Kimkins Class Action Certified

Two years after the now infamous Kimkins Woman's World article came out, there is now a certified Class Action Lawsuit against Kimkins.

The certification was actually granted back in January 2009 but it was deemed an invalid decision due to Heidi Diaz of Kimkins having filed for bankruptcy just days prior. With the bankruptcy suit being dismissed, the certification hearing was put back on the case agenda and certification was finally granted.

For the January hearing, Heidi did not bother to file any opposition to the motion for certification. She surely relied on the bankruptcy to resolve the issue for her. However, the end result was just a few months delay.

This time, she did file an opposition. Or, her lawyer did, Mr. Peabody. He tried to claim that the principals were not representative of the class and therefore each plaintiff would need to sue Heidi individually.

It's hard to understand his reasoning for this claim. The lawsuit is not about the nutritionally bankrupt Kimkins diet, but about fraud. The fraud consists of lying about her own weight loss and using pictures of other people for herself and other "success" stories.

The claim by the plaintiffs is that we all paid money to Heidi Diaz based on her fraudulent claims of her own successful weight loss using her diet. How can the principals NOT be representative of the class?

I would like to thank ALL the principals that represent me and the other plaintiffs. I know that there is work involved on their part; papers to fill in and send to our lawyer John Tiedt, phone calls and depositions. Thank you all for hanging in there during this long process!

Kimkins makes the Local News

Corona woman's diet program given low marks

07:40 PM PST on Tuesday, December 30, 2008

By DOUGLAS QUAN
The Press-Enterprise

A Corona woman's Internet-based weight-loss program has been named the worst diet product of 2008 by a healthy-eating Web site.

In announcing winners of its 20th annual Slim Chance Awards, the Healthy Weight Network -- an online forum for health care professionals, researchers and consumers -- said the Kimkins low-fat, low-carb diet amounts to a "starvation diet" that deprives members of many nutrients.

"This weight obsession is causing so many problems," said network founder Francie Berg, a licensed nutritionist and adjunct professor at the University of North Dakota School of Medicine.

Corona resident Heidi Diaz, founder of the Kimkins program, which charges members a fee to access the diet, could not be reached Tuesday by phone or e-mail.

A pending class-action lawsuit filed against Diaz claims that Diaz misled consumers with made-up success stories and pilfered images from a Russian dating Web site to depict as successful Kimkins dieters.

Some Kimkins members have said that they suffered hair loss, heart palpitations, weakness, nausea, muscle fatigue, forgetfulness and abnormal menstrual cycles.

Court records show that Diaz dropped her lawyer this month and is representing herself.

In an online message to Kimkins members posted a year ago, Diaz acknowledged that she had not lost 198 pounds in 11 months, as she had claimed on her site, but 100 pounds in six months. She also wrote that photos accompanying success stories were taken from another site.

"We wanted to show visitors the possibilities with Kimkins," she said.

Woman's World magazine featured the Kimkins diet program on its cover in June 2007 with the headline "Better than gastric bypass!" The magazine later apologized to readers for "having shared with you a story we can't stand behind."

As of Tuesday, the Kimkins Web site was still running, telling visitors that "many Kimkins members drop 5 percent or more of their total body weight in the first 10 days."

Members pay $79.90 to join the program.

A disclaimer tells visitors to contact their doctor before starting any diet.

Berg said people should focus less on losing weight and concentrate more on eating well, staying active and relieving stress.

Berg's Web site named as its worst gimmick of 2008 a brand of jeans that claims to release a cellulite-fighting medication when the jeans rub against the skin.

"Some of this is just ridiculous," Berg said.

Reach Douglas Quan at 951-368-9479 or dquan@PE.com

Yet Another Kimkins Award

Top 10 Worst Diets of 2008 

Sunday, December 28, 2008

1. Ear Stapling. Think about this: how many chubby people do you know with multiple piercings? (If you're having trouble envisioning, think about going to a Ren Faire.)

2. Original Hollywood Celebrity Diet. Sure, you too can lose weight if you live on 400 calories a day for two weeks. Wow, it's like magic!

