Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Arjun Lal: a swimming pool from stutterers' desperation

Good Girls Go to Heaven (Bad Girls Go Everywhere). It is no different in the stuttering community. I might go to heaven (or hell) for my blogging activities, but Arjun Lal makes the $$$ and has a nice house with a swimming pool in a leafy area of Unionville. According to my humble opinion, he is the crook, fraud, thief, and creator of the website Kill Your Stutter that promises a cure in ten minutes.

A reader emailed me:
Tom, I am incensed by the Kill Your Stutter program, which posts 1-2 ads per DAY on various random sites, and which has zero documentation. The author hides in literally an unlimited number of sites, and presumably hits Google alerts daily by simply posting to the 1-2 new sites per day.

Is there some way to generate a similar posting asking people to be WARY of this scam? I
asked some friends who pointed out they might save more PWS faster and better by paying attention to his poster, but they have no taste for it. Thoughts?

My alerts pick up all your new posts - is it possible to use something like that to spread some warnings?I don't run my own web site, so it is hard for me to generate daily messages that are open to the public (aside from class web sites, which are private to non-registered folks).
I need to think about this. Maybe one of you knows what best to do. But in the mean time, here are the details of the guy owning the domain name Kill Your Stutter. Feel free to contact him!!
Arjun Lal
31 Country Estates Drive
Unionville, Ontario L6C1A4
Canada
lalarjun@gmail.com
(905) 927-1510
He is also part of the NLP community, which doesn't surprise me. There is a real possibility that he actually thinks he is doing a great service to people who stutter. See his post here.

Interestingly, Arjun Lal has also been named in a court case of copyright law infringements. You can read the details here. Maybe one of you is a lawyer and could take up on this. Maybe you could  contact the suing company providing them with the information that he is also defrauding people who stutter. See Court News here. [Link doesn't work by clicking, but you type in manually http://www.courthousenews.com/2010/02/22/VideoGames.pdf and you will get the scanned document of court documents.]

Do you know what I want to do? Get a documentary team, go to Canada, and hunt him down!!

(The Stuttering Student has put a similar post online.)

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

Or we could each come to your site each day to leave a comment warning the people who stutter that he and the Kill your Stutter program victimizes! Maybe then Google would pick up warnings about him faster than they pick up his misleading and mercenary Kill your Stutter posts that prey on people who stutter and their families. You are GREAT, Tom, to do this! with gratitude,
Nan Ratner

Carl Herder said...

Good point Nan! That alone could help increase the google search hits when people research it prior to purchasing. Here's my post!

Carl

Anonymous said...

Your link to the Court News article doesn't work. Can you provide the correct link?

A victim of traditional therapy... said...

Tom -

I don't disagree with your view of Killyourstutter.

The responses from the above professionals are most interesting in light of the strong possibility that their therapy programs have as well victimized PWS and their families at a much greater cost than Killyourstutter.

Free advice to the "professionals" - Get the plank out of your eyes before you start hunting out others.

PWS need to get actively involved in policing the professionals. The professionals have mucked it up already.

Anonymous said...

Unfortunately, Google alerts pulls up two NEW posts for this program today, and none of our comments here warning people.
To the person above, who complains of professional SLPs also taking advantage of PWS, I would have the same problems. If you look at the materials for Kill Your Stutter, it is CLEAR they cannot help a PWS because there is no magic that works that quickly for such a complex disorder. If I saw an SLP make such a claim I would jump on them as fraudulent and abusive as well. I also note that no SLP I know of deliberately posts a link to purchase this garbage multiple times a day on sites so varied that they have nothing in common - today's sites are a "press release" site, others have dealt with job searches, allergies, men's sexuality, etc. At least two or three a day, with nothing in common except coming up first when people look for help for their stutter. It is, in my opinion, unconsionable. If we can post as much to alert consumers, maybe some folks will save some money and heartbreak. Nan

Anonymous said...

I agree with "A victim of traditional therapy." I don't think it is complaining of professionals taking advantage of PWS. Just a statement of fact: The current state of professional "Therapy" - overwhelmingly - is FAILURE. The Internet cures are not coming out of the woodwork because of the success of professional therapy!!! Just ask those who are silent because of stuttering and the "professional therapy" they have been through...oops, I guess don't cauz they ain't talking.

The development of self help groups for we who stutter are ample evidence regarding the FAILURE of professional therapy and therapists. ANY SELF HELP organization for those of us who stutter and their families is MILLIONS times better than the professional therapy offered today. Trusting John Harrison or many other pws for real insight into stuttering before trusting any of the "professionals" makes a ton of sense.

ABSOLUTELY Sites like killyourstutter need to be taken down; but don't kid yourself. ASHA and the other professional groups fail miserably at policing themselves. All one has to do is look at the performance of public school therapists and the pitiful state of therapy in the schools with kids who stutter and their parents.

ASHA - a comedy of epic proportions when it comes to ethics and stuttering. Heck, I heard at the NSA conference that SLP's don't even have to take a course in stuttering to administer therapy for kids who stutter in the schools. (Maybe alert parents to this fact.)

killyourstutter? Professionals with no course work doing therapy?

