Money, Not Weight, Lost in These Scams
Read the fine print
When you see an online company’s ads touting weight loss products, like acai berries and hoodia, you may not know it yet, but two things are about to trick you. One is the appearance of celebrity endorsements of that particular product; the other is a trap called negative option marketing that kicks in when people sign up for the “free” trial offer.
In January, the Better Business Bureau reported it had received thousands of complaints from people across the country who thought they were signing up for a free trial offer of acai berry weight loss products that were supposedly endorsed by Oprah, Rachael Ray, Dr. Mehmet Oz, and other celebrities and doctors. They praised the acai berry, a Brazilian fruit, for its high level of antioxidants. Acai (pronounced a-sigh-EE) is also touted as an anti-inflammatory and an antibacterial, according to the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), and claims go further by saying it fights cancer and aging and promotes dietary health in addition to weight loss.
Producers of acai berry supplements, juices, and tea have been very successful selling their goods in ads on the Internet and on social networking Web sites such as Facebook. The BBB says sales of acai products approached $15 million in 2008.
Back to the two tricks. First, the endorsements. Read the Web sites carefully: those celebrities aren’t endorsing that company’s product, only the product’s active ingredient, like the acai berry.
“Consumers should be aware that Oprah Winfrey is not associated with nor does she endorse any acai berry product or online solicitation of such products. Attorneys for Harpo are pursuing any companies that claim such an affiliation,” a spokesman for Harpo Productions told ABC News.com in March. The report also noted that Rachael Ray had complained to companies that were claiming she has endorsed their products.
And the second trick? You sign up for a free trial offer, giving up your credit card info to pay for inexpensive shipping and handling. But if you don’t cancel the product within the trial period, you’ll start getting bottles every month, along with hefty charges on your credit card. The problem with canceling is that the trial period begins on the day you order the product, not the day you receive it. So a 10-day trial period could be nearly over by the time you get the product.
This is called negative option marketing: when consumers have to cancel a subscription to a product they didn’t know they’d begun. “A company takes a consumer’s silence or failure to cancel as acceptance of the offer and permission to bill them,” says the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
