Riverside County Diet Guru Wins Dubius Honor
Heidi Diaz, (aka Kimmer, Kimberly Drake and many other aliases), the creator of the fraud fraught Kimkins Diet, is not only currently embroiled in the Kimkins Class Action Lawsuit, she has also just won another award: The 2008 Slim Chance Award for Worst Diet Product.
WORST PRODUCT: Kimkins diet. It must have seemed an easy way to get rich quick. Founder Heidi “Kimmer” Diaz set up a website and charged members a fee to access the Kimkins diet, boasting they could lose up to 5 percent of their body weight in 10 days. “Better than gastric bypass,” there was “no faster diet,” and in fact she herself had lost 198# in 11 months. Stunning “after” photos were displayed. In June 2007 Women’s World ran it as a cover story, and that month alone PayPal records show the Kimkins site took in over $1.2 million. Then users began complaining of chest pains, hair loss, heart palpitations, irritability and menstrual irregularities. This was not surprising since Kimkins is essentially a starvation diet, down to 500 calories per day and deficient in many nutrients (shockingly, laxatives are advised to replace the missing fiber). In a lawsuit, 11 former members are uncovering a vast record of Diez’s alleged fraud. They found that the stunning “after” photos, including one of Kimmer herself, had been lifted from a Russian mail order bride site. According to a deposition reported by Los Angeles TV station KTLA, Diaz admitted using fake pictures, fake stories and fake IDs, and a judge has allowed the litigants to freeze some of her assets.
To see the complete list of 2008 winners go to Fraud and Quackery
Ms. Diaz is famous for her use of pictures “borrowed” from Russian Bride web sites for her own “after” pictures and for those of the numerous fabricated “success stories” posted on her website.
For $79.95 one can join her website and receive a “lifetime” membership, which is apparently subject to whims of Ms. Diaz. Those who have questioned the legitimacy of the pictures of the success stories, and/or have questioned the safety of the diet quickly find themselves banned from the website; their lifetime membership terminated.
One can also purchase a book version of Kimkins, with no access to the website, but it has been alleged that no such book even exists, and is just another way that Ms. Diaz is out to scam those who simply just want to lose weight.
It is sadly ironic that the obese Ms. Diaz has chosen to target other obese people with her diet scam. Ms. Diaz “claimed” to have lost 198 lbs. in 11 months on her Kimkins Diet and kept the weight off for over 5 years, but photographs by a private investigator revealed that Ms. Diaz was not the svelte 118 lbs. beauty she claimed to be, but in fact was a morbidly obese 300+ lb. woman.
Woman’s World Magazine featured the Kimkins Diet in June of 2007 and helped Ms. Diaz scam the nation to the tune of approximately $2 million per month. Woman’s World Magazine did publish a brief retraction, both in their magazine and on the web, but they have since removed the web page. Woman’s World is not entirely blameless for their part in all this, as they too published a “Russian Bride” picture instead of one of the diet creator, who claimed her name was Kimberly Drake for the Woman’s World article. Also, it is alleged that Woman’s World used a very LARGE pair of men’s jeans for the photo shoot involving Christin Sherburne, the Kimkins Cover Girl, for their cover, instead of an actual pair of her own pants the Ms. Sherburne brought with her.
Many of the members who have been locked out of Kimkins have banded together and are pursuing a class action lawsuit against Ms. Diaz and Kimkins.
Ms. Diaz has, however, turned the table on these class members, and is also counter suing them in return.
There are numerous appearances calendared for January 2009 for this case in the Riverside County Court.
It should be interesting to see how this all unravels for Ms. Diaz and her multi million dollar diet scam.
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Filed under: Kimkins | Tagged: dangerous, diet, fraud, Heidi, Heidi Diaz, Kimberly Drake, Kimkins, Kimmer, scam, Slim Chance Award, Worst Diet Product | 2 Comments »
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