Get real - Both need be taken out.

Tom Weidig said...

Everyone calms down.

First, we kill KillYourStutter

and then

we can move... ;-)

Ora said...

Let me play the devil's advocate here.

We readily criticize the Kill Your Stutter program, and we consider it predatory and fraudulent because it makes unproved claims.

But let's think about traditional speech therapies for a minute. It claims to be beneficial, but where's the proof? To what extent is it evidence-based? How many of its claims are proved in a scientifically valid way?

Many of us have participated personally in such programs, and some of us are convinced based on personal observation that traditional speech therapies work. But where's the evidence? (Our favorite blogger has often pointed out the deficiencies in the scientific studies claiming effectiveness.)

Just to explain where I'm coming from... I don't want to be on the wrong side of this argument. I do believe that traditional therapies are beneficial, and that Kill Your Stutter isn't. But on what basis can we legitimately differentiate between one and the other, when even nowadays we still don't have a lot of scientifically valid evidence that traditional speech therapies work. A lot of anecdotes and personal experience, but where are the convincing scientific studies?

Why do we call one approach (Kill Your Stutter) fraudulent because it can't back up its claims, but we don't call the other approach (traditional therapies) fraudulent, even though it hasn't backed up its claims? Isn't there a double standard here?

Unknown said...

Ora, I have to admit that you have a sound argument (and, thank you, Tom, for linking my post)...we impugn these snake oil "cures"...but we say nothing of the useless speech therapies that did us no good. I think the difference is, though...they were acting on sound research that was available at the time. They had GOOD INTENTIONS. Not just intentions to rob us of our money. It's a good point to consider, though.

Ora said...

Again at the risk of being on the wrong side of this issue...

Everyone's condemning Kill Your Stutter. But has anyone actually ordered it and read it? What does the program suggest? What's the basis for the suggestion that it's not effective?

I don't mean to defend the program, because I know nothing about it. I just want to know what it proposes, and why people are condemning it.

Tom Weidig said...

Ora,

You don't risk of being on the wrong side, YOU ARE ON THE WRONG SIDE.

StutterinStudent looked at a similar one:
http://stutteringstudent.blogspot.com/2009/09/9-minute-stuttering-cure-update.html

Why don't you buy one package and report back to us!

Ora said...

"YOU ARE ON THE WRONG SIDE."

I don't quite understand your point. Here's what I've said:
- I'm generally a supporter of traditional speech therapy. I think it's helped a lot of people.
- I'm very skeptical of Kill Your Stutter, and I think it's probably basically a scam, with unproven claims of success.
- But on the other hand, there's a lack of scientifically valid studies proving the effectiveness of traditional speech therapy.
- So since both Kill Your Stutter ad traditional speech therapies are not well supported by valid studies, aren't we using a double standard by condemning Kill Your Stutter because it makes unproven claims?

How am I on the wrong side?

Unknown said...

Ora, as I see it, the traditional therapies that failed for us weren't just scams perpetrated for monetary gain. They were done with the best research at the time behind them. They weren't peddling some mysterious product that you could only find out about AFTER you paid money. That's a big difference, IMHO. We don't even know anything about this guy because he doesn't give us any information about himself...or his "cure". It's a scam right out of the box.

Anonymous said...

And the AGGRESSIVE, INTRUSIVE advertising; that's what started the original thread. When you Google, or do Google alerts for stuttering, this product has been placed, thanks to Mr. Lal, everywhere, in 2-5 places per DAY, so that it rises to be the major kind of information people see if they look for stuttering treatment. That kind of product placement says it's not about benefit, it's about money for the vendor, who, as noted, won't tell you what it does til you pay, but does promise you it will "kill" the stutter completely, and virtually immediately, things most of us know are untrue for most PWS in terms of rational therapy approach...
Nan

Anonymous said...

You must be joking about "rational therapy approach" and what "most of us know are untrue for most PWS".

I'm interested in your view of "most PWS". Do you stutter? You work for one of the Traditional Therapy organizations? SFA? ASHA Researcher? One of those specialists? What do you guarantee in your therapy with "Most PWS"? Do you offer a money back guarantee if the PWS you work with is not completely satisfied?

Anonymous said...

Dear anonymous, if you looked, I have been signing my posts. I just don't have a gmail account. I do not stutter; I am a researcher. One of the things I do is research therapy outcomes. You can look me up. http://www.bsos.umd.edu/hesp/facultyStaff/ratnern.htm
I am not trying to start a fight, only help people not to be blatantly defrauded.
Sincerely,
Nan Ratner

martyl said...

Actually, the link you say "doesn't work" works if you take off the space at the end

http://www.courthousenews.com/2010/02/22/VideoGames.pdf

Anonymous said...

This guys needs to be behind bars. This shouldn't be legal. So many people got robbed of $67, and in this economy, that's a big loss. Is there any way we can get our money back?? I've emailed him several times but he doesn't respond.