The Truth About Acai Berry? We Don't Think So
Here's yet another product site claiming to be a consumer advocate -- in fact, it calls itself the "official watchdog group of the Acai industry."
Acai fruit comes from palm trees in the Brazilian and other rainforests. It's also become a trendy diet food ascribed all sorts of magical powers (for the lowdown on acai's nutritional value, see Consumer Reports' health blog). What's amusing about this self-proclaimed acai berry watchdog is that it appears to have lifted its main graphic and mission statement ("Expose, Confront, Change") from a real organization, the Calfornia-based ConsumerWatchdog.org.
The domain owner used private proxy registration, so you know the acai site is probably bogus. It's also got an array of logos from major media outlets that don't lead to anything, as if to proclaim that the site's been talked about on TV and in the mainstream press. And, of course, acai berry itself has been talked about in the mainstream press, but this site hasn't. Until now! What a lucky site.
One of the acai sites it in turn recommends, Acai Burn, is also privately registered, though we did get a very nice person on the other end of the line when we called (800) 659-3588. Acai Burn is not available in stores, only by phone order and via the Web site, which is "encrypted and all," according to the nice customer rep. We were trying to figure out, of course, if the acai "consumer advocate" site owns Acai Burn, but we can't quite make the link.
From the acai "consumer advocate" site, there's also a link to "Acai Berry All Natural Cleansing Formula," which also adopts the "as seen on TV" trick, this time displaying logos of big media outlets with quotes that talk about Acai itself, not the actual product for sale on this site. This site's also privately registered, and is affiliated with "www.phentremine.com."
Note the spelling of the URL above, in bold, carefully. Clearly, it's meant to confuse consumers into believing that what they are going to get is actually phentermine, an anti-obesity prescription drug.
Any company that plays around with the spellings of potentially dangerous drugs is not selling products you need.
Comments
Do you guys think that if Acai berries really work they would (a) be so cheap and (b)Oprah would be so Fat now?
Don't get me wrong - I absolutely love Oprah, but she is surrounded by some major goof balls when it comes to weight loss/management information and guidance.
We all have to look past all of the bad info we've been getting for decades relating to healthy foods. Guys like Dr. Oz are medical doctors and they are now the new self proclaimed experts on nutrition's impact on health. They have no background in nutrition and very little or none in Endocrinology (true weight control is all about metabolism).
These snake oil salesmen are jumping out of the trees everywhere and making all kinds of bogus claims about nutrition and weight management. Having said that, I must remind myself that they are only following what they learned in med school and the latest scoop from the pharmaceutical salesman and the New England Medical Journal (all fed the same sponsored "scientific study" BS for years).
I follow Matt Stone at 180 Degree Health. His research and information is truly going to eliminate all of the diets and fads which have been around for so long that we now have a national eating disorder, with 67% of our U.S. population overweight and the majority of that group officially "obese", and folks, they are trying to control their weight just like Oprah, but when they fail they blame themselves and it only gets worse from there...
MD's are awsome and work very hard and save us and fix us when we're broken. Kudos to all of you and your profession - you are and should be highly respected, but just stay in your field and keep fixing us when we break. Thanks and keep up the "good" work.
Posted by: Ron | May 5, 2009 09:36 PM
The Acai scams are on a massive scale. Complaints board has over 7400 complaints and rising by about 100 per day:
http://www.complaintsboard.com/?search=acai
All the fake blogs (flogs) are owned by affiliates who are paid up to $40 per "free trial" by CPA advertising companies like Pepperjam, ads4dough, neverblue and Hydra.
Of course none of the fake blogs have any contact info or whois info what with their fake testimonials and fake pictures being illegal and all that. Nice expose of them here: http://wafflesatnoon.com/2009/01/29/acai-cleanse-scams-update/
If you go to warriorforum.com or wickedfire.com you will find some of the charming people who promote this rubbish boasting about it - basically saying "yeah of course I know it's a scam but I am making loads of money so who cares" followed by several other posters congratulating them on their "brilliant marketing skills".
http://www.warriorforum.com/ad-networks-cpa-cpm-cpl-millionaire-makers/68833-people-still-falling-acai.html
http://www.warriorforum.com/main-internet-marketing-discussion-forum/58021-death-acai-berry-products-video-proof.html
Same thing with the grants offers and the make money with Google / emillionaire get rich quick rubbish. All being pushed by fake blogs, fake testimonials via CPA networks.
About time some of the people pushing this rubbish had their day in court.
Posted by: John Peters | April 1, 2009 10:35 AM
Hi
Acai is all the rage at the moment but some unscrupulous companies are scamming people for hidden costs in their free trials. When these free trials are taken out you are also signed up for membership and on going supplies.
Just one other word, just because you have private registration does not mean you have anything to hide. one of the reasons is it stops a lot of spammers
Be careful
Health Reporter Plus
http://www.healthreporterplus.com
Posted by: Health Reporter Plus | February 27, 2009 03:26 AM