Nu skin enterprises
The American multilevel marketing company Nu Skin Enterprises, Inc. creates and markets dietary supplements and personal care items. With a network of almost 1.2 million independent distributors, the company sells its goods in 54 regions under the Nu Skin and Pharmanex brands. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) looked into Nu Skin in the 1990s after receiving complaints about its multilevel marketing strategies.
In 1992, Nu Skin settled lawsuits with five states that had charged the business with misleading advertising and inflating distributors' take-home pay. In 1994, the business paid $1 million and agreed to a consent decree forbidding it from making false or unsupported claims about its goods in response to an FTC inquiry.
To resolve claims of making false promotional promises, the business paid the FTC an extra $1.5 million in 1997. The Chinese government declared in January 2014 that it was looking into Nu Skin after a People's Daily newspaper story labeled it a "suspected criminal pyramid scam." After being sued by China in a federal court in Utah, Nu Skin agreed to pay a $47 million settlement for running a pyramid scheme in 2016. A United States Securities and Exchange Commission investigation led to Nu Skin being ordered to pay an additional $750,000 for using money from Nu Skin's philanthropic subsidiary to bribe a senior Chinese official.
Founded: 1984
Headquarter: Provo, Utah, U.S.
Website: nuskin.com
