{"id":5740,"date":"2012-01-12T05:28:28","date_gmt":"2012-01-12T03:28:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.ultimatefatburner.com\/?p=5740"},"modified":"2015-03-09T12:41:55","modified_gmt":"2015-03-09T16:41:55","slug":"acai-scammers-fined-15-million","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/acai-scammers-fined-15-million\/","title":{"rendered":"Acai Scammers Fined $1.5 Million"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Last year, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/more-acai-berry-scammers-going-down\/\">I made note of a court order suspending sales of certain acai berry supplement products<\/a>. The defendants were making over-the-top, unproven weight loss and &#8220;detox&#8221; claims, offering phony &#8220;free trials,&#8221;\u00a0\u00a0and &#8211; of course &#8211; adding unauthorized charges to\u00a0customers&#8217; credit cards.<\/p>\n<p>In other words, it was one of those acai berry scam operations we all know and loathe.<\/p>\n<p>At any rate, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ftc.gov\/news-events\/press-releases\/2012\/01\/internet-marketers-acai-berry-weight-loss-pills-colon-cleansers\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the case has now been settled.<\/a> The folks in charge of &#8220;Central Coast Pharmaceuticals&#8221; et al.,\u00a0will be liquidating assets to pay a $1.5 million fine. In addition, the settlement\u00a0also prohibits the defendants from&#8230;<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<ul>\n<li>making deceptive statements that there is no cost for a trial purchase; that all consumers who request full refunds will get them; that celebrities such as Oprah Winfrey and Rachael Ray endorse their products; that consumer testimonials reflect typical consumer experiences; about the total amount consumers will pay; or about any other material fact regarding any goods or services sold by the defendants;<\/li>\n<li>failing to make adequate disclosures about the material terms and conditions of any offer;<\/li>\n<li>charging consumers&#8217; credit cards, or debiting their bank accounts without their consent;<\/li>\n<li>making any claim that a product can diagnose, cure, mitigate, treat, or prevent any disease, including cancer, unless the claim is approved by the Food and Drug Administration;<\/li>\n<li>making any claim that a product can cause weight loss, unless the claim is supported by two well-controlled human clinical studies;<\/li>\n<li>making claims about the health benefits of any supplement, food, or drug without competent and reliable scientific evidence, and misrepresenting any tests or studies;<\/li>\n<li>making deceptive or false statements or failing to disclose material facts, to a payment processor or financial institution; and<\/li>\n<li>violating the Electronic Funds Transfer Act and Regulation E.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Personally, I think these crooks are getting off cheap&#8230; they scammed consumers to the tune of $80 million!\u00a0Still, it&#8217;s <em>some<\/em> justice &#8211; which is better than none.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last year, I made note of a court order suspending sales of certain acai berry supplement products. The defendants were making over-the-top, unproven weight loss and &#8220;detox&#8221; claims, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7,8,17,27,28],"tags":[56,58],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5740"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5740"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5740\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10038,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5740\/revisions\/10038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}