(NaturalNews) Matt Monarch, founder of the Raw Food World (
www.RawFoodWorld.com) has announced his intention to sue Adya, Inc. for what he describes to NaturalNews as damages, product misrepresentation and fraud. Matt Monarch's full statement is found below.
Monarch told NaturalNews that he has been "financially devastated" by dealing with Adya, Inc., because his company (Raw Food World) voluntarily announced a refund initiative that refunded the purchase price of customers who had purchased Adya Clarity. (Raw Food World was the largest distributor for Adya Clarity in North America, by far.) Adya, Inc., he says, has honored no such refunds and has even refused to refund
unopened product that Monarch spent thousands of dollars to have shipped back to Adya, Inc.
On top of this, Adya Inc. is threatening to sue Monarch for roughly $200,000 which the company claims is owed by Monarch for product that he has already attempted to return to the company.
In addition to the legal action announced below, NaturalNews is initiating legal action against Adya, Inc. in an attempt to force a court-ordered halt to the importation and distribution of Adya, Inc. products in order to protect the health and safety of consumers. Details of that action are to be announced soon here at NaturalNews.com.
Statement by Matt Monarch / Raw Food World: Adya, Inc. is Suing "My Family!"
Can you believe this!? Do you remember how we
voluntarily offered refunds about eight months ago for a product called Adya Clarity? It has been an extremely financially draining process; we gave a refund or store credit to
everyone who asked for one, even though refunds were not officially ordered and it was very challenging economically for us to do this. We actually have about 10% of these refunds still left to process right now, which we hope to complete as soon as possible. Over the last eight months, we have hired another
six employees to help handle this crisis. It has been an immensely time- and energy-consuming process and Angela and I have invested
every last personal liquid asset of ours into this process, with absolutely
zero refunds or compensation from Adya, Inc.
Out of all the raw food companies that sold
Adya Clarity, we were the first to stand up and offer refunds. The majority of these other companies didn't even follow through with refunding all of their customers, as we are doing.
We followed through with all of these thousands of refunds, because we felt it was the ethical thing to do, and now Adya, Inc. has the
audacity to try to sue my "family and I"!
Adya, Inc. is suing "The Raw Food World, Inc." for about
$200,000.00. They are also
threatening me that this is just the
first lawsuit and that they have intentions to sue me for defamation, because as their biggest distributor I pulled out of selling their product and voluntarily offered all of my customers refunds for their purchases. I intend to vigorously defend against these claims.
Why is Adya, Inc. suing me?When the whole "Adya drama" went down, which I'll describe further below, I emailed Adya, Inc to ask if I could return our
unopened and
untouched product stock, which was all received to our warehouse within the last
7 - 30 days of that request. They responded
yes and gave me a
'pro number' for this return. I then spent
$5,000 - $6,000 to ship the product back. After I had already paid to send the product back, they rejected the shipment. They are also now
demanding a massive amount of interest on the balance and "lawyer fees". Additionally, I returned more than double the amount of product compared to our outstanding balance, so technically they owe
me money. However, from the graciousness of my heart, I decided to let it all go and I didn't refuse charges on my credit cards or anything of that nature.
Adya, Inc. has not issued
one single refund for anyone. Right now we're at a point where we've finished refunding 90% of all the
thousands and
thousands of refund requests from customers. Angela and I have not even taken
one penny from 'The Raw Food World, Inc.' over the last
eight months, in order to
swiftly refund everyone as best we can and make this right. We have been fortunate enough to be able to live off our land by growing our own
food and so on. Now, with this nonsensical court case against The Raw Food World, we're being required to put all of our funds into
defending the company. We were
so close to finishing these refunds and moving on.
The history of Adya Clarity and The Raw Food World:
I started selling a product called Adya Clarity in which I strongly believed. This product became popular and started to gain a lot of attention. About eight months ago as I write this, Mike Adams, the man behind the most popular online "natural news" website in the world posted
seven articles about the different potential dangers of this product. These articles can be viewed by clicking
here.
I was in
shock when I saw these posts starting to come out. When I realized that there may have been even a
slight chance that this product could potentially
harm a human being, we offered refunds or store credits to everyone who had requested one, to make this right. Now Adya, Inc. is threatening to sue me for defamation, due to this.
We've refunded
thousands of customers and Adya, Inc. has decided to not even refund distributors like us
or the direct customers who were not satisfied with their product, which is claimed to be harmful in these articles. Personally I
don't understand why the other
raw food companies out there are not speaking up against Adya, Inc. Practically every single online raw food store that I know of was selling Adya Clarity on their website. Most of these companies took down this product
silently and swiftly when this fiasco began and remained silent.
We are the largest online Raw Foods and Superfoods store in the world and we work ethically and with integrity. Where others just made a quick apology and offered minimal if any refunds, Angela and I went to the very depths of giving away almost everything we had to take care of this mess. I hope that this integrity is clear to all of my clients and that we continue to earn the title that the majority of the Raw Foods and Health Foods Community seems to have deemed fitting for us;
the most trusted source of high-end Raw Foods and Superfoods in the world.
There is nothing more important than being with our families and Adya, Inc. is making this possibility challenging for me through their actions, threatening to draw me away to deal with court proceedings. However, as
fanatical as I am about health and family, I am
also fanatical about being ethical and doing what feels like the
"right thing" and what Adya, Inc. is trying to do here is, from my point of view,
absolutely absurd. I feel that Adya Inc, is "stealing" from my "family" by trying to get me to leave them and go into a massive court battle. Additionally, they are trying to steal from our family-owned corporation, of which my wife Angela and I are the sole officers.
We will be responding to Adya, Inc's lawsuit and will seek compensation for the damage caused to The Raw Food World, Inc. The reason I didn't file a lawsuit before, is because I'm
not the type of guy who likes to get into legal battles and I don't at all enjoy the negative energy associated with lawsuits.
I just
can't justify giving these people the money they are demanding! I will do
everything in my
power to either get these cases dropped or fight them until the very end.
The reason I wanted to inform
you about all of this is to let you in on the
absurdity that is going on here in my life right now and also maybe get your help in getting Adya, Inc. to drop their case against us. I guess the best thing that you can do, if willing, is just pray with us regarding this dilemma and send love into this situation, whenever you can. It would truly be a
dream come true for us, if Adya, Inc. would drop their case against us. There is
nothing more that I could ask for in life but to be able to stay home with my family. I'll keep you all updated on how this turns out.
Thank you all for your ongoing
love and
support that you bless us with! I will continue to do everything in my power to serve you in the best way that I can. As you can see with our monthly
'At-Cost' specials
'At-Cost' here, I will continue to always strive to get you wholesale pricing on the highest-end Raw Food and Superfood products in the world, to nourish you and your family for many decades to come!
Sincerely,
Matt Monarch and Family