3. Kimkins. Gives sketchy advice like super-low calorie levels and also laxatives (eeek!), but finding out that the diet's supposed inventor and biggest success story actually weighs over 300 pounds must have been très awkward.

4. Hydroxycut. Starbucks sells buckets of caffeine for much less money than these capsules, and with no scary ephedra accidentally making its way into your misto.

5. Celluslim. Random words thrown together to name pills that made a lot of people feel ishy. Sounds like a bunch of bullshit to us.

6. Chitosan. Weirdly, found to reduce cholesterol to some extent, but totally does not help you lose weight even a little.

7. Slim Slippers. Are you kidding us? Reflexology has no proven association with weight loss or metabolism and also, need we mention that these are slippers! For your feet!

8. Hoodia. It might be TrimSpa, but it's also bullshit, baby!

9. Diet Patch. Come on, you're on a diet, not an ocean voyage.

10. Mariah Carey's Purple Food diet. No, really. Purple food.

Motion for Class Certification

The motion for Class Certification for the Lawsuit against Kimkins.con was filed last week. It is an impressive document that details many of the lies told by Heidi Diaz in her efforts to attract customers to her website.

The motion has an excellent summary of why a Class Action Lawsuit is justified. The entire document can be read on the Riverside Court website (look up RIC483005 or search on Diaz, Heidi).

An excerpt from the motion (edited to shorten):

The Unraveling of America's Worst Internet Diet Scam.
Almost all of the material representations of the Kimkins.con website and advertisements were in fact false. The success stories were pure fiction and photographs were stolen from other Internet sites. The Kimkins diet was not ever proven safe or effective.

"Kimmer", aka Heidi Diaz, never lost 198 pounds in 11 months. "Kimmer" was purely a fictional character created to defraud the public. The perpetrator of this scam is Heidi Diaz, who habitually lied about the Kimkins diet and her alleged weight loss on the Internet for years from her home in Corona, California. She regularly used false names on the Internet, lied about her weight loss, created countless false success stories, falsely claimed celebrities such as Jessica Alba and Lindsay Lohan used her diet, lied about the safety and efficacy of the Kimkins diet, falsely impersonated consumers in order to induce sales, used unlawful labels and Metatags to misdirect Internet traffic and fraudulently tried to conceal her assets to avoid repaying customers. Heidi Diaz was caught red-handed but still continues to engage in false and misleading advertising on the Internet while making a substantial profit.

1. Kimmer is not Kim Drake, the thin diet expert: Kimmer is Heidi Diaz, a morbidlv obese Internet swindler from Corona, California.
The beautiful woman in the red dress featured on the Kimkins Internet site named Kim Drake aka "Kimmer," does not exist! Ms. Diaz also admitted that she had posed as Kimmer in a "public apology" that was posted on Kimkins.con after she was successfully exposed by an investigative report on the KTLA news. The Kimkins "poster girl" is actually a model named Lesya whose image was lifted by Heidi Diaz from a Russian bride Internet site. Heidi Diaz used her own picture to depict the "before Kimkins diet" image of Kimmer, and unlawfully misappropriated the photograph of Lesya as the "after Kimkins diet" image of Kimmer. Heidi Diaz has been and remains a morbidly obese woman.

Heidi Diaz created false identities to sell or promote the Kimkins Diet. She admitted under oath that she had used such names as Kimmer, Jennifer Danser, Brad Curtis, Kimberly Stewart, Kimberly Drake, Vanessa Sharp, Dennis Sharp and numerous other monikers.

2. Use of False Pictures of Kimmer.
Under oath and by way of public apology, Heidi Diaz has established that she has used false pictures to depict the weight loss success story of Kimmer. Under oath she stated that the picture of the Kimmer was not her and was actually "a model."'M s. Diaz' decision to use a false picture to advertise Klmkins was even questioned by her technical support staff. Her technical consultant, Aliyar Firat, wanted to use a real picture of Heidi Diaz but Ms. Diaz refused and insisted on using the picture of the model for Kimmer's after diet photographs.

