Acai Berry Scam Alert
When a product gets lots of positive publicity, sometimes the crooks come out of the woodwork and that’s happening with acai berry. Acai berry is a great nutritional product but it's often hard to tell the legitimate companies from the scam artists.
So here are our suggested guidelines
to avoid buying from the wrong company.
1) Avoid Free Acai Berry Offers
These free offers almost always require people pay a small amount by credit card to supposedly cover just the shipping and handling. But there is more to it than that, of course. Usually these "free offer" companies place people on a monthly auto-shipment program that often starts within 14 days or 31 days. The companies bury the disclosure of this "auto-ship" program somewhere on their website. When consumers see something advertised as free, or as a free trial, that should be the red flag. There is no "free" stuff in this world that comes without a catch. When consumers see something labeled "free" they should always look for a clickable link that says "Terms" or "Terms and Conditions" and read it! That's the trick. These unethical marketers know that most people don't read every word on a website, or click on all the links. These companies think they can get away with claiming that they disclosed their auto-ship program, but they really didn't. They hide their disclosure behind a link instead of properly disclosing the real terms of the so-called free offer on the front page where consumers can easily see what they are getting into.
These auto-ship scams are not unique to acai berry. This type of unethical marketing ploy has been done for years and with many different products. Usually the Federal Trade Commission shuts them down, but this takes awhile since these auto-shipment scams are so prevalent these days. Luckily, the credit card processors often cut these companies off before the FTC gets around to shutting them down. This happens because many victims dispute the credit card charges through their banks that issued their credit card, and ultimately the credit card processing companies revoke the offending company's credit card processing privileges. It's messy but that is how it often unfolds. Unfortunately, these scam artists often open up again under a new company name until the regulators finally catch up with them.
2) Avoid Products That Advertise Acai Berry As A Weight
Loss Products
For all the positive press and positive research on the acai berry, as far as we can find, there have not been studies that have been done to substantiate whether these weight loss claims have any merit. Since there is no current evidence to suggest acai berry is a proven weight loss product, it is completely inappropriate to advertise it in this manner. When companies make unsubstantiated claims, those claims are unethical, false and misleading. And it is anybody's guess which ingredients are actually contained in those products that are promoted in this manner.
Buyer Beware…be a smart consumer and be sure to:
- Avoid acai berry that make weight loss claims.
- Avoid acai berry cleanse products.
- Avoid free offers for acai berry products.
- Avoid free offers and free trials, period.
