Are you freaking kidding me? Copy of my review?

[naturallove]

Thanks to everyone for your support on this one. I am hoping that no one directly connected to Lalo is responsible for this foolishness.

Here's the email I sent to collage (I cc'ed Wendy on it as well):

To Whom It May Concern:
I am writing to request that a Collage representative remove one of the reviews for Lalofit 2. The review in question is one that was attributed to "Nat". I was stunned to realize that the person claiming to be "Nat" directly copied my thoughts on the Video Fitness message board word for word. Even more problematic is that they simultaneously plagiarized my thoughts and removed any negative criticism I had of the video.

As you can see by the date/time stamp, I wrote my thoughts, under the naturallove screen name on Lalofit 2 on www.videofitness.com at 12/29/09 at 4:45 PM:

http://forum.videofitness.com/showth...=141598&page=5

I posted this on my checkin, but just wanted to share my thoughts.
Busy morning so far--woke up to do Lalofit 2 (another virgin from Mary's sale). This is actually a really good workout focusing on flexible, functional strength. He uses very light weights and bodyweight to really challenge you. I also like his 'commentary track', where he chats with one of his clients about the workout. Very interesting and thoughtful trainer--though I was surprised to hear he still subscribes to the lactic acid theory on muscle soreness. (I thought I'd read that that was out the window.)

My one big criticism would be his nonhelpful cueing. He'd say--"And now we're going to do 15 reps of 'this' exercise". Um...Lalo, what is THIS? LOL I think I'll have to copy the breakdown of the exercises one VFer posted so that I can do it without having to rely on him. It also cracks me up that he does this in voiceover, but lets us hear him huffing and puffing in real time! LOL I know that these would be a dealbreakers for most, but this workout really does seem worth the effort of mastering. There are definitely lots of pushups, but Lalo never does the same pushup twice, and the variations definitely hit all areas of the body. I was definitely toasted by the abs section--maybe I should do this first the next time! LOL I really liked the dynamic warmup and his very thorough cooldown. He really took his time here to think about how to sequence the exercises to promote heat in the body and ROM (for the warmup) and flexibility (in the cooldown/stretch). I definitely could not do all reps of the pushups, but Lalo says that you should be able to do everything within a few weeks. He also mentioned that Lalofit 3 was in the works. I hope he's taking feedback--I have a feeling he'd be a dynamic live instructor, and with a few tweaks, his videos would be absolutely excellent. I think anyone who likes P90X Core Synergistics would like these, as would TLT fans (and those who wanted to like the TLTs but thought them too weird or easy). If you put your all into this workout, it definitely is intermediate/advanced, and doing all of the pushups take it over into the realm of advanced, IMO. Loved this workout, and can't wait for LaloFit 3!



The review on Collage was posted several days after, on 1/5/2010. It copies the relevant portions of my Video Fitness post word for word, punctuation mark for punctuation mark. In fact, the only parts that they leave out are my few negative comments on this video (e.g. cueing) and gave it 5 stars, which I would not have done.

I would not want an event such as this one to jeopardize Collage's reputation of providing honest and balanced reviews on its website. I don't want to speculate too broadly as to who might have done this, but the culprit clearly has a financial or personal interest in making sure that these reviews are as positive as possible. In any case, please remove this plagiarized review as soon as possible.

I'll keep everyone updated.

[naturallove]

Originally Posted by Nat

When I saw clicked the link to Collage, I almost spit out my OJ when I saw the review was by Nat. Keilan's explanation sounds more plausible but I was so worried that you might think it was me. Please be assured that it wasn't me.

Heck, I rarely do reviews here - and I never post them at Collage.

I hope you get this squared away. Please let us know what happens.

No worries, Nat! I don't think it was you at all!

[naturallove]

Originally Posted by Abbe

It's obvious that it is someone who has a commercial interest in selling this workout because they deliberately left out the one negative criticism in your original review. So, it's either a Collage staff member who figured they would help their website along by lifting a VFer's review without permission, or else it's a Lalo staff member doing it. Either way, they were wrong to do it.

Abbe-I never even noticed that part until you pointed that out. That makes me even madder, because as Kath says, it totally skews my thoughts to make it look as though I thought the workout was perfect. Too bad they were too stupid to realize that my comments on lactic acid were also a criticism. LOL

[gigi]

How odd. I agree that it must be someone with a vested interest. I can't believe they thought they could get by with it though.

[videofit]

Seems like plain good manners and common sense to contact you to ask could they please quote your review. You probably would have said yes and they would have avoided this controversy. It's stealing otherwise.

We all know common sense is uncommon these days.

[naturallove]

Originally Posted by videofit

Seems like plain good manners and common sense to contact you to ask could they please quote your review. You probably would have said yes and they would have avoided this controversy. It's stealing otherwise.

I absolutely would have posted my review on Collage if they'd asked! (Of course, they didn't want ALL of my comments, apparently!) LOL

[naturallove]

Here's the text of the email from Collage:

Thank you for bringing this to our attention. The post has been removed.
If you have any further questions, please "reply" to this email. That will make it easier for us to follow-up.

A bit of an apology would have been nice, but oh well--at least the offending review is gone!

[roz]

Originally Posted by glowacki

You've got a case.

I'm surprised Collage allowed the reference to P90X, since that's a set they don't carry and I thought it was their policy to delete any mention of exercise products they don't sell. I once reviewed a Kathy Smith workout and compared the standing ab work to Slim Series, and they cut off that whole line.

Really? on the forum members mention beachbody workouts all the time.

[cpcathy]

I mentioned that a video was akin to YBB and they cut that part out. The rest of my sentence without that did not even make sense!

[RedPanda]

Originally Posted by roz

Really? on the forum members mention beachbody workouts all the time.

Collage seem to be a little more lenient with their forum than with their reviews. I have also had a Collage review "censored" for comparing a workout with a particular gym class.