Diet Pill Seller Seeking Pact With Postal Service
Officials of World Communications Inc., marketer of Grapefruit 45 weight reduction plan, met with Postal Service authorities on Monday in an attempt to place in escrow up to $90,000 in daily mail orders detained by the government since Feb. 22.
Results of the daylong session remain unknown.
The Postal Service has seized Grapefruit 45 mail orders, for the past month, sent to WCI post office boxes in Carlsbad, Encinitas, Long Beach, the City of Orange and Orange City, Fla.
The mail seizures began after authorities determined that WCI national advertisements for Grapefruit 45 violated a 1984 consent agreement with the Postal Service. The agreement prohibited WCI from making claims about its “orally ingested” weight-loss products.
During Monday’s meeting, Postal Service officials tried to determine the names of all of the television stations in the nation that have broadcast advertisements for Grapefruit 45. Authorities want to be certain that no mail orders are being sent to unknown post office boxes, according to a source familiar with the case.
Other Postal Boxes
Only three post office boxes in Carlsbad were initially included in the mail-seizure order. However, authorities last week expanded their seizures to include the other locations after they discovered that WCI was using other post office boxes for mail orders of the weight loss products.
WCI president Jay M. Kholos has claimed that WCI mail has been detained that has nothing to do with Grapefruit 45 or with “Sunshine”--the umbrella name for several WCI weight loss products.
Under a proposed escrow account agreement scheduled for discussion Monday, Grapefruit 45 orders would be deposited in a bank account and customers would be advised that “their orders are being withheld pending an outcome of our administrative lawsuit,” according to Jim Harbin, an attorney for the Postal Service inspector’s office.
WCI officials will have a chance to present their side of the controversy next month, during hearings in Los Angeles and San Diego on April 8 through April 12.
Grapefruit 45’s effectiveness likely will be an issue during the hearings. The pill--marketed as the “fat burner”--does not cause or aid weight loss, according to Postal Service officials. WCI maintains, however, that outside testing shows their weight loss plan works. WCI expects to generate revenues of $50 million in calendar 1985, said Kholos, a 44-year-old advertising industry executive who moved to North San Diego County in 1978.
The firm employs about 200 people and also markets a Nat King Cole record collection, makeup, a cookbook, pearl collection, jewelry catalogue and produces a television series on women and children for independent networks.
