Digging Deep into Okuma Nutritionals LLC Wu-Long Slimming Tea
Please note that all information on this site is from public records and is provided to give the consumer contact information for Okuma Nutritionals, LLC and other consumer information regarding their product.
09-01-07 US Trademark Office Finds Okuma cannot register "WULONG
09-05-07 New Telephone Number for Okuma Wu-Long Slimming Tea.
09-20-07 Google finds hidden text in website and removes wulongforlife.com from search results.
Toll Free Number for Okuma Nutritionals Wu-Long Slimming Tea.
This graphic is from Okuma Nutritionals, LLC
9-01 IMPORTANT UPDATE - US Trademark office finds that WULONG is a descriptive word for a type of tea and therefore have denied the registration of the Mark. The "RARE" tea they sell is no different from any other Oolong tea. Okuma states on their website that their tea is the one and only WU-LONG and everyone else is an imitation - I guess the US Government sees that this is merely a type of tea.
The graphic to the left is the stylized logo that likely will be the registered trademarked for this company providing they remove "The Original" and "Authentic Chinese Slimming Tea" and implicate no claim to the word WU-LONG.
I decided to post this website after a friend (we will just call her Sue) of mine bought this tea at www.wulongforlife.com. She spent $80.00 and drank 4 cups a day hoping to lose the weight she had gained from a past pregnancy. Unfortunately the only thing she lost was her 80 bucks and a little more self esteem from failing yet another "diet" plan. She wanted to get additional information from the company, but could not find any way to contact them. I did finally locate an email address in the fine print at the bottom of the page. I gave the info to Sue and she let me know that she never received a response from the several emails she sent. So, I decided to do some research to let her know and anybody else who reads this article that it was not her fault she did not lose any weight by just drinking this tea.. The claims made were extreme and did not really have the proof that at first glance made this Wu-Long slimming tea the perfect healthy diet aid.
Sue told me she
chose this site because it came up first in the search results, so she thought
it was the best one on the web. It
probably
came up first in her search
because of all the hidden text in the far right side
of the page located about 3/4 of the way down the page by the box "How to Drop
20lbs in 3 weeks; the hidden text is in the black background or it is on the
left at the bottom of the page in the white background." The text is the same color as the background, so we can't see
it but the search engines can and will make this site appear higher in the
search engines (by the way Google and all other search engines consider this
as spamming.) Sue also liked the idea
that Oprah endorses this tea and her picture was top right on the page. Too bad
she just saw the picture of
Oprah and didn't read the caption that says she drinks tea. There is no mention
of her drinking Wu-Long or any other brand of tea. I can't fault her with
choosing Okuma Wu-long tea since they operate a total of thirteen different
websites for their tea. Even if she hadn't picked the first one on her
search she still had a good chance of picking one of their many other sites.
Here is a list of their other websites:
Since I could not find any contact information on the company and they would not acknowledge my emails, I started digging into the company to find out. Here are the steps and links to how I found out the owners of Okuma Nutritionals LLC:
1. To find out who owned the 13 websites I went to NetworkSolutions and entered all thirteen domain names. Each one came up with a privacy protection services. I thought I was at a dead end until I went back to their site and noticed that their email address was support@okumatea.com. This meant that they also had to have a website called okumatea.com to receive emails. I entered okumatea.com and found a PO Box in Highland Ranch, CO and phone number of 303 284-5551 for the company. Click to see what I found.
2. Now I know that the company is based in Colorado. So I went to the Secretary of State in Colorado and looked up Okuma Nutritionals in the LLC database and found the documents that stated that David J. Kennedy and Stormy J. Brettmann are the owners. The documents also gave their addresses.
Go HERE and Enter Okuma as the business name
It took a little digging but I now know that Stormy Joleene Brettmann (now Brettmann-Skogg) at 4581 S Melbourne Highland Ranch, CO 80126 telephone number 303 284-5551 is part owner of Okuma Nutritionals LLC. You may notice that the address listed above is a little different from the documents from the Secretary of State in Colorado. I wanted a second verification to make sure I was writing about the right person. To make sure that the address was actually Stormy Brettmann's I went to the Douglas County Tax Assessors page and inserted "Brettmann" where it asked for owners name, since I thought it was probably more correct than the one hand entered into the documents filed with the state. This is the address used for Okuma, however there is also an address for Rick Scogg and Stormy Brettmann at 330 Paragon Way Castle Rock, CO 80108 that is probably their home address. If you are really interested in even more info on Stormy Brettman here is a link to the first annual Splendor beauty pageant she won in Denver, CO in the MS. Category (remember the testimonials indicated she was a national beauty pagent winner.) We also located some lovely wedding photos of her 7-7-7 wedding and honeymoon photos in Cancun as well.
