Steven and Gina Merritt have settled deceptive income claim violations with the FTC.

The FTC filed suit against the Merritts on April 27th, alleging multiple violations of the FTC Act.

LiveWave is an MLM company that sells plastic patches with purported health benefits. BehindMLM’s latest 2024 LifeWave review found no verifiable evidence LifeWave’s patches provided any claimed benefits.

The FTC notes the Merritt’s promote LifeWave under “This is It” branding, and claim to have 250,000 promoters in their LifeWave downline.

A recent social media post from Steven Merritt suggests, as of April 2026, he and Gina are 3 Star Presidential ranked at LifeWave:

3 Star Presidential is currently the highest attainable rank within LifeWave’s compensation plan.

As alleged by the FTC in their April 27th Southern District of Florida filed Complaint;

In the course of recruiting for LifeWave, Defendants repeatedly represent that Brand Partners will or are likely to earn substantial income.

For example, in numerous instances, they talk about the money earned by Brand Partners on their team, including that “multiple, multiple, multiple, multiple people” earn more than $25,000 a week.

They have also claimed they can help Brand Partners earn an “insane” income, more than $25,000 a week, over a million dollars, or even unlimited income.

Steven Merritt has described the LifeWave opportunity as follows: “The money keeps coming, even if you don’t show up, and you can’t stop it.

It’s like a spigot of water but a spigot full of $100 bills throwing at you, coming at you. You can’t stop it. Anybody want that?”

Citing LifeWave’s published Income Disclose Statement for 2024, the FTC alleges the claims above “are deceptive”.

The income disclosure statement states that, of the LifeWave Brand Partners who are registered and active, only 21% received a commission payment from LifeWave in at least one month of 2024 for sales that occurred in 2024.

In addition, the income disclosure statement says that the average annual earnings for all U.S. Brand Partners who were active at any time during 2024 was $651 total, before expenses, and fewer than .035% of active Brand Partners earn $25,000 per week, $1 million per year, or more.

Summing up the discrepancy, the FTC wrote;

Defendants have used deceptive earnings claims to recruit consumers to join LifeWave, where they have failed to make the promised earnings.

Like many MLM promoters, at times the Merritt’s did attach pseudo-compliance disclaimers to their deceptive marketing. Here’s the FTC’s take on that;

In the few instances Defendants did include a written disclaimer while making oral earnings claims, the disclaimers were presented at the bottom of the screen, were in small print, were at times obscured by automatic captioning, and were far less prominent than the claims that Brand Partners will or are likely to earn substantial income.

Including a valid disclaimer is better than the usual “this is not financial advice and then proceeding to give financial advice” rubbish we usually see but, as per the FTC, if the disclaimer is not prominent then it doesn’t count towards compliance.

With respect to specific charges filed against the Merritts, the FTC’s Complaint details one count of Deceptive Earnings Claims.

Rather than defend their conduct, the Merritts settled the FTC allegations.

Per a Stipulated Order also filed on April 27th, an injunction prohibits the Merritts from committing further FTC Act violations.

Specifically, Steven and Gina Merritt are “permanently restrained and enjoined from” making deceptive and/or misleading income claims in their promotion of LifeWave.

The injunction requires the Merritts to email their downline acknowledgement of their FTC settlement. Compliance monitoring on top of that extends a further ten years from the date of the order.

Steven and Gina Merritt are scheduled speakers at the Association for Network Marketing Professionals’ May 2026 Annual Convention.

On a featured speakers website page, the ANMP cites the Merritts as;

extraordinary, faith-driven, dynamic couple widely celebrated as among the most inspiring and influential leaders in the network marketing profession today.

With decades of experience building massive global teams, their influence has been a driving force behind their company’s meteoric rise, directly contributing to significant milestones — including meriting the prestigious Bravo Growth Award for extraordinary annual growth, having achieved a remarkable $555 million in annual sales in 2024.

What impact the Merritts now being unable to generate hundreds of millions of dollars in annual sales through deceptive income claims for LifeWave has, remains to be seen.

As with the FTC’s action against Stormy Wellington for deceptive Total Life Changes and Farmasi claims earlier this month, there is no monetary penalty in the Merritt’s FTC settlement order.