By CHRIS DANIELS consumer reporter
Slick-talking television salesman Kevin Trudeau's Shop America, which peddles Mega Memory and diet plans in infomercials, has suspended its operations in New Zealand.
Trudeau's infomercials have been pulled from local screens, as the company is investigated by Australian fair trading officials.
Richard J Zeeb, a Shop America senior
vice-president, said the company had "temporarily suspended operations in New Zealand and Australia."
A long list of grievances with the New South Wales Fair Trading Department had prompted the decision, he said.
The department had Trudeau's advertisements banned from NSW screens last October. It said the company had failed to substantiate claims about the memory product and a weight-loss programme.
Mr Zeeb said Shop America would take legal action against the consumer watchdog. "While we decide on the action, we chose to temporarily close business operations in Australia and New Zealand. New Zealand cannot continue to operate without the help of Australia. We have closed our call centre in Sydney and have let some 125 employees go."
Mr Zeeb said that, while all refunds to Australian customers had been made, things in New Zealand were "a little different."
"We are about 40 per cent current with refunds," he said. It was planned to complete refunds within 21 days.
The dispute with the NSW Fair Trading Department is not the only legal trouble Mr Trudeau has run into.
Three years ago, United States authorities acted against him over Mega Memory and some herbal remedies.
He has also spent time in jail for credit-card fraud, and had to repay $US700,000 ($NZ1.74 million) to consumers after he was involved in pyramid selling and a discredited anti-addiction self-help programme.
An Auckland pensioner has been left waiting two months to get his money back from Trudeau's operation.
Bill Rainbow, 76, paid out $160 for a diet plan that would turn his "body into a 24-hour, fat-burning Machine."
But after the Commerce Commission warned Shop America about advertising prices in Australian dollars, he decided to send the diet plan back, and sat back to await the refund. His money has yet to arrive.
