FTC Temporarily Halts Fake News Sites Selling Weight Loss Supplements
Another day, another supplement scam. The FTC is coming down on yet-another-bunch-of-crooks using phony “news” sites to separate people from their money.
The complaint alleges that the defendants hired affiliate marketers who used fake news websites to promote the defendants’ products. The fake news websites used domain names that appear to be objective news or health sites, such as channel8health.com, dailyhealth6.com, and online6health.com. The sites included stories such as “Acai Berry Diet Exposed: Miracle Diet or Scam?” and “1 Trick of a Tiny Belly: Reporter Loses Her ‘Belly’ Using 1 Easy Tip,” and often displayed the logos of major news sources, such as CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News. Fake reporters on the sites claimed to have tried the defendants’ weight-loss products, such as LeanSpa, NutraSlim, and SlimFuel, and to have lost a substantial amount of weight quickly – sometimes as much as 25 pounds in four weeks without any special diet or vigorous exercise regime. The fake news sites had links to the defendants’ own websites, where consumers were offered trial samples of two weight-loss dietary supplements: an acai-berry product and a colon cleanse product. The affiliate marketers earned a commission for each consumer who landed on their sites and signed up for a trial.
According to the complaint, once consumers landed at the defendants’ sites – including TryLeanSpa.com, TryNutraSlim.com, and TryQuickDetox.com – they were told that for a limited time only, in exchange for a nominal shipping and handling fee, typically $4.95 or less, they would receive trial samples of the acai berry or colon cleanse product, or both, and consumers were urged to provide their credit or debit card account information to pay the nominal fee to obtain a trial sample. If they tried to navigate away, a pop-up message sometimes appeared stating: “Don’t miss out on this GREAT OFFER!!! Just press Cancel to remain on this page and receive an instant discounted S&H price of $1.95.” The defendants allegedly would typically charge consumers either $79.99 for one of the products, or $158.98 for two.
…The defendants’ allegedly deceptive practices also included charging some consumers $79.99 for products before the consumers even received the trial samples or before the 14-day trial period had ended; falsely promising a “100% Satisfaction Guarantee” and full refunds to customers who were dissatisfied with the product; misrepresenting that objective news reporters have performed independent tests on the products and independent consumers have endorsed the products; making unsupported claims that consumers could lose a significant amount of weight quickly; and falsely stating that the claims were clinically proven.
According to the FTC, this is the 11th action the agency’s taken against fake news sites promoting dietary supps. Obviously, it’s a pretty lucrative scam!
December 6, 2011
Scammers suck, that’s for sure. People need to be a little smarter on what they choose to purchase and who they give their credit card number to.
December 6, 2011
I’ve run into a few of these over the years. One thing they also do is read your IP address and use the name of your local city to make the advertising more relevant.
Nasty stuff.
December 6, 2011
Regardless of the sophistication of the scam, the take home lesson is the same as the one you pointed out in the vid you made a few years back. Whenever there’s a free trial offer – particularly for a supp sold only on the internet – READ THE FINE PRINT FIRST. Or better yet, just assume it’s a scam (a pretty safe bet) and walk away… even if the offer is legit, you can be assured that you won’t be missing much, lol.