Tava, owner Terry LaCore and CEO Kenny Lloyd have been sued for copyright infringement.

Plaintiff Sonja Williams also accuses several Tava defendants of running a pyramid scheme.

Tava’s founders, Kenny and Chante Lloyd … bill Tava as “a safe haven for everyone,” without further explanation, and have the gall to promote Tava as “not just different, [but also] real” in various places on its online and social media presence.

In reality, Tava is no safe haven; rather, Tava is a predatory pariah peddling religion and faith laden promises of wealth by dangling the success of its founders Kenny and Chante Lloyd as attainable, while nickel and diming Associates and their networks all the way.

LaCore and his cronies (select few, like Kenny and Chante Lloyd) alone make millions of dollars atop multiple pyramids while the companies’ sellers and consumers pay the tab.

Oh my…

Tava is a LaCore Enterprises MLM company based out of Texas.

Sonja Williams has been a distributor for a number of MLM companies. Williams also runs ShockTheory, which cites itself as

a digital marketing, live event, and technology agency servicing medium size to Fortune 500 clients.

Tava also engaged William’s company ShockTheory as a consultant in January 2020. Williams also signed on as a Tava distributor in March 2020.

Based on the Agreement, ShockTheory developed marketing materials, Tava’s website, and video and production and event planning materials for Tava.

After the expiration of the Agreement on May 9, 2020, Tava requested that Williams design labels and product packages for several Tava products so that Tava could legitimize its products in the marketplace.

Those designs included the Flare Logo Design, Kaprese Logo Design, Vacia Logo Design, and the Vale30 Logo Design (together the “Package Designs”) pictured below:

Tava did not, and has never, obtained a license or ownership of the Package Designs.

This is a bit difficult to follow but it seems ShockTheory created Tava designs after the original consultancy contract ended.

These alleged post-contract designs were then used by Tava on their products.

Not long after Williams completed the Package Designs, the Corporate Defendants began mass producing Tava products with the Package Designs.

The Corporate Defendants immediately began marketing and selling the products with the Package Designs through Tava’s website and at marketing and branding events all over the country.

Moreover, because of Tava’s multi-level marketing structure, thousands of Tava’s Associates, including the Associate Defendants, have all published, marketed, and sold Tava’s products with the Package Designs on their personal social media accounts or on Tava’s sponsored website.

Williams claims she contacted and demanded Tava cease using ShockTheory’s designs in July 2020.

To date, a year and a half later, Tava is still using the same product designs.

Tava and the other Defendants have manufactured, reproduced, and sold millions of infringing products with the Package Designs.

Williams registered ShockTheory’s Tava designs with the US Copyright Office in May 2022.

Across three counts, Williams’ copyright claim essentially boils down to LaCore’s, Tava’s and its associates’ alleged continued infringement of ShockTheory’s designs.

It is unconscionable for Defendants to reap such significant financial benefits in the use of Plaintiffs’ Package Designs in the manufacture, marketing, and sale of the infringing products without adequate compensation to Plaintiffs.

Plaintiffs have sustained, and will continue to sustain, substantial injuries, loss and damage to her exclusive rights in the Package Designs, and further have sustained and will sustain damages from the loss of value of her exclusive rights by reason of Defendants’ conduct.

Defendants’ copyright infringement has damaged Plaintiffs in a sum not presently known but believed to be significant.

Plaintiffs are entitled to actual and statutory damages, disgorgement of Defendants’ profits attributable to the infringement, attorneys’ fees, and the impoundment and destruction of the infringing products and all unauthorized copies of the Package Designs.

With respect to Tava being a pyramid scheme, Williams alleges;

Tava … is just another one of LaCore’s peer-to-peer MLM companies selling typical products via typical methods, and offering typical business model and compensation plans all of which enrich Terry LaCore, Kenny and Chante Lloyd, and the other Associate Defendants who find themselves at the top, or near the top, of the pyramid.

While these defendants reap significant financial gain, Associates put in ungodly amounts of effort and work towards sales and recruiting from their “Associates”—the same associates whom Tava has promised freedom from the grueling aspects of a typical job and offered “the flexibility to work from anywhere.”

Williams claims new Tava recruits are lured in via representations of wealth by CEO Kenny LLoyd and top distributors.

Once lured in on the promise of financial freedom;

Each Tava “Associate” is an independent seller and distributor who must first pay Kenny and Chantel Lloyd to gain membership to Tava and the privilege of being an Associate.

But that is only the first of the regular and exorbitant amounts required from Associates for the privilege of associating with the Lloyds and for glimpses of the promise of attaining similar wealth as the Lloyds’.

Next, an Associate must purchase Tava products, the purchase price of said product ranges from $64.95 for individual purchases to $1,200 for differing packages and imposes quantity limits and restrictions on the order and sale of such products.