David J Kennedy was
listed as a partner for Okuma Nutritionals LLC at 13900 Lake Song Lane Suite
S3 Broomfield, Co 80020. Unfortunately, I was unable to locate any
additional information about him. I can tell you that the magazine
Muscle Media Magazine that he was Editor-in-Chief was last published
October 2003 (a full two years before this product was released.) The magazine
Energy that David Kennedy was Executive Editor was only published twice.
The first issue was Jan/Feb 2002 and Mar/Apr 2002. The book titled "Body for
Life" that David Kennedy stated he was Contributing Editor, I could only
find one reference to him that was on page 115 where his name is mentioned
by the author Bill Phillips. Just go to
Amazon.com, click search inside this book and enter "David Kennedy" to
see the sentence with his name in it.
The site reads like a high pressure sells pitch with "America's #1 Weight Loss Solution" flashing at the top of the page and "Almost Sold Out..Act Now" flashing towards the bottom of the page. This site has been up since 2005 and with additional twelve other sites, I am surprised they still have any of this "rare" tea still in stock. Testimonials flow down the right side of the page, stating their amazing success with this tea. The weight melts away by just drinking two cups of this slimming tea a day without changing your eating habits; another lost ten pounds in 2 1/2 weeks, while another person now has clear skin. David Kennedy's testimonial appears on almost every page that Okuma Nutritionals, LLC operates, but fails to mention that he is one of the owners of Okuma's Wu-long Slimming Tea it does say in some that he is a managing partner of Okuma and editor -in-chief of some magazines (read further).
The website does list studies that have been done using tea, however I am not sure that all these studies were using their particular Wu-Long tea and not a different wu-long or other type of tea. The site does not have enough information for me to be able to locate the specific studies they use to back up their claims about their tea. They also did not post one complete study on the site. I did however email them to send me additional information, so that I might locate these studies, but I never received a response from them. One particular study that did catch my eye was the one claiming "May Help Reduce the Fattening Effects of Carbs." The last sentence stated, "This means you may be able to have your cake and eat it, too!" I will let you decide for yourself if this is possible.
When you order, you will receive sixty servings for $37.00. I do not know how much tea is in the package, since they do not include the weight for the tea. After looking at other tea websites, I did find out that Wu-long tea is called Oolong in the US. Wikipedia does a very informative write up about Oolong tea. Many retail websites sell Oolong tea. I checked Stash (they are a top ranked site on Google) and found over twenty different Oolong teas ranging in price from $6.00 - $20.00 for 50 grams. As for the free authentic Wu-Long stainless steel infuser that is a $19.95 value; I found it on dozens of tea websites as a tea ball for $4.95 and less.
I am not the only one who has questions about whether or not the claims are legitimate and not misleading to the public. The Electronic retailing Self-Regulation Program (ERSP) did an inquiry into the claims of Okuma Wu-long tea. Please note that the inquiry will download as a word document. The concerns of ERSP were that there was no clarification that Wu-Long tea is commercially available as oolong tea and that the term "rare" may mislead consumers to think that Wu-Long or oolong tea could only be acquired from Okuma Nutritionals. The actual studies compared green tea and oolong tea and not the Wu-Long tea as packaged. ERSP also stated that the testimonials could not be documented.
McAfee SiteAdvisor has placed a caution next to the wulongforlife.com stating: "The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) recommends a healthy portion of skepticism when evaluating claims for weight loss products (http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/health/evidence.htm). Ensure you read this site carefully, consult other sources of information regarding the product or service described on this site, and beware of exaggerated or misleading claims."
Ripoff Report has several complaints concerning Okuma Nutritionals LLC. Most of the complaints deal with not being able to get a refund, undelivered products, and not being able to contact anyone from the company.
Better Business Bureau has an unsatisfactory record concerning this company.
Additional consumer complaints:
www.complaints.com/2007/february/27/okuma_nutritionals__tea_17753.htm
http://www.scamclub.com/reports/Okuma-Nutritionals-2952.html
I am not telling people not to use this product. I just wanted to let people know what I found out while doing a little bit of surfing. Make your own decisions concerning this product. If you are unsure of any product or service and the claims made by the owners of websites just do a little digging. You will be surprised at all the information that is available on the internet. I spent one afternoon on the web and got all the information I needed to make an informed decision regarding this product. Try to be as informed as possible and know the people and companies you deal with to avoid some of the problems others have faced when dealing with faceless companies with no telephone or address listed on their website.
This article was intended to show positive reviews as well as negative, however I could not find any blogs or other sites (other than the testimonials listed on their websites) that said I lost weight or loved this product or anything else. I did find the same testimonials on blogs that were just copied from the Wu-Long site.
If you would like to comment on this article positive or negative:
This site is for informative purposes and a consumer guide on how to investigate a company or product; this is not an endorsement for this product or an attempt to prevent the consumer from purchasing this product. All photos and likenesses are from web sites operated by Okuma Nutritionals, LLC and are represented as listed on their website and I claim no responsibility for any errors on their part.
Every thing below this line is the hidden text found in the wulong for life website and is there only with the hopes that this website will appear in the same searches as Okuma gets.
