Looking for a lawyer to sue The Rainmaker Family?
Our law firm is representing multiple clients with legal claims against The Rainmaker Family for unfair and deceptive practices – and if you’ve suffered from something similar, we’d like to talk to you.
Kneupper & Covey is a consumer protection law firm with a particular focus in combatting online fraud. Our firm was created when the founding attorneys, Kevin and Cyclone, decided to try to hunt down the companies behind the “free trial scam” that targeted elderly consumers for never-ending subscriptions. No one thought it could be done – but after tracing through hundreds of shell companies and a series of big class action wins, the firm has grown to seven full-time attorneys.
We’ve sued everyone from online course scammers to shady car dealers, and we’ve gotten coverage for our efforts to protect consumers in big news outlets like CNBC, Time Magazine, and Newsweek.
Now we’re hearing reports about The Rainmaker Family – a company promoting courses and services relating to Amazon FBA businesses – and we’ve already taken on multiple clients who think they got an unfair deal.
If you think you were treated unfairly or deceptively by The Rainmaker Family, we may be able to represent you, too. Contact us by completing our claim form here.
What is Amazon FBA?
Amazon FBA stands for “Fulfilled By Amazon.” It’s a way that small businesses can sell their products on Amazon, with Amazon handling the shipments. And for a few years, lots of people made a lot of money doing it. But once the word got out, and Amazon FBA got hyped online as a way to make money, competition got fierce. And some of the people who weren’t making so much money anymore decided to switch to selling courses instead of selling on Amazon.
Fad courses promising lots of money from a business opportunity are nothing new – from programming boot camps, to multi-level marketing, to late night TV ads about people supposedly buying yachts by getting in on the next big thing, they’ve been around forever. But now they’re on Facebook, Instagram, and Tiktok – and when a “business opportunity” course doesn’t deliver what it promised, or even puts you in dangerous levels of debt you weren’t expecting, you may have legal claims.
What is The Rainmaker Family?
The Rainmaker Family is a company that claims to have helped tens of thousands of moms create their own businesses to make money by working from home. They claim to help moms set up businesses on Amazon, and advertise or promote themselves on various social media accounts.
What are people alleging that The Rainmaker Family is doing wrong?
You only have to look at the negative reviews on websites like Trustpilot to see that there are a lot of complaints about The Rainmaker Family’s program, and if you’ve suffered from something similar, you may have a legal claim.
One of the big complaints is that moms are being told that an Amazon FBA business is perfect for them because it doesn’t take much time to make money. Reviewers say that they were told it would only take a few hours a day, and that a mom can run this kind of business in between taking care of their kids. But they claim this isn’t true—that actually the business isn’t easy, and isn’t something you can run in your spare time with all the other people out there trying to do the same thing.
Another big complaint is that people are being encouraged to take on debt – including risky credit card debt – and that they end up actually in huge debt after going through The Rainmaker Family’s program. Some of them claim that big parts of that debt went to companies selling services, but who were paying undisclosed referral fees to The Rainmaker Family.
Others claim that they were shown numbers for gross revenue, and misled into think those were numbers for net profits they could make every month. If you don’t know the difference, that would be a really big deal. If I say that I make $1,000 a month, but I’m having to pay all $1,000 of that in expenses, I didn’t really “make” money. “Gross” is all the money that came in. “Net profits” is how much more you had than when you started. Lots of businesses go bankrupt even when they’re taking in lots of money each month – because they spent more than they made.
Some people claim the courses taught them methods banned by Amazon that could get your account shut down.
And one thing that you can see on Trustpilot is that The Rainmaker Family has made legal threats against people leaving bad reviews. Here’s an example:
Legal threats can sometimes scare away people from posting the truth. Some people have even said The Rainmaker Family has included provisions in their contract saying they couldn’t post bad reviews at all, even if true—something that would violate both California law and federal law. We’ve seen example contracts from the company that include provisions that we believe are illegal, which on its own is concerning.
If I signed a contract with The Rainmaker Family, am I out of luck?
No! A lot of companies think they can put language in their contracts waiving all the legal claims you can make. But the law isn’t that simple. There are lots of laws in both California (the place where The Rainmaker Family is based) and by the federal government that protect consumers. And most consumer protection laws, including in California, will say that it’s impossible for a consumer to waive them no matter what contracts they sign.
You might have to go to arbitration instead of court if you want to make a legal claim – but that’s often questionable, too. An arbitration is essentially a private lawsuit – but it’s not confidential, and
Can you help me if I think I was treated unfairly or deceived by The Rainmaker Family?
It depends on what happened to you. We’d need to review the details, and the more documents you have and the more proof you have, the better. But we’ve found people who are willing to be witnesses to what they saw, and that helps back up what people are saying. Contact us by completing our claim form here and we’ll see if we can help.