3. Heidi Diaz Lied About Her Alleged Weight Loss.
Under oath, and by way of public apology, Heidi Diaz admitted that she lied about the alleged weight loss success of Kimmer on Internet and print advertisements. She admitted that her statement that Kimmer lost an amazing 198 pounds in 11 months was in fact a statement that she prepared but was false. Ms. Diaz also admitted that the woman identified as Vanessa does not actually exist and her story was a fictional creation by Ms. Diaz.

With respect to Kimkins' homepage, Ms. Diaz admits that her testimony on said homepage was derived from the interview wherein she claims to have lost a purported 198 pounds in 11 months was false. Variations of the homepage of Kimkins.con were accessible to the public throughout the class period.

To promote Kimkins, Heidi Diaz made phenomenal misrepresentations on the Internet program known as the "Livin La Vida Low Carb" show hosted by Jimmy Moore on July 19, 2007. Heidi Diaz also stated in the interview that she had kept the weight off for a total of 5 to 5 1/2 years. At the time of the interview, Heidi Diaz weighed over 300 pounds. She was photographed several times shortly after the interview.

4. Material Misrepresentations Contained in the Woman's World
Magazine Article "Make Heidi Diaz a Millionaire."
In June of 2007, the story of Kimmer and the Kimkins diet reached millions of Americans. Heidi Diaz admitted that she supplied her own "before diet" photograph for the article but used a photograph of another model for her "after diet" photograph. When asked where she obtained the picture of the model, she stated: "from the Intemet. I don't remember the site. Just again, I wanted to be anonymous." Ms. Diaz does not dispute the fact that she also used the false name "Kim Drake" and another false picture in the article.

Her statements in the article were a phenomenal act of fraud by Heidi Diaz. In the article she falsely stated she had lost 200 pounds in 11 months. She also falsely represented that she soared up to 318 pounds after a serious injury. She falsely claimed she went from a dress size 26 to a size 6. As a result of such blatant false advertising, sales shot up immediately. In June of 2007, there were 15,330 paid memberships.

5. The Use of Fortv-One (41) False Success Stories with Misapproprated Photographs.
Numerous Kimkins' success stories used on the websites and on advertisements were FALSE. The photographs featured in each of the success stories were lifted from Russian Bride websites. Ms. Diaz admitted that each and every person featured did not use the Kimkins diet and did not lose the weight as advertised.

She admitted to fabricating success stories and using false photographs in connection with the advertisements. She also created fraudulent success stories on the Kimkins Newsletter which was accessible to the general public and designed to promote Kimkins.con subscriptions.


6. False Celebrity Endorsements.
Heidi Diaz admitted that she had represented to the public that celebrity Jessica Alba, a famous actress, used the Kimkins diet. She testified that she did not know if Jessica Alba used the diet but repeated the "rumor" on the internet. She admitted in retrospect, she thought it was deceptive to repeat the rumor that Jessica Alba used the Kimkins diet.

Heidi Diaz also falsely claimed and advertised that Lindsay Lohan was a user of the Kimkins diet. In fact, she misappropriated a picture of Lindsay Lohan wearing a T-shirt. The Kimkins logo is superimposed on Ms. Lohan's t-shirt. Ms. Diaz admitted that she has never had any contact with Lindsay Lohan. She also testified that she never believed the photograph of Lindsay Lohan with the doctored image displaying Kimkins across Ms. Lohan's chest was real.

7. Unlawful Use of Labels and Metatam to Misdirect Internet Traffic.
Many of the Kimkins.com advertisements have labels or tags that are used as a basis to direct traffic to the Kimkins.com site. Heidi Diaz was an expert on how to misdirect traffic on the Internet. For example, Heidi Diaz took a popular Internet topic such as the "Geico Caveman" which generated a lot of Internet activity at the time. Heidi Diaz placed the labels: "Caveman, Geico, Kimkins" together so that when "Geico" and "Caveman" would be searched, the Kimkins advertisement would appear. Heidi Diaz admitted that she prepared the graphic and text without the permission of the Geico Insurance Company. Heidi Diaz admitted that labels were also used as tags and that if a search were conducted with respect to the terms "Geico" or "Caveman," the subject advertisement would show up in a ranking!'
Another example of label/tag misdirection occurred on the Kimkins Blog. Ms. Diaz used the following labels: "Celebrity Diet Secrets, Christie Brinkley, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kimkins, and low carb."

