Running on Fumes

The sad truth of pyramid schemes, Scheibeler says, is that most victims join for noble reasons. "Some people say, 'Well, they're greedy and stupid and they deserve it,'" he says. "That's not it at all. The MLMs promise what we all want. They promise peace of mind, freedom from debt, more time with your family, the ability to help those people you love and care about. Who doesn't want that? They prey on their highest motivations."

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MLM veteran Ernie Land is tall, with bushy gray hair and a mustache and a voice disconcertingly similar to cartoon character Hank Hill from King of the Hill. Some versions of the company Web site featured Land standing in front of a sprawling ranch house with a gleaming pickup on each side, a living testament to the success of BioPerformance. Not surprisingly, he is an ardent defender of the company. "We feel good that, at the end of the day, we'll be justified in all that we've done," Land says.

The Florida resident uses the name "DOC FOG" within the company, so much so that many members don't know his real name. The letters stand for "Director of Circulation for the Favor of God," a moniker he invented as a DJ on local Christian radio.

Mims and Romero sought Land's advice when they concocted BioPerformance, and in return they invited Land to join the initial sales team with Scott Chandler. (The third member is Dallas resident David Bass.) "These guys have made every effort to dot every 'i' and cross every 't' to be perfectly aboveboard and legal," Land says. "This isn't something that they just drummed up overnight and put together. This is something that they've worked on and thought through."

Land's advice centered on protecting BioPerformance from the legal challenges that bedevil most MLM companies. "MLM is constantly attacked as an industry by both the media and the legal system because it's outside the norm, it's outside the mainstream," Land says. "It's entrepreneurial, and it's usually cutting-edge products that aren't totally proven." He sees the litigation as an unjustified but inevitable attack. "There's two things I brought to this company," Land boasts. "No. 1 is that they make people sign sworn affidavits to verify claims the product works.

"The second thing I brought to them is to disclaim everything." There is no hint that Land is aware of the contradiction in the two statements. "You let people judge for themselves whether a product works rather than placing yourself in a liability situation."

The result of Land's advice is a disclaimer so broad it's hard to believe BioPerformance ever got off the ground. It's worth quoting at length:

"Any and all testimonies are NOT intended directly or indirectly to guarantee you in any way with similar savings. The testimonies have not been proven in any way by BioPerformance, Inc. to be true, because they are simply people sharing their results from using BioPerformance Fuel. The testimonies are valuable replies from your fellow Americans. Each reply is believed to be true in its content. These stories are not backed by independent research, so you must evaluate them for yourself and then let us hear your story.

"Also, the BioPerformance, Inc. Compensation Plan does not in any way guarantee you any income from any examples that may be derived from the explanation of the Compensation Plan. BioPerformance, Inc. does NOT guarantee any incomes at all."

At the top of the BioPerformance sales hierarchy, variations of this disclaimer serve as verbal punctuation. "If you're cautious, you go overboard and make sure that you put up disclaimers that literally make it seem as if something doesn't work so that they can't come back and say you've made false claims," Land explains. The thought of avoiding false-claims charges by not making false claims doesn't seem to have occurred to him.

It is a matter of opinion which is more powerful: the company's blanket statement disavowing any claim that the pill works, or the stacks of affidavits swearing that it does. On their own, the testimonials are certainly impressive. Among the examples obtained by the Observer, Deann Black of Conroe says her mileage increased by 26 percent. Doyle Kiker of Arlington swears his mileage improved by 36 percent. And Thomas Arlin Bice of Hurst attests to a whopping 41 percent gain.

The Dallas distributor who wanted to fund his church's Web site initially saw benefits from the pills as well, but the improvements soon vanished. Rather than dismiss the product, however, he is more inclined to question the integrity of the company. "My take on that is that they couldn't get enough of the product and they've diluted it some," he says. As evidence, he points to the fact that his first pills were green, while later they were brown. "Their claim is that enzymes change colors. Every chemist I've talked to states that you add things together, the same chemical mixture, you're going to get the same color."

It stands to reason, then, that the pills being sold by BioPerformance would be the same color as those distributed by Bio Plus Fuel International of Maryland. Despite the Irving company's insistence that it holds the exclusive rights to the pill (or as Land put it during a Florida radio interview, "We own the product from the ground to the consumer"), the EPA has it registered to one Michael G. Bonds, senior vice president of Peco, S.A. in Annapolis, Maryland. Bonds is also the head of Bio Plus Fuel International, a company that has sold its Bio Plus Fuel Additive pill since 1998.