Ok.. I've been stewing about this for a couple of days and have been lighting up the message ABC message board about the hack reporting job that was done on LAWL last week on 20/20..

If you haven't seen the story, go here:

http://abcnews.go.com/2020/

The forum is here:

http://forums.go.com/abcnews/2020/fo...&byThread=true

What really cheeses me off about this is the lack of integrity displayed by the so-called reporter.. She went into the story with an agenda - to sniff out a scam.. And of course, she found a way to do just that.. Anyone with no media experience would have seen this story and would have been convinced that LAWL Centers are a hot bed of evil and villany..

NO attempt was made to show the other side of the story, other than the usual "LAWL officials had little or no comment" - a fact that I wholeheartedly blame LAWL for allowing to happen.. A company this big needs to have a compentent public relations staff that knows how to handle what we call "Crisis Communication".. When you are attacked, the WORST thing you can do is issue a cookie cutter statement about how good you are or even worse, say "no comment"...

That said, even if they had a decent PR staff, I doubt the reporter, if I can really call her that, would have cared to do the research on how the plan really works.

All she did was fake her way onto the plan and then didn't even give it a chance to work. Add that to the handful of disgruntled employees who always have the loudest voices, and you've got a ready made story.

The fact is that yes, there are some LAWL employees who excell in the "hard sell" and are able to exploit it. Ever buy a car? Geez.. If we all acted like this about car salesmen, none of us would be driving! And yes, there are LAWL staff who don't know the job as well as they should and who are not "people persons" and thus, probably shouldn't be working there.. NAME ME ONE FREAKIN' COMPANY THAT DOESN'T.!!!!

If you don't go into LAWL realizing that of course, they are going to try to sell you a bunch of stuff, then you really should have done your homework. It's a business.. They can't make any money by not selling stuff..

I know some of you here have had bad or mixed experiences with LAWL COD's, and I'm not putting any blame on you.. What I'm really pizzed off about is how one-sided and blatently unethical this reporter was.. It's crap like this that really got me out of the news business.. I couldn't stand the biased, kill or be killed attitude that we had to have..

Sorry to vent, but I really am upset about this.. If you read the ABC message boards, you can probably figure out who I am, but if not, my handle there is djmarillion..

Dan - I can't even read the message boards because of all the crap on there. It seems that many of the ones complaining are those that did not take responsibility for their own situation. You need to be an active participant in your weight loss. Period. Sitting around relying on someone else to give you all the answers won't help you in the long run. These are the same people that probably blame their weight gain on someone else as well.

IF YOU DON'T GET THE ANSWER YOU WANT OR THE EXPLANATION YOU NEED, PRESS THEM FURTHER OR GO HIGHER UP. THIS IS YOUR BODY AND YOUR LIFE. DO NOT SETTLE FOR SECOND BEST. BE AN ACTIVE PARTICIPANT IN YOUR LIFE'S CIRCUMSTANCES, WHETHER IT BE WEIGHT LOSS OR OTHERWISE.

Dan........I am with you. I mentioned this on the losers thread the other day.........I think we should all e-mail them with our thoughts.....good or bad........and maybe they will fly us all out and we can have our little LAWL re-union sooner. Wouldn't that be fun? I'll make cake.

Nicole you are too funny!

I already noted Oprah a month back and told her what a great group of people we were, that we had lost weight with the help of each other and that is was ironic none of us had met. I suggested a makeover show and a reunion but they haven't called yet! Just so you knew I was thinking of you all!

^^ Well, don't forget us Roosters when she calls.. She'll need to have a man's perspective!

LOL..... great ideal guys!

oh, heck yeah, and I'll make cake

I hope that will be SF FF cake!

I'd like chocolate.. LAWL style of course!! With little flowers on it.. or in Green Bay Colors.. get baking Mama!

Maybe an ice cream cake made with lites and FF/no Sugar added ice cream!


As for the 20/20 story, the way they were hyping it I was expecting a story a lot longer than 7 minutes! We know it's working for us, and we all did our research before coughing up the cash!

This months Marie Claire had a story in about how Weight Watcher's is being sued for false advertising. Their return rate in England is 97%, yet you barely hear any negative about them! http://magazines.ivillage.com/mariec...708162,00.html

I agree with this. Susie's book is about Intuitive Eating-which is where a person throws all diets and plans out the window...

The book is called something like "Susie Orbach on Eating" or something like that...

Dan,

I emailed 20/20 a few days ago after I saw the piece and basically said the same thing you have. That it was an entirely one-sided expose' that made no effort to find a succesful participant in LAWL. Jeez, they could have even interviewed the women noted in the recent People magazine article that have lost weight on LAWL. I just thought it was a biased hack piece and I'm sad for the people who were seriously considering LAWL as an option who will look not further.

I talked to one of the District Managers at the COD Megan and I go to. She said that it was really unfair because the store that the "reporter" went to was a Franchise store, not a corporate store. She said that they have the same names, but work differently. She stated that corporate was trying to make a rebutle to the claims as LAWL as a whole, but for some reason or another could not. Well I am one to say I have lost each time I have been on this diet, and what is the difference between me losing in a healthy way opposed to getting lipo or something like that. It's crazy to me!

Haha, Kristin, how funny. I did the same thing with Oprah about 6 months ago! Maybe a few other should too and we would get their attention!