I was an avid customer of Beachbody.com and P90X products. This past year alone my company spent more than $2000 with them. A few months back I had an employee of mine list one of our P90X programs on eBay because it was no longer needed. The listing was quickly canceled so I tried contacting the email address provided by eBay for Product Partners, LLC to find out why.
After several attempts and receiving no response at all I finally just gave up. Well, a few months after this happened with eBay and Product Partners I received an email from a firm known as Johnson & Pham, LLP located in Woodland Hills, CA. The email is accusing me of selling COUNTERFEIT P90x products! Of course this email went to my trash email folder and rightfully so because that's exactly what it was is TRASH!!!
So I delete the message along with all the other trash email. A couple weeks go by and I receive a letter delivered by the USPS from... Johnson & Pham again!!! In this letter they are again accusing me of buying, selling and trafficking COUNTERFEIT GOODS! Also, they are demanding I send them $893.16 or potentially face civil action! Of course I did not respond and will not respond and WELCOME CIVIL ACTION! These guys are nuts and I cannot believe a company like Product Partners, LLC (Beachbody.com & P90x) would allow such a firm of idiots represent them.
As mentioned earlier I WAS a very good customer of Beachbody.com. Spending over $2000 with them last year alone with intentions to spend more this year. I purchased their equipment, DVD programs, supplements, etc., etc., etc. But because of their representation by Johnson & Pham and their demand of $893.16 for a crime I never committed they have now lost a valuable customer. And they have no chance at all of ever seeing $893.16 from me! It's a bunch of garbage and a scam headed by Johnson & Pham.
After a little research I found out this is happening to just about everyone who is listing a P90X product on eBay. Granted, some, or even a lot might indeed be counterfeit. But if Johnson & Pham are truely interested in protecting their clients they should actually do their job and not take the easy road. They just can't go accusing current satisfied customers of Product Partners, LLC of a crime they never committed and sending out these very unprofessional demand letters to them. I mean really, who in their right mind gives and merrit to a company sending something like this through email? They are on the same level of a low-life collections agency.instead of being lazy (or it's probably because they are so small), they should gather some form of additional evidence to make sure they are not pissing off someone who will spend more money with Product Partners, LLC in the near future than the small amount they are demanding.
A post I found on a thread located at AVVO.com. One by Christopher Johnson from Johnson & Pham LLP and another from a person making a pretty good point:
Christopher Johnson
Posted 8 days ago. Flag as objectionable
Yes, you or your lawyer should respond. I am the partner at Johnson & Pham, LLP, responsible for IP enforcement and our firm is the one that sent you the letter. We aggressively represent the P90X brand. We routinely file Copyright and Trademark infringement cases in the United States District Court in Los Angeles, seeking money damages and injunctions against distributors of counterfeit goods. If you think your counterfeiting activities are too small to be noticed, think again.
If you don't respond, and we opt to file suit, please do not ignore the complaint or time limits to file a response. The last two pirates failed to respond resulted in default judgements in each case of $150,000.
If you doubt our resolve, I suggest that you have your attorney review the Johnson & Pham LLP., website at www.johnsonpham.com.
0 8 Helpful Not helpful
Mebeingme
Posted 1 day ago. Flag as objectionable
Is this not extortion? I have seen this all over the Internet and they are falsely accusing innocent people of selling counterfeit goods. Then demanding money based on a false accusation. I am no lawyer but I ran across a thread regarding this matter and supposedly a group of people are trying to put together a law suit for extortion.
According to Wikipedia, Extortion is a criminal offense which occurs when a person unlawfully obtains either MONEY, property or services from a person, entity, or institution, through coercion. Of course I didn't know what "coercion" meant (lol) so again, according to Wikipedia, coercion is the practice of forcing another party to behave in an involuntary manner (whether through action or inaction) by use of threats, intimidation, trickery, or some other form of pressure or force.
So, they are "threatening" civil action for a crime that was never committed and "intimidating" people into paying "money" for said crime. And the post here by Mr. Pham only further proves this from what I can see. The original post is from a person who is stating they never purchased or sold a counterfeit P90X product. However Mr. Pham is on here recommending he still seek legal advice and pay the fine. For what? It looks to me like they are demanding only $900 or so from these people because most will just pay it and not seek legal advice. Because, lets face it, most attorney's will charge more than $900 to help.
So essentially they are taking advantage of countless innocent people who simply don't know the law and scaring them into sending them money for nothing. And it sounds like they are sending these "demands" to everybody who lists a P90X product on eBay. If it's a crime to list this product then it should not be an option and/or people should be warned of this before submitting the listing. It is not the fault of the person listing their authentic product. The blame should be put on P90X or eBay for allowing a product to be listed at all if it is indeed illegal.
If you have received a letter from Johnson & Pham, LLC demanding $893.16, THROW IT IN THE GARBAGE!!! They are hoping to frighten you into sending them money for nothing at all. It's sad because, according to their website, they are "piggybacking" on some very good companies to pad their pockets on false claims. If you can provide additional information regarding the extortion case mentioned above please post. Or if this story just strikes a nerve make sure to let Product Partners, LLC know how you feel. Hopefully when they lose enough customers and get enough complaints they will disconnect their relationship with Johnson & Pham. Then nobody will have to worry about Johnson and Pham's "resolve" because eventially they will "dissolve"!!
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