My local radio station is blasting weight loss ads for everything from Evercleanse (lose 10 – 25 pounds of toxic waste from your colon!) to a skin care company (!) that now has developed a diet pill.

Online is even worse. New “diet” supplement ads pop up all the time.

There must be money to make, otherwise these companies would not stay in business. Constantly changing product names to reel in people by using keywords and ads for the latest fad. From colon cleanse to Wu-yi tea to Acai to ….

The product with the new name is probably the same as the previous one. Just a new label. Who would analyze the ingredients anyway? And sometimes they don’t even bother with new labels. Many that ordered Acai Burn received shipments of Wu-Yi Burn.

One company that caught my eye recently is GNS Inc out of Colorado. In December last year, they were selling something called Slim Pro Shakes. Those don’t exist any more. The ads/blogs that still pop up on a search for them lead to Acai Berry Edge. The sales pitch is the same. A FREE offer and then in fine print on the bottom of the page:

21-Day Free Trial Terms and Conditions: Get two bottles of Acai Berry Edge free for 21 days during the trial period. You invest $3.97 s&h today then $39.95 per bottle at day 21 only if you are satisfied. Auto-shipments follow at the same terms and conditions. Cancel at any time. See the complete Terms and Conditions on the next page for complete details.

Most people just see FREE and don’t notice that this is an autoship program. In addition, for most of these schemes, the trial bottles arrive after 2-3 weeks, so there isn’t even any time to try out the product and cancel before the automatic debit hits your credit card. Of course, most don’t even know they have signed up for autoship before they find the charge on their credit card bill.

Many find a way to cancel at that time. The majority of them just pay the bill, and put the cost down as another expense for yet another failed diet attempt. A few get their credit card company to reverse the charges.

The main GNS website is not much better. While I at first didn’t see any autoship scams there, they are revealed when ordering a product. Then you get the offer to:

SAVE 20% and Get FREE Shipping When You Join the GNS Preferred Customer Club…a fresh bottle of Energy Matrix will automatically be shipped to your doorstep every month at this low price so you don’t have to remember to reorder!….Monetary refunds are not given for autoship products once they have been processed.

So, what products do they sell? One of them, Slim Body Matrix, seems to be just an expensive whey protein shake. This particular shake is advertised as:

the absolute best-tasting, most satisfying weight loss shake ever…

But, when you read on the actual can, there is this little box with the statement:

Notice: Use this product as a food supplement only. Do not use for weight reduction.

A “weight loss shake” that is not intended for “weight reduction?”

Not that his particular company is unique; it just served as an example. There are hundreds of others, perhaps thousands, with equally misleading advertisements and overpriced “weight loss” products.  The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) may be looking into some of these online scams (Acai autoship) and the FDA (Federal Drug Administration) has released a list of weight loss supplements judged to be unsafe.

But, considering the ever growing number of websites trying to cash in on desperate dieters looking for a quick fix, I don’t think we will see any changes soon. I just wish that people would stop falling for unrealistic promises and fake testimonials. If nobody buys the “magic XYZ” there will be no business in selling it.

There have been many articles/blogs listing sure signs to recognize a scam. To me, the most obvious is:

If it looks too good to be true, it probably is.

Another way of researching a diet, product, supplement, or really anything, is to google it on the internet (Yahoo search, MSN search, etc work just as well, of course). For example, a search on the company “GNS” leads to ripoff reports. There are 129 complaints about this company. That might tell you something?

The Kimkins Diet Scam taught me the google trick. Not that it would have helped much when that particular disaster of a diet had it’s heyday in June of 2007, thanks to a Woman’s World article. Back then, only pro-Kimkins articles, fake pictures and fake testimonials were to be found on the web. Not as today when the anti-kk bloggers overwhelm any positive Kimkins.con information out there.

So, that is one more lesson. If there is nothing but obvious ads on the internet, perhaps it would be a good idea to hold of parting with my money for a while. Or, look at the ads and research from there. For Acai, it is pretty obvious that most of the ads have the same origin. It’s also easy to find out that there is no scientific proof that acai has anything to do with weight loss. None.

This case seems to have been going on for some time. I found a reference to it from March 2004: Feds Charge QVC over Weight-Loss Claims

The weight loss claims to be found deceptive were:

• For Women Only weight control products cause substantial weight loss, for example, 50, 60, 100 pounds or more, and enable users to maintain their weight loss for a substantial period of time;
• For Women Only Zero Fat pills (with chitosan, herbs, and other ingredients) prevent fat absorption;
• For Women Only Zero Carb pills (with chromium, vanadium, glucosol, gymena sylvestre leaf, and other ingredients) prevent sugar and carbohydrates from being stored as fat;
• Lite Bites products (including Fat Fighting Bars and Fat Fighting System Shakes, containing chromium picolinate, garcinia cambogia, L-carnitine, herbs, vitamins, fiber, and other ingredients) enable users to lose substantial weight, including, for example, 52, 80, 110, 125 pounds or more, and enable users to maintain their weight loss for a substantial period of time.

It is rewarding to see that FTC is actively pursuing these type of scams. I hope it sets a precedence for other “magic pills” and weight loss methods marketed via TV, radio and other media. Hopefully it will also reach internet marketing where people looking to lose weight seem to be a targeted group for internet marketers wanting to make a fast buck, recycling their “success photos” from last year’s fad (wu-yi tea) to this year’s fad (acai). [Before even thinking about ordering any of these two products, you may want to check out the complaints at Ripoff Reports. Many, many people have lost money on a useless product and have problems getting out of the autoship charges to their credit card.]

But note that this case took at least 5 years. And then it didn’t even go to trial but a settlement was reached. This fact gives me hope about eventually seeing Kimkins.con being shut down. After all, the class action lawsuit wasn’t initiated until late 2007, and class certification granted in January 2009. The wheels of justice are turning, even if not as fast as I’d like.

Despite Heidi Diaz thinking that the “scandal” is over, it is not. Cleaning up your marketing practices does not cancel the fact that people were defrauded of money based on untrue claims and representations. And, while the “internet hate group,” as Heidi calls us, might be small, there are many, many more that would like to see Kimkins.con gone from the internet for good. Including the vast majority of the 40,000 people that paid for a lifetime membership and quickly found out that this was a dangerous diet. I’m sure they would like to have their money back too.

Obviously there is a market for these diets. Otherwise they wouldn’t exist. So are we so gullible? Do we so easily believe these unrealistic promises? That this diet will do what others failed to do?

Do we believe that the weight loss claims are real? That the success stories exist? And that the persons depicted actually used the magic supplement they are selling?

It seems that many do. And are willing to pay a lot of money for another quick fix. If Acai didn’t do it, Wu-Yi didn’t do it, perhaps this Sensa will?

So what is Sensa?

It is a powder (!) that you sprinkle (!) on your food and it makes you eat less.

Backed by “25 years of study” and “clinical study.”

The 25 years research consisted of testing out “sprinkles” or Sensa Tastants (patent pending!). The ingredients in the Tastants are of course not fully disclosed more than that they contain Maltodextrin (corn starch, used as a bulking agent, no doubt), Tricalcium Phosphate (bone ash), Silica (sand), Natural and Artificial Flavors (proprietary), FD&C Yellow 5 (synthetic yellow dye), and Carmine (red pigment from scale insects). Sensa also contains Soy and Milk ingredients.

Hmm. Perhaps you really would eat less if you sprinkled this on food.

The clinical study consisted of one study where 1,436 people sprinkled Tastants on their food for 6 months and then were compared to 100 people that did not. The Tastant group lost 30 pounds while the control group lost only 2! Wow! And it must be true as the study is published. Actually, only the abstract (summary) is published. In “Advanced Technologies and Treatments for Diabetes”, First International Conference, Prague, Czech Republic, February 27, 2008.

Searching, I actually found the abstract. No study. This is the entire text:

USE OF GUSTATORY STIMULI TO FACILITATE WEIGHT LOSS

A .R. Hirsch
Smell & Taste Treatment And Research Foundation, Chicago, IL, USA

Background: Excess weight is a risk factor for myriad illnesses including diabetes. Despite its ubiquity, treatment is, for the most part, ineffective focusing on conscious, draconian self-deprivation efforts including portion control, fasting, hedonic sacrifice, or initiation of a rigorous, often painful, exercise program. Chemosensory modification to induce weight loss has used both aversive and nonaversive olfactory and hedonically positive gustatory stimuli.

Hypothesis: Noncaloric tastant crystals added to food enhance gustatory evoked satiety, reducing consumption, as manifest by weight loss.

Methods: Two thousand four hundred thirty-seven overweight or obese subjects, over a six-month period, sprinkled a variety of savory or sweet tastant crystals onto their food prior to mandiculation. Pre and post study weights were obtained and compared to one hundred nontreated controls.

Results: One thousand four hundred and thirty-six patients (87.4% female, 12.6% male) with an average initial weight of 208 pounds, and BMI of 34.2, completed this study. The average weight loss was 30.5 pounds, 5.0 BMI, versus control of 2 pounds, 0.3 BMI (p<0.05).

Conclusion: Use of tastants to enhance or generalize sensory specific satiety demonstrated efficacy in the promotion of weight loss. Further investigation into this approach on the secondary effects of obesity and diabetes is warranted.

If this “study” is so convincing, why not make it available on the web site that sell the “sprinkles?” Not holding up for peer review?

So, now, when you have read my glowing review, are you ready to shell out $59 (special price!) for a one month’s supply of sprinkles? With autoship! Or, if you were really impressed by the “study” and the “success stories” you can go directly to the 6 months option, for $235, with autoship!

I will not post “Joan’s” comments. It doesn’t matter how much “she” supposedly likes my blog. Clearly “she” hasn’t read it. My posts about Acai are pointing out that it’s a scam. Acai seems like a nice berry but there is nothing that suggests it would help with weight loss.

I also see that “Joan” is not accepting comments on “her” blog.  Helensweightloss, Sandrasweightloss, Nadiasweightloss, etc. do not either. I can understand why. The comments I got on my blog post about Acai have all been negative. Seems that many that order Acai Burn receive Wu-Yi Burn instead. Perhaps the scammer can not keep track of which of “her” sites the order comes from.

Not that it matters much. I’m sure both Acai Burn and Wu-Yi Burn are equally useless. I just hope that the people that ordered get out of their autoship program without losing too much money.

If you have fallen for this scam, you might want to read Acai-Scams. Perhaps there will be some way for you to get your money back. Or at least preventing the scammers from keeping it. Internet business is tricky that way due to the anonymity. But we managed to corner Heidi Diaz of Kimkins so there may be hope for Acai as well. With enough of these Internet scams, perhaps the FDA will finally step in and decide to do something about it.

Here they credit Acai Berry:

And here they credit Wu Yi tea:

In my previous post, I wrote about how I had been unable to find any studies that supported the claims for Acai Berry having anything to do with weight loss, or “cleansing of built-up toxins”. I have been even less successful to find anything suggesting that Wu Yi tea helps getting rid of unwanted pounds.

The one study I found had been done on rats, and concluded:

April 20, 2005 — Both black tea and green tea are good for diabetes, a rat study shows. They also prevent diabetic
animals from developing cataracts.

The findings appear in the May 4 issue of the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

“Black and green tea represent a potentially inexpensive, nontoxic, and, in fact, pleasurable [blood-sugar-lowering] agent,” the researchers write.
“Tea may be a simple, inexpensive means of preventing or retarding human diabetes and the ensuing complications.”

In the study, the researchers gave green and black teas to diabetic rats for three months.

They found both kinds of tea inhibited diabetic cataracts. The teas also had a blood-sugar-lowering effect.

To get the same dose of tea given to the rats, a 143-pound person would have to drink 4.5 8-ounce cups of tea every day.

The researchers recommend that tea — black and green — should be studied for an antidiabetes effect in humans.

Tea may help prevent diabetes and cataracts

I don’t see anything about weight loss in this study. But of course, claiming that Wu Yi tea helps rats not to develop cataracts might not be such a good selling point as to claim some unsubstantiated weight loss from it. Who is going to check anyway? The people in the ad lost