State Probing Defunct Pa. Diet Firm

By Stacey Burling, The Philadelphia Inquirer

Jan. 9–The Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office is investigating Pure Weight Loss Inc., which ceased operations last week, but says not to expect results any time soon.

“Consumer-protection investigations can be time-consuming,” said Nils Frederiksen, deputy press secretary for the Attorney General’s Office. “It’s a lengthy process.”

Frederiksen said Monday that his office had received hundreds of calls from customers of the Horsham-based diet company, which announced abruptly in December that it was closing Jan. 4. It has offered customers, who were required to buy diet food and counseling services in advance, little information about how to recoup their costs.

No one answered the company’s toll-free number yesterday. A recording told customers to send a letter to the company’s Horsham address. Pure Weight Loss’ Web site lists several other diet companies that are offering discounts to Pure Weight Loss customers.

A company spokeswoman said Pure Weight Loss had nothing new to say about whether customers would receive products they ordered or refunds for counseling that did not take place. Customers were asked to fill out forms detailing what they were owed by Pure Weight Loss.

Frederiksen reiterated his advice to customers: File a formal complaint with the Attorney General’s Office. That, he said, will help investigators figure out what is happening. The office is particularly interested in hearing from customers who signed up for the program recently or talked with sales representatives late last year. “We want to characterize how the products and services were being marketed at the very end,” Frederiksen said.

He urged customers to move quickly to cancel credit card payments to the company, dispute payments, or call financing companies.

He said the lack of information from the company had been “certainly poor public relations” but not necessarily a sign of how customers would be treated going forward.

Cristy Williams, a spokeswoman for CareCredit, which provided financing for some Pure Weight Loss customers, said customers would not have to continue making credit payments if they followed the company’s dispute-resolution process. The number customers should call is on their CareCredit billing statement.

Contact staff writer Stacey Burling at 215-854-4944 or sburling@phillynews.com.

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