Team RH - is this ethical?

[Glowingup]

Disclaimer: I hate Richie from Team RH and think he’s generally an awful person as well as being a massive grifter. His latest is that he claims that he will be offering Mounjaro pens to members of Team RH at cost price (this must be through some sort of partnership with a pharmacy but he hasn’t said this). You can only get them at this cost though if you sign up to his monthly plan (the one you can’t cancel without him sending debt collectors). How is this remotely ethical? Surely Mounjaro needs to be prescribed by a pharmacist or doctor? How can he be the gatekeeper for this? Say I sign up to his club and want the pen? Can I cancel if the pharmacist declines to prescribe it? Will he be putting pressure on the partner pharmacy to prescribe to people who might not be suitable so that he can get his members?

Sorry for the rant. He just pisses me off and I don’t think that he should be flogging prescription drugs at cost price that he doesn’t know much about. He takes them himself and claims that his BMI is over 30 due to muscle but I doubt that.

Of course they are countable!!

Well he clearly didn’t research the legal impact of misleading advertising so I wouldn’t bank on it. To be clear I don’t think he will be selling counterfeit products. But I think there’s a serious ethical issue with offering medication at cut prices in return for signing up to another product. He will be acting as a sort of broker rather than people getting the medicine from the prescriber. But if medicine marketplace offer cost price hopefully people will go there instead. I will still report him.

Brilliant, thank you!

Is he offering at cut price though, as cost price could be cost price to him.

I do 7000 easily

If his own programme worked as well as he claims he wouldn’t have to resort to flogging meds (he also wouldn’t have to speak to people like shit either). He’s losing his revenue stream and this is his way of trying to keep it going.

his plan does work but being in a calorie deficit is very hard to stick to.

people are choosing the easier way now (the WLI) as it removes the awful food cravings and constant growling stomach when you’re in a calorie deficit.

losing weight the traditional way is really really hard. I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t control the cravings when in a calorie deficit so I lost 6.5st on the WLI.

because people are using the WLI now and not wanting to do it the hard way, he has to move with the times otherwise he’s going to go out of business.

hes slagged off WLI so much that he looks silly now that he’s allowing you to purchase them from him.

Well, quite, and if anyone remembers the heady days of the Trump price increases last year, it was very confusing when the new list prices for MJ were announced because quite often even the old price seemed to be more than people were paying. And the "new" price looked truly awful. Because pharmacies negotiate individual discounts off the list price and that depends on their spending power etc. So "cost price" is a meaningless term unless he's upfront about what that means for him. He could charge anything and claim it's cost price. There would be no way to check.

He sounds like a right piece of work from everything I've read on here.

Cant stand Richie but will be registering interest. Why? Because if i can get MJ cheaper, I will. I dont care what he really thinks. Do we really think the pharmacies actually care??
Apparently he has pharmacists... something like that. As long as its cheaper and legtimate I am fine with it.
I will say, i did follow team RH several years ago and lost tons of weight eating loads of calories. The facebook group was insane though... cult like lol
Doesn't seem very different to a subscription with a pharmacy, just need to read the Ts and Cs

Why would anyone line the pockets of a man who clearly slags people off for using WLIs though? Regardless of the cost I sure wouldn’t want a man like him to benefit

Seeing as he said he would prioritise existing members you’d have to sign up for membership on top of the cost of the pens. Can’t see how that would overall be cheaper than the likes of Medicine Market Place. Never mind all the misogyny, ASA rule breaking and dodgy advertising of prescription medication.

I agree, other than the garden I haven't left the house today but still managed to hit my 10k steps

Exactly this. He is deeply unpleasant. He has no plan. A calorie deficit isnt a plan to sell when it works for some people alone

He has already been reported several times but other fitness practitioners and a nutritionist. Hopefully he gets bannes

Because if i have to stay on meds forever i want them as cheap as possible. I also buy from Amazon if its cheaper (and I do buy from other awful companies like Nestle). In the grand scheme of things, Richie is small fry.

And I bet you have to sign up for a membership BEFORE you find out exactly what this amazing "cost" price is.

10,000 steps is around a distance of 5 miles.

so you’ve walked 5 miles in the perimeter of your home in one day?

It came up on my TikTok this morning 🤷‍♀️

I have a sedentary job, working from home. To clock up 10,000 steps I need to go for a 4 mile walk on top of my usual daily activity. Takes about 90 minutes.

For me, that’s doable most days because a) I live near a massive park and have flexible-ish working hours and b) I don’t have kids or a commute. I’m lucky.

But for someone with limited chances to walk during the day, and/or kids, or who didn’t get home from work until 7pm, or who wouldn’t feel safe wandering their local streets late at night, it wouldn’t be easy to find that amount of time to walk - especially if you were also trying to find time for any other type of exercise, like strength training, as well. And any decent weight loss programme, especially for women, will recommend that you definitely do strength train at least a couple of times a week.

Also, any fitness trainer who bangs on about 10,000 steps is just parroting an old myth which arose from a marketing gimmick by manufacturers of pedometers decades ago. It’s an arbitrary number. There’s no scientific basis for making 10,000 steps a golden goal. Sure, most people need to move more, but that actual number is plucked from thin air and means nothing.

I also wouldn’t listen to a fitness trainer who flogs crappy protein supplements called ‘Fat Cow’ to women.

It amazes me that anyone would give money to Team RH.

The only way to do this is to be very active in your house housework etc or your step tracker is wrong.

i do a minimum of 10k steps a day but that includes a walk (4 miles for my commute)

Without details, it’s hard to conclude that the arrangement is unlawful. I presume he’s got a collaboration of some sort with a dispensing pharmacy.

I’m sure it will be wildly popular if there are significant savings to be made, but it seems too good to be true. And ethically, it sounds dodgy.

He has been very light on the detail so far. No mention if the medication is official. I assume it is as he was waving an MJ pen around on an advert.

The margins on MJ are quite slim at the cheaper registered pharmacies.
So I do wonder if he will actually come out at a lower cost then these as any pharmacy he has collaborated with would have to have their cut.

It does feel scammy that he is encouraging people to sign up to his app now (where you are tied into a 12 month contract with no cooling off period) before announcing full details.

Would never hand money over to this guy but watching with interest.

I just looked and it's still there, definitely hasn't been taken down.

This is how I feel as well. The weight loss industry is saturated and coaches are having to be creative to get noticed. Richie has chosen to create a persona for his social media presence, bit of a comedian, tough talking, sweary. He's not everyone's cup of tea but he's not someone I'd ever dislike enough to cut off my nose to spite my face by turning down cost price monj.

What's this about debt collectors? One of the women at my gym class subscribes to his app and has recommended it to many others, which is why I'm asking.

I'd wondered about joining (though not for Mounjaro).

The app is a year commitment. You can pay monthly but you are still tied in for the year. Some people don't realise this & cancel the direct debit after a month. They then get a nasty email threatening debt collectors (although I doubt they follow through as it is a small sum) & consequences on their credit file. You can't just try the app for a few days, decide you don't like it & then want a refund. You are tied in for a year.