19 May 2010

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Diet and exercise scams are growing at an alarming rate of speed. An increase in the public's awareness of the obesity epidemic combined with a misunderstanding of how to lose weight fuel this trend. Everyone is creating books, diets pills or workout devices that promise quick results with little or no change to your daily routine.

The acai berry scam has been around for a few years. Sellers claim that the magic of the acai berry has been packed into a pill that can prevent cancer and help you lose weight.

Hundreds if not thousands of different sellers are throwing acai berry pills at trusting people. These websites all look the same. They usually feature a few people talking about the success they've had with acai berries. Sometimes the site even looks very much like a personal blog to make their story more believable. Most of these sites also have ABC, NBC, CNN and Fox News logos on them to make it appear as if they've been given a seal of approval by these national news networks. Those are fake just as most of the information on the site is fake. Sometimes these sites have even ben "endorsed" by famous celebrities like Oprah.

The reason why this scam is one of the dirtiest is because of their "free trials". They promise that after you enter your credit card information into their website, they'll send you a free 2 week supply of their product. What they don't tell you up front (but hidden in the 5 page long terms and conditions) is that after the 2 week free trial, you start a monthly subscription service in which your credit card is billed a crazy amount (sometimes over $100) for your supply of acai berries to continue.

They promise that if you cancel your 2 week free trial, you won't have to pay a cent which is technically true but hard to accomplish. Most of these companies will make sure your shipment arrives at your door after your 2 week trial is already over. They will also keep their toll free number busy so that when you do try and cancel your subscription, you'll be on hold for hours unable to get in touch with anyone.

Just check out Acai Advanced (aka 3V Marketing, aka Certified Reservatrol, aka Live Lean for Life, aka Sera Concepts, aka Vitality LLC, I wonder why they have so many names) at www.acaicertified.com. You can look up a report the Better Business Bureau wrote up about them and you'll see that the BBB gives them an F (which is bad if you've been out of school for a while).

This company (as of 19 May 2010) had a total of 865 complaints. Out of those 865 complaints, 519 are related to the company's credit, billing and collection issues. One hundred and eighteen are related to the company's refund and exchange issues. The remaining complaints are about advertising, customer service and sales practice issues. You can look up other acai berry companies and you'll see the same picture.

Acai berry pills are nothing but an expensive lie. If you want to lose weight, proper diet and exercise are required. Any product that promises otherwise will not work.