intruder runs away.

That's why I switched to Simply Safe.

They've completely changed the game with Active Guard outdoor protection, designed to stop crime before it starts.

Their smart, AI-powered cameras don't just detect motion.

They can tell you when there's a person lurking on your property.

That instantly alerts SimplySafe's professional monitoring agents in real time.

And here's the game changer.

The agents can actually intervene while the intruder is still outside.

Talk to them through two-way audio, hit them with a loud siren and spotlight, and call 911 if needed.

It's proactive security, and that's real security.

I trust SimplySafe because there are no long-term contracts, no hidden fees, and a 60-day money-back guarantee.

They've been named best home security systems by U.S.

News and World Report for five years in a row, and I can see why.

Get 50% off your new SimplySafe system at simplysafe.com/slash swindled.

That's 50% off your new SimplySafe system by visiting simplysafe.com slash swindled.

There's no safe like SimplySafe.

In just a few minutes, you're going to meet a young man who never graduated from high school and with no money and no help from anyone, made it to the top.

His name is Don LaPri.

Don LaPri is now a multi-millionaire and he's one of the most talked about entrepreneurs in the United States today.

You'll also hear some amazing stories of how people just like you and me are using Don's package and have changed their lives forever.

I've seen the pain and suffering and the poor side of the world, Don Lapri told the Phoenix New Times.

And it wasn't something the born entrepreneur ever planned to experience again.

After dropping out of high school, Don had painted houses for his father's company in the unforgiving heat of Arizona.

And he had also sold used furniture that he would find on the side of the road just to make ends meet.

It wasn't glamorous, but Don Lapri claimed that, at the time, he was too naive to be negative.

He claimed that on average, he was only depressed one day per year.

The rest of his days were spent plowing ahead, full of energy and deluded with confidence, trying to come up with the next big idea that would make him rich.

And in 1988, Don Lapri thought he had finally stumbled upon that idea.

At 24 years old, he launched a dating service called the 1828 Club.

Don sank everything he had and more into the business with the hopes that it would catch on soon.

But it never did.

Don Lapri declared bankruptcy less than two months later.

In 1988, he had also gotten married.

Don told the New Times that he and his bride, Sally Redondo, drove to Las Vegas without wedding rings and only $110 to their name.

After they exchanged their vows, Don told Sally that he was $35,000 in debt.

Congratulations.

But he had a plan to get back on his feet.

In 1990, with Sally by his side, Don Lapri launched another business called Unknown Concepts.

It was a credit repair business that, according to Quackwatch.org, led prospective customers to believe that they could obtain credit cards and other benefits from the company, when in reality, Unknown Concepts was merely a middleman providing contact information to companies who could actually do those things turns out the lapri's credit deception was a violation of arizona's consumer fraud act the couple was ordered to pay civil penalties as well as more than five thousand dollars in restitution and they were banned from the credit industry but never fear don lapri had another idea To order the cash connection manual audio cassette informs kit for only $59.95 plus shipping and handling, call the toll-free number on your screen now.

Have your Visa, MasterCard, or American Express card ready when you call.

Or send check or money order for just $59.95 plus shipping and handling.

Cash Connection comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee, so you have nothing to lose.

Order now.

Cash Connections was an instructional guide authored by Don LaPri on how to recover Federal Home Association Insurance Refunds.

Lapri claimed that the U.S.

Department of Housing and Urban Development was sitting on millions of dollars of unclaimed refunds that legally and rightfully belonged to the people who had paid off their FHA loans in good faith.

Don's idea was to call these people who were owed refunds, complete the refund process on their behalf, and then take a cut.

Listen to how easy it could be.

Hello, is this Mike?

Mike, this is Don LaPri.

I'm a processor in locating recipients for unclaimed funds.

Mike, you should receive your check by the 15th.

If you have any questions, give me a call.

You bet.

Bye-bye.

Boom.

$500 richer.

