Good News (I guess)

I have some good news to share (which I wish wasn't even an issue):

We have made great strides in the last couple weeks on the anti-piracy front. Yesterday, a local woman involved in importing counterfeit Beachbody DVD's was convicted by a federal jury and faces 90 years in prison and fines of $12.5 million. Ouch!

Our legal team has been working with both the Office of the US Attorney and Immigration and Customs Enforcement in their efforts, and we are proud of the result.

Piracy is a very expensive problem, for more reasons than you can even imagine. You see, the people who think they are buying "legitimate goods for cheap" often encounter technical issues or just decide they want to get their money back. So then who do they call? They call Beachbody customer service. But there is no order with Beachbody. They still spend a half hour on the phone arguing with a rep who assures them there is no record of their order in the system, so no money to refund. Of course the customer complaint doesn't end there, because they are so sure they ordered from the company they seek support from the Better Business Bureau. Then we have a team that has to spend another few hours demonstrating the issue to the BBB. It's a never ending cycle that requires hundreds of dollars of resources for each complaint, and nobody wins, and well-intentioned people end up disliking the very company that wants to get them healthy.

Wishing the problem would go away hasn't worked, so now the efforts of our team and officials seems to be having an effect.

Here is a link to the press release: http://www.ice.gov/pi/nr/1007/100715losangeles.htm. (You will note that getting caught importing multiple container loads of counterfeit products is a bad idea, but then bribing an undercover agent to get the counterfeit and seized goods back is a VERY bad idea.)

This is just one of several criminal counterfeiting investigations that we are involved in with law enforcement (our anti-piracy team never rests! I mean really, they are on it constantly - right now even visiting with customs officials to make sure they can tell the source of good product from illegal product).

I hope these investigations and prosecutions only increase as we are in the midst of a nationwide effort to both provide anti-counterfeiting training to Customs officers and agents and increase the awareness of the importance of this issue for Beachbody through our Coaches and even meetings with Congress in Washington DC.

Remember – should you ever see something that you think is counterfeit or illegal (including any of our products for sale at a price lower than we offer it, just for example), please submit it so piracy@beachbody.com.