8. No Lifetime membership as Promised by Heidi Diaz.
Members of Kimkims.con were promised a one-time payment for a lifetime membership. However, if anyone complained of becoming ill on the diet, which was a common occurrence, said member would be immediately terminated. In fact, if Heidi Diaz or any of her minions decided they did not like you, you would also be terminated. Heidi Diaz testified that troublemakers would be blocked from full access to the website. She claimed to have no criteria for terminations. She stated that the term "troublemaker" would be defined by each administrator!

9. Advertised Lies and Misrepresentations.
Although Heidi Diaz is the sole owner of Kimkins and responsible for all of the content on its website, she has made the miraculous claim that certain representations appeared on her website without her knowledge.

Another classic misrepresentation repeated throughout the Kimkins advertisements was that the Kimkins diet was a "fast and permanent" way to lose weight.

Heidi Diaz admits that no medical doctor has ever approved the safety or efficacy of the Kimkins diet."

Another amazing misrepresentation repeatedly stated that the Kimkins diet was thermogenic and that no exercise was needed to lose weight. Many other irresponsible statements were made by Heidi Diaz and it is anticipated that she may even try to claim that she was not responsible for everything stated on her own website. However, she did admit undeer oath that no one had access to her website other than her technical company, Clexus New Media. Ms. Diaz admitted under oath that in her best estimate, she only visited her homepage two times in the year 2007, despite being the sole owner of the website.

The Court already has on file numerous declarations and affidavits signed by purchasers of Kimkins.con memberships, who stated under oath that they relied on the representations of Defendant's weight loss claims when they decided to subscribe to Kimkins.con. The subject declarations and affidavits illustrate the consumers' reliance on the fraudulent representations of Heidi Diaz. Heidi Diaz admits she lied and the sheer volume of lies proves her intent to deceive her customers.

The Infamous Kimkins

Infamous
in·fa·mous [in-fuh-muhs] Dictionary.com

1. having an extremely bad reputation: an infamous city.
2. deserving of or causing an evil reputation; shamefully malign; detestable: an infamous deed.

Kimkins has certainly earned this label by now. Any of the synonyms would work too: abhorrent, arrant, atrocious, base, contemptible, corrupt, degenerate, despicable, detestable, dishonorable, disreputable, evil. Or, all of them.

So why does Heidi Diaz still hang on to kimkins.con? Even bad publicity is better than none? In this case, I doubt it. Just google kimkins and see what it brings up. Who in their right mind would consider handing over $79.95 to a forum owner that has no many negative things said about her? So many negative things said about the diet she promotes? That is facing a Class Action Lawsuit for fraud?

Why not abandon the tainted Kimkins name? The Ducks and their blogs are not going to go away as long as kimkins.con stay operational. The success following the Women's World article in June of 2007 can never be repeated. Kimkins.con is broken beyond repair.

The site is a failure. Just accept it and shut it down.

Calling Kimkins Diet Members

Please join the Class Action Lawsuit. You don't need to have been banned from Kimkins. It is enough to have paid for a membership before November 12, 2007.

Why should you join the lawsuit? It's not to help the anti-kimkins bloggers, the posters on LCF's "Fascination with Kimmer" thread. It is to help to shut kimkins.con down!

Many, many people signed up for Kimkins based on fraudulent information (Kimmer's fake pictures and her fake weight loss claims) presented in Women's World in June 2007. The vast majority of these have left kimkins.com.

Many couldn't stick to the diet and just saw the membership money as wasted on yet another fad diet attempt. Others left when the controversy started and tried to forget about it all, embarrassed that they bought in to the lies.

Many of the members just walked away and had no interest in joining the lawsuit. Let others deal with it. Hope that kimkins.con gets shut down without them doing anything.

But, please, think about other potential victims.