Then the Associate attempts to resell those products in the marketplace with seemingly little or no pricing help from the Lloyds or anyone at all from Tava.

Indeed, Tava does not even bother to deploy fair pricing guidelines among its associates and their recruited selling associates.

The effect being that a single Tava product can be found online for prices ranging from $20.00 to $85.00 for the exact product, creating unreasonable competition between Lloyd/Tava associates.

The Lloyds and Tava don’t care at all about consumer demand or the success of their product once it has been paid for by the Associates.

Rather, demand for Tava is driven by Associates’ ambition to advance in Tava’s marketing program and ostensibly attain the wealth of Kenny and Chantel Lloyd.

The other route for an Associate to fulfill his or her dreams of traveling the world without a care or driving the most exotic and expensive cars is to identify and sign-up additional Associates.

Tava refers to this as Personally Sponsoring Distributors.

Just like other pyramid type schemes, an Associate must entice two other people to join his network.

The two additional Associates must not only pay the Lloyds a membership fee, but they too must also purchase products for sale.

According to Tava, once there are two sponsored Associates, the Associate at the top of the triangle begins to earn profits from the sale and distribution of products from the two sponsored Associates.

The larger an Associate’s network, the more money an Associate stands to make. This is the teaching of the Lloyds/Tava: exploit your network for every last penny.

Tava is on BehindMLM’s review list but it hasn’t come up yet – so I can’t specifically speak to Tava’s compensation plan.

What I can say is, if Williams’ allegations are true, Tava is operating a classic autoship recruitment scheme. With little to no retail sales taking place, this would qualify Tava as a pyramid scheme.

Williams alleges that at the top of the Tava pyramid scheme sits Ark Ventures.

Ark Ventures (is) a separate entity the Lloyds and LaCore created to pay themselves monies they do nothing to earn.

Unlike other associates, Ark Ventures sits at the top of the pyramid as “grandfathered-in” by the Lloyds and LaCore and does not need to pay any membership fees or purchase and sell any products.

In other words, Ark Ventures is paid off the sweat and labor of Tava’s associates, netting the Lloyds and LaCore not only distribution income from sale of Tava products to associates and by associates, but also as owner of Tava itself.

Moreover, according to Tava’s policies, an associate may not have more than one entity identified as a distributor.

This, of course does not apply to the Lloyds, who have three separate entities—Ark Ventures, Ark Ventures 1, and Ark Ventures 2.

And even more insidiously, neither the Lloyds nor LaCore found it fit to disclose the existence of Ark Ventures to any Tava associates in the associate agreement.

Williams’ pyramid scheme allegations are being litigated as violations of the Securities Exchange Act and Deceptive Trade Practices Act.

One particularly disturbing allegation Williams raises is the extent religion plays into Tava’s business operations.

The Lloyds still intentionally pitch Tava to unsuspecting and gullible consumers and members in search of a financial miracle as a faith-based organization by deploying mantras and references to lure “Associates.”

In fact, when translated from Hebrew, the word “tava” itself is “Noah’s Ark”—the ultimate biblical safe haven—of course, to cement the company’s purported mission to “rescue people” from the “storms of life.”

A depiction of Noah’s Ark can be seen in Tava’s logo about the “V”. “Ark Ventures” is also another reference.

Generally speaking I am not a fan of mixing religion and MLM. The practice is exclusionary (if you’re a non-believer you’re never going to be part of the inner-circle), and lends itself to religious affinity fraud.

Williams’ April 21st filed Complaint seeks a  permanent injunction against LaCore (right), Tava and the Tava defendants, as well as damages, disgorgement and legal costs.

BehindMLM has added William’s Tava copyright lawsuit to its case calendar. Stay tuned for updates as we continue to track the case.

 

Update 16th August 2023 – An Amended Complaint was filed on July 21st. It adds Gene Ford, Tara Lewis, Jalene Mack, Stacia Pierce, Jewel Tankard and Keith Williams as Defendants.

As per a footnote in the Amended Complaint;

Clavon Browning, Anthony T. Fleming, Kevin D. Harris, Tanigo “Tkay Walker”, Nina Moorer, Janella Simpson, Kenneth Lloyd, Chante Lloyd, LaChelle Pierre, Jalene Mack, Gene Ford, Keith Williams, Jewel Tankard, Stacia Pierce, Tara Lewis, dba LGoldent Tava Lifestyle, and Ark Ventures are together referred to as the “Associate Defendants.”

Defendants filed a second Motion to Dismiss on August 4th. The motion was referred to a Magistrate Judge on August 8th.

 

Update 4th June 2024 – Making a note here that Tava appears to have collapsed.

As at the time of this update, Tava’s website is no longer accessible. Kenny Lloyd has moved on and began promoting Govvi in or around February 2024.