And the best part was that there were enough of these prospective refundees to go around.

All one had to do was pick a name on the list, call them up from the comfort of your own home, process the refund, and slice a little off the top.

Don Lapri claimed he was making $1,000 a day doing this, and all the information needed for you to get started could be found in his $85, 36-page cash connections manual and audio cassette.

It worked for Don LaPri and it could work for you.

Dreams do come true.

Isn't that right, Sally?

My life now is a dream since Cash Connections have came into it.

I finally get to get braces on my teeth, which I have always wanted to do, and everything I want now, I can get as long as Don is doing cash connections.

Cash Connections marked the first instance in which Don Lapri employed the use of late-night television infomercials to heavily advertise a product.

And now that he actually had a product that proved profitable, Don began placing classified ads in newspapers across the country to take his business to the next level.

The second way to make money that I stumbled onto was placing tiny classified ads in the newspaper.

Don claimed that by placing these tiny classified ads in thousands of newspapers, he was raking in $30,000 to $40 in profit per ad for a total of $50,000 per week.

Lapri claimed that he had become a multi-millionaire in less than a year, all while working out of a single one-bedroom apartment.

But why stop there?

My friend Bob Salerno calls me up and he says, Don, you gotta get in the 900 line.

Well, I said, Bob, you're crazy.

I'm making a fortune placing my tiny classified ads.

I don't know anything about the 900 business.

I don't know anything about computers.

I don't want to have computer equipment.

I don't want to have to answer 900 calls.

Leave me alone.

Let me place my ads.

Let me make my fortune in peace.

You just leave me alone.

Apparently, Bob was persistent because Don Lapri did eventually secure a 900 number, which he also marketed using his classified ads method.

Soon he began collecting thousands more dollars per day simply by broadcasting preset horoscope information, dating advice, and sports news for $2.99 per minute.

It was just too easy.

The secret to making money was no longer a secret.

Don LaPri worked his way from bankruptcy to financial independence in less than a year.

How did he do it?

It was easy, and he's ready to pass his money-making secrets on to you.

They're all here in this money-making package, available only through this program.

Call this number now and receive all of Don's secrets for making money on your own and becoming financially independent.

Don LaPri packaged all of his money-making strategies into a collection of brochures, audio cassettes, and videotapes that he had dubbed Money-Making Secrets.

For one low payment of $39.95, a hungry entrepreneur could unlock the door to Don LaPri's wealth of invaluable information, which included helpful tips and tricks to getting rich quickly, such as don't quit your day job and get rid of your ugly friends.

Check and check.

It's unbelievable.

The first time the checks were in the mailbox, I could not believe it.

Just by ordering the making money package, by placing one tiny ad after another, you have generated over $200,000

in five months.

That don't even sound right.

Does it?

Once again, Lapri advertised his money-making secrets using infomercials in which he would break down just how simple it was to make a fortune while using the vaguest of terms and the highest of energies.

All one had to do was believe in thyself, think positively, reach for the stars.

It should be noted that one would also have to develop a desirable product on their own or decide on something to resell in a market with demand.

But let's not get bogged down in the fine print.

Figure that much out yourself and then let Don Lapri help with the rest.

You could trust him.

He was successful.

Don't believe me.

Just look at the infomercial.

He was on a beach.

Checkmate.

And let's say you did design, build, and manufacture an incredible product in the early 90s.

It just so happens that in 1994, Don Lapri had opened a retail chain of what he called the Incredible Product Store.

Now, Don wasn't about to buy your product from you and sit on a bunch of dusty old inventory while he tried to resell it himself.

That would be moronic.

Instead, how about this?

You would actually pay him.

Because the Incredible Product Store wasn't selling products, it was selling advertising space.

Each vendor could purchase a booth in the store to house its own marketing materials, which prospective customers could peruse for free.

It was a sad museum of dying dreams.

Here's Don Lapri trying to sell the concept to Alan Thick, the guy who played the dad on Growing Pains.

Mr.

Thick can hardly contain his excitement.

Okay, let's say you did that's what it would look like.

What do you think?

Hello.

Is that exciting?

Sold.

It gets more exciting, let me tell you.

No, it gets more exciting.

Located directly below this are brochures explaining your helicopter.

I am excited.

Somebody picks up a brochure, they read it, they get excited, and they want to buy it.

I am excited.

I don't jump up and down like that guy, Mike, you know, in the psychedelic sweaters, that's his thing.

I don't want to be a copycat, but when you said brochures, I'm excited.

When it came to bad ideas, Don Lapri was full of them.

On top of the Incredible Product Store, he also launched the National Lifetime Reminder Service, which would provide customers with a postcard reminder of important dates, such as birthdays and anniversaries, with the option to purchase a carefully curated gift basket, a $100 value for only $39.95.

Don Lapri claimed that his reminder service generated more than $80,000 a day, which might be true.

considering he sold them in bulk.

In true pyramid scheme fashion, customers of the reminder service were encouraged to buy 100 membership kits at a time to resell.

But don't worry, Don Lapri wouldn't leave his sales representatives to their own devices.

He included helpful sales strategies with every purchase.

As you will hear, the product practically sells itself.

One of the easiest ways to sell is when you're talking to somebody, ask them a question.

Say, can I ask you a question?

And you start off by saying, what would you think of a reminder service that would send you a postcard one week before any anybody's birthday any holiday any special event anybody's anniversary that you wanted to be reminded of do you think that's a good idea if there was a service that would actually remind you one week before by sending you a postcard in the mail And if they say, yeah, it sounds like a good idea, you can continue by saying,

what would you say if the service was $39 and they, for the rest of your life, they reminded you about anything that you wanted to be reminded of?

So you're simply just asking that person a question that person will never know that you're trying to sell them or that you're presenting the reminder service to them if that same person said no i don't think it's that good of an idea you can just say yeah i i was thinking about it i guess not boom

boom money in the bank quite literally at its peak don lapri's new strategies company reported 60 million dollars a year in profits and his pervasive infomercials transformed him into a household name.

Oh, you know that guy that you see on

late night television at Don LaPri?

This is a guy.

Have you seen this guy?

He shows you how you can make millions and millions of dollars by placing tiny little ads in newspapers around the country.

You've seen the guy?

Absolutely.

Yeah, I don't know if it's on the level or what.

I was watching television late last night.

Take a look at what I saw.

Here's the guy, Don LaPri, right there.

Take a look.

David Letterman spent thousands of dollars on quintuple bypass surgery when all of his problems could have been solved by placing tiny classified ads in newspapers all over the country.

Is there action?

Is that

looking to that?

The lawsuit is there.

It's a lawsuit waiting to happen.

Am I right, ladies and gentlemen?

Throughout the 90s, Don LaPri became known as the king of infomercials.

But his reign would be short-lived.

And naturally, just as soon as the story gets good, here comes a commercial to interrupt the flow.

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The following is a paid program.

The program you're watching is a paid advertisement for making money secrets.

Success stories of Don Lapri and others described on this show represent the great results of only those individuals.

As with any business, you could make more or less.

As with any business, Don Lapri's new strategies company had good years and bad years.

There were minor setbacks and record-breaking quarters.

Sometimes there were thousands of customer complaints to the Better Business Bureau, along with multiple years of unpaid unemployment and withholding taxes.

Other times there were millions of dollars lost in bad investments in Mexican land deals.

But that's business.

These things happen.

And all of those things seemed to happen to Don Lapri all at once.

His companies were being accused of misrepresenting what they were selling, and there were complaints about the advertised prices becoming grossly inflated after multiple upsells and back-end services.

Also, customers were finding it difficult to obtain the 30-day money-back guarantee that was promoted so confidently, leading many to suggest that Don LaPri was running a scam.

Find out how to do it.

Crossed in the midst of late-night and weekend television is a parade of people offering business opportunities and get-rich-quick plans.

They are convincing.

Barbara Hall thought so.

She was particularly impressed with the pitch from Don LaPree.

He sells a kit that tells you how to start your own 900 number business.

Hall purchased the starter kit for $65.

She was surprised to find out how much more it would cost to get started.

From $125 up to $2,000.

And I'm retired.

I have no job.

And I can't possibly see myself going to a bank and say, I want to borrow $2,000.

Hall says the new strategies company tried to charge her to set up a phone line, but her credit card company turned them down because it would put her over her limits.

On top of having the consumer agencies on his back, some of Don Lapri's business ventures, like the Incredible Product Store and his Three Ways website campaign, had failed.

Combined with his out-of-control spending at home, Don Lapri found himself hemorrhaging cash in the late 90s.

And if something didn't change quickly, he would be moving back into that one-bedroom apartment he was always talking about.

Don Lapri definitely wouldn't be moving to the residences he planned to build in Mexico, though, because that plan went down the tubes along with the $4 million he had invested into it after the developers realized that nobody wanted to buy a home 50 miles away from the city.

As a result, Don Lapri filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the summer of 1999.

and he reorganized his company, which meant layoffs were on the horizon.

Former employees say there were tears in Don's eyes the moment he broke the bad news.

A salesman named Elliot Storch talked about his boss and described that day to the Phoenix New Times, quote, From what I've seen of Don, he doesn't appear to be a bad person.

He has done everything he possibly can within his power to get to where he is today, even if he has to convince himself he's helping people out.

I genuinely believe he was distraught when he told us the company was going bankrupt.

He got up and cried in front of everybody.

He said, if I had a gun right now, I'd shoot myself.

Instead, Don Lapri picked himself up once again and returned to the familiar territory of infomercials, this time with a new team of consultants and managers and a $1 million loan from his credit card processing merchant, as well as a brand new product ready for sale.

When Don Lapri first came to me and my formulation team, I thought he was joking when he said, spare spare no expense and assemble whatever research was necessary to create the greatest vitamin in the world.

We have never had so much unlimited freedom to create a formula this complete.

We took over a hundred years of research experience from our formulation team and put it into one formula.

The best way I can explain this is if you had the world's leading research team at your disposal and someone came to you and asked you to create the ultimate product for the body, you would end up with the greatest vitamin in the world.

Well, if it isn't our old friend Doug Grant, the chief formulator at Optimal Health Systems, master manipulator and alleged wife killer, Don LaPri had approached Doug Grant about creating a vitamin product that he could sell in connection with another internet-based marketing business.

The vitamin is so amazing, we decided to call it the greatest vitamin in the world.

The greatest vitamin in the world contained the same ingredients that just about every vitamin contains.

Herbs, probiotics, vitamins, minerals, food substances, etc.

But that's not what made the greatest vitamin in the world special.

No, what made the greatest vitamin the greatest vitamin was its miraculous healing powers.

A brochure promoting the product suggested that it could help prevent or treat everything from stress and obesity to diabetes and cancer.

The Greatest Vitamins website backed up these claims with testimonials from people with first-hand experience.

One of them read, quote, I've been living with a disease called Crohn's disease for 50 years.

It's a very debilitating disease.

The greatest vitamin in the world has laid all the pain and all of the disabilities of the disease and put them off into a corner.

Another testimonial read, I've lived in a house that had mold in it.

I became very, very ill.

Once I started on the vitamin just recently, the pain completely left my body.

Healing power in pill form for only $40 a bottle.

Not bad.

How much is a bottle of these vitamins?

Well, actually, it should cost over $200 because we use some of the most expensive ingredients known to man.

But listen to this.

It's under $40 plus shipping and handling.

But wait, there's more.

In addition to offering total optimal health to its users, the greatest vitamin in the world also presented the easiest financial opportunity in the world, according to Don Lapri.

For every 20 people you could get to try the vitamin, a check in the amount of $1,000 would be sent to your home.

It was that easy.

All you had to do was send Don Lapri $35 to become an independent advertiser, which included a custom-built website for your new vitamin business.

All of the hard work was done for you.

The next step was just to sit back and watch the money roll in.

I can make $100 an hour and don't have to be on a nine-to-five job.

In just two days, I earned $6,000.

It's so easy,

it blows me away, especially my wife.

The vitamin itself is absolutely amazing, but to make more than $500 an hour since I started, I mean, that's unbelievable.

This is probably the easiest money I've ever made.

I've made over $2,000 an hour.

That's more than a lot of doctors make or lawyers.

But according to Dr.

Stephen Barrett's Quackwatch website, not only were the ingredients of the greatest vitamin in the world similar to those that could be found in drugstores for a few pennies per dose, the numbers Don LaPri advertised regarding the associated business opportunity simply did not add up.

The retail cost to the vitamins were roughly $40 plus $8.95 for shipping and handling.

20 purchases at that price would amount to a little more than $900 for the business.

If Don LaPri were sending out $1,000 checks to those who had recruited 20 buyers, that meant that he was taking a loss for every independent advertiser that fulfilled that quota.

But maybe that was part of Don Lapri's plan all along.

Don't go away because when we come back, you're going to be shocked by what some of the people are saying who got Don's money-making package.

So stay tuned.

We'll be right back with more incredible ways to make money.

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Don Lepring has done it again.

Starting out of a one-bedroom apartment.

Don took tiny classifieds and generated millions of dollars.

Now Don has outdone outdone himself by creating the most incredible way in the world.

That you could make a fortune week after week with a product that everyone needs.

The greatest vitamin in the world.

And listen to this: there is over $1.5 billion a week spent on vitamins and minerals.

So, Don took his money-making skill, combined it with the greatest vitamin in the world, and the result is a super simple way for you to tap into this exploding market and put money in your pocket week after week

for a woman named Kelly Fu, becoming an independent advertiser for the greatest vitamin in the world seemed too good to be true.

All she had to do was convince 20 people to try the vitamin, and she would be $1,000 richer.

However, the setup cost had piled up and far surpassed the advertised $35 fee.

Kelly Fu told CBS News that after all of the extras the company pushed on her, The cost of her sales website amounted to more than $5,000, and she never never made any of that money back.

By Kelly's calculations, her greatest vitamin website received one visit the entire time it was operating.

Charles from New Jersey had a similar experience.

The unemployed man filed a complaint against Lapries company in 2007, claiming to have spent more than $6,000 trying to get his vitamin business up and running.

When Charles tried to cancel his plan and obtain a refund before the 60-day deadline, he was unable to reach a customer service representative who could help him.

There were hundreds of thousands of independent advertisers just like Kelly and Charles who found out the hard way that the greatest vitamin in the world was nothing more than a front for Don Lapri to sell overpriced and ineffective websites.

Ineffective because there were 200,000 clones selling the same vitamins at retail price with virtually no demand, while the already discouraged independent advertisers unloaded their inventories on eBay for pennies on the dollar, the business was worthless.

Meanwhile, the Food and Drug Administration had already sent warnings to Don Lapri about the efficacy claims repeated in the vitamins commercials, brochures, and websites.

In 2005, the FDA warned that the greatest vitamin in the world was, quote, not generally recognized as safe and effective in treating diabetes, stroke, heart disease, insomnia, cancer, and more, as it had publicly claimed.

The following year, the FDA warned Don Lapri again when the changes he made in response to the original citation were still considered misleading.

In 2007, Don Lapri's vitamin business was finally shut down after an investigation by the U.S.

Postal Inspection Service culminated in a raid on his home and offices.

A grand jury had indicted Lapri on 41 counts of conspiracy, mail fraud, wire fraud, and promotional money laundering.

He was accused of greatly exaggerating the income potential of the greatest vitamin program and misleading buyers about the effectiveness of the internet-based businesses.

In total, the indictment alleged that from 2004 to 2007, more than 225,000 people invested almost $52 million into the greatest vitamin in the world, which paid out just $6.3 million in commissions.

If convicted, Don Lapri would face up to 25 years in federal prison, in addition to potentially millions of dollars in penalties and fines.

Don Lapri probably would have pled not guilty to those charges had he bothered to show up to his arraignment in June 2011.

Instead, Don went into hiding, which led to a warrant being issued for his arrest.

The police tracked him down less than 24 hours later.

Breaking news at Attempty right now as U.S.

Marshals track down a Wanted Valley TV pitch man donald lapri is charged with running a nationwide scheme to sell essentially worthless internet-based businesses he was supposed to be in court yesterday but he didn't show marshals tell us they caught him at a warner road in priesta tonight but they wouldn't release any more details about that

allow me u.s marshals found don lapri at a lifetime fitness gym in tempe arizona where he had been hiding for the past several days.

When taken into custody, authorities noticed that Lepri had, quote, very deep cuts in his groan area.

The pitch man apparently had attempted to take his own life by slicing his femoral artery.

After undergoing emergency surgery, Don Lapri was taken to jail where he would remain until his trial a few months later.

Leprie's attorney filed a motion seeking his temporary release, claiming his client was no longer a flight risk, but the request was ultimately denied.

The king of infomercials was stuck behind bars, awaiting his fate for crimes Don claimed he never committed.

It was never his intention to hurt anybody.

On his website, Don Lapri posted a message in defense of himself before he was hauled off to jail.

He also included a photo collage of his children and property.

The note was titled Never Stop Dreaming, and it reads, quote, I tried to create the best product on earth, paid out millions, made very little trying to make it a success, had attorneys review my entire company, paid out millions in refunds, tried to make the commission and products better every single year, and in spite of all of that, I have been accused of something I did not do.

I did not have the perfect company, but never once did I allow one thing to be done that would violate any law.

Nevertheless, because the majority of people did not make money, In spite of every one of them being able to make as many $1,000 checks as they wanted, I am left to to fight a battle that will for sure destroy what energy I have left inside.

I hope the pictures below motivate you to take a chance in life and try to do the impossible.

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.

Never stop dreaming, and for all those who sent me testimonials of what you did because of some of my help, I am grateful I made a small difference in your life.

Signed, DL

On Sunday, October 2nd, 2011, at 8.30 a.m., two days before his trial was set to begin, U.S.

Marshals found Don Lapri's lifeless body lying on the bed inside of a holding cell in Florence, Arizona.

The 47-year-old entrepreneur had slashed his own throat with a razor blade.

and concealed the wounds with clothing so that it would take the guards longer to notice and to allow less time to save his life.

Every show must come to an end.

I fail at more things than anyone I've ever met, Don Lapri told the Phoenix New Times one time after going bankrupt.

But I try more things than anyone I've ever met.

I'm a good loser.

There is so much money out there.

Most people in America have no idea how easy it is to make money in the United States.

Well, after this show, you'll no longer be able to say no one ever ever told you.

After I show you what you could have been doing for the last five years, you won't be able to sleep tonight.

This is gonna drive you crazy.

Swindled is written, researched, produced, and hosted by me, a concerned citizen, with original music by Trevor Howard, aka the former.

aka the chief formulator of the lungs, which is his noisy punk band who just released their debut album called Psychic Tombs.

Go listen to it on Spotify or Apple Music or wherever.

Better yet, go buy the record.

I'll put a link in the show notes.

The Lungs, Psychic Tombs.

For more information about Swindled, you can visit swindledpodcast.com and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter at Swindled Podcast.

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My name is Kristen from Charlotte, North Carolina.

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I'm from Brooklyn, and I'm a concerned citizen.

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