Read Kimkins Survivors to see what happened to trusting people following Heidi Diaz' diet advice. People were HURT by the diet. Physically and mentally.

Would you really want, 5 years from now, your daughter/granddaughter/niece/friend finding kimkin.con on the internet? Develop an eating disorder? Starve herself thin? Suffer health complications that may follow her for life?

If you haven't already joined the Class Action Lawsuit, please reconsider your decision for not doing so. There is strength in numbers.

You are eligible if:
You paid for a membership to Kimkins before Nov 12, 2007, and you either
i) have not received a refund (or refused it in case one was sent to you) OR
ii) are still a Kimkins member

Information on how to join is available on Kimkins Lawsuit.

Or, watch the video

You can also contact John Tiedt, the Class Action lawyer, directly:

www.tiedtlaw.com

jtiedt@tiedtlaw.com

951-549-9400

Kimmer Exaggerating Kimkins Weight Loss

Kimmer, a.k.a. Heidi Diaz recently stated:

"This is what I did wrong:
1) I used model photos to show Kimkins possibilities
2) I exaggerated my personal weight loss

That’s it. Hand to God, that’s it."

Dictionary (answers.com):

Exaggerate
v.tr.

1. To represent as greater than is actually the case; overstate: exaggerate the size of the enemy force; exaggerated his own role in the episode.
2. To enlarge or increase to an abnormal degree: thick lenses that exaggerated the size of her eyes.
   

v.intr.

To make overstatements.

How can you "exaggerate" something that is non-existent in the first place? Kimmer went from this:

to this:

There never was any weight loss, so how can she "exaggerate" a weight loss? Fabricate seems to be a more fitting word.

Kimmer successfully fabricated a weight loss story that she stuck to for 6 years and posted fake photos to support her claim of being a slender 118 lbs young-looking woman.

"I've been at goal for nearly 6 years and my old 318-pound life seems like eons ago!"

And what about the first thing that she did wrong? Using model photos to show Kimkins possibilities? If the diet was as successful as she claims, where are all the real pictures from the 6 years she was promoting it? She always talked about receiving so many emails from people that thanked her for their weight loss. Were they all camera shy, like Kimmer herself?

"Hello, I'm Kimmer! I've studied weight loss plans for a lifetime, noting what worked. What didn't. And, most importantly, why. Not only from personal experience, but from the feedback of hundreds of unhappy, overweight folks."

I do think she knows what doesn't work. But not what does work. At least not for herself.

Success from doing Kimkins?

Dee's success picture allegedly taken 4/18/2008 @ 239 lbs

Dee's picture taken in August? 2007 @ ??? lbs

Dee's picture taken in November 2007 @ 270 lbs

Dee's "before" picture from 11/2005 @ 350 lbs

So when did Dee start Kimkins? She has said herself that she started halfhearted in June 2007. In her first post she states:
Failed LAPBAND surgery in 2006, which put me $17,000 in debt. (I did lose 75 lbs and have kept off 60).

If this statement is true, she started Kimkins with a 60 lbs weight loss from 350 lbs, or at 290 lbs. This rings true looking at the liquid diet she did just before starting kimkins where she reported getting down to 285 lbs on April 17, 2007.

If Dee now weighs 239 pounds, her weight loss on Kimkins from June 2007 to May 2008 has been a total of 50 pounds (and not the 108 stated in the newsletter).

The Cult of the Narcissist

Like Kimmer, I like to reuse good information found on the web, but unlike Kimmer I give credit to my sources. The following article by Sam Vaknin was posted by v0xhumana on LCF.

Read it and see if it isn't a description of Kimmer. I think so.

The Cult of the Narcissist
By Sam Vaknin
Author of "Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited"

The narcissist is the guru at the center of a cult. Like other gurus, she demands complete obedience from her flock: her spouse, her offspring, other family members, friends, and colleagues. She feels entitled to adulation and special treatment by her followers. She punishes the wayward and the straying lambs. She enforces discipline, adherence to her teachings, and common goals. The less accomplished she is in reality – the more stringent her mastery and the more pervasive the brainwashing.

The – often involuntary – members of the narcissist's mini-cult inhabit a twilight zone of her own construction. She imposes on them a shared psychosis, replete with persecutory delusions, "enemies", mythical narratives, and apocalyptic scenarios if she is flouted.

The narcissist's control is based on ambiguity, unpredictability, fuzziness, and ambient abuse. Her ever-shifting whims exclusively define right versus wrong, desirable and unwanted, what is to be pursued and what to be avoided. She alone determines the rights and obligations of her disciples and alters them at will.

The narcissist is a micro-manager. She exerts control over the minutest details and behaviors. She punishes severely and abuses withholders of information and those who fail to conform to her wishes and goals.

The narcissist does not respect the boundaries and privacy of her reluctant adherents. She ignores their wishes and treats them as objects or instruments of gratification. She seeks to control both situations and people compulsively.

She strongly disapproves of others' personal autonomy and independence. Even innocuous activities, such as meeting a friend or visiting one's family require her permission. Gradually, she isolates her nearest and dearest until they are fully dependent on her emotionally, sexually, financially, and socially.

She acts in a patronizing and condescending manner and criticizes often. She alternates between emphasizing the minutest faults (devalues) and exaggerating the talents, traits, and skills (idealizes) of the members of her cult. She is wildly unrealistic in her expectations – which legitimizes her subsequent abusive conduct.

The narcissist claims to be infallible, superior, talented, skillful, omnipotent, and omniscient. She often lies and confabulates to support these unfounded claims. Within her cult, she expects awe, admiration, adulation, and constant attention commensurate with her outlandish stories and assertions. She reinterprets reality to fit her fantasies.

Her thinking is dogmatic, rigid, and doctrinaire. She does not countenance free thought, pluralism, or free speech and doesn't brook criticism and disagreement. She demands – and often gets – complete trust and the relegation to her capable hands of all decision-making.

She forces the participants in her cult to be hostile to critics, the authorities, institutions, her personal enemies, or the media – if they try to uncover her actions and reveal the truth. She closely monitors and censors information from the outside, exposing her captive audience only to selective data and analysis.

The narcissist's cult is "missionary" and "imperialistic". She is always on the lookout for new recruits – her spouse's friends, her daughter's girlfriends, her neighbors, new colleagues at work. She immediately attempts to "convert" them to her "creed" – to convince them how wonderful and admirable she is. In other words, she tries to render them Sources of Narcissistic Supply.

Often, her behavior on these "recruiting missions" is different to her conduct within the "cult". In the first phases of wooing new admirers and proselytizing to potential "conscripts" – the narcissist is attentive, compassionate, empathic, flexible, self-effacing, and helpful. At home, among the "veterans" she is tyrannical, demanding, willful, opinionated, aggressive, and exploitative.

As the leader of her congregation, the narcissist feels entitled to special amenities and benefits not accorded the "rank and file". She expects to be waited on hand and foot, to make free use of everyone's money and dispose of their assets liberally, and to be cynically exempt from the rules that she herself established (if such violation is pleasurable or gainful).

In extreme cases, the narcissist feels above the law – any kind of law. This grandiose and haughty conviction leads to criminal acts, incestuous or polygamous relationships, and recurrent friction with the authorities.

Hence the narcissist's panicky and sometimes violent reactions to "dropouts" from her cult. There's a lot going on that the narcissist wants kept under wraps. Moreover, the narcissist stabilizes her fluctuating sense of self-worth by deriving Narcissistic Supply from her victims. Abandonment threatens the narcissist's precariously balanced personality.

Add to that the narcissist's paranoid and schizoid tendencies, her lack of introspective self-awareness, and her stunted sense of humor (lack of self-deprecation) and the risks to the grudging members of her cult are clear.

The narcissist sees enemies and conspiracies everywhere. She often casts herself as the heroic victim (martyr) of dark and stupendous forces. In every deviation from her tenets she espies malevolent and ominous subversion. She, therefore, is bent on dis-empowering her devotees. By any and all means.

The narcissist is dangerous.

Emphasis mine, and the changes from he/his to she/hers.

Woman's World Apology

It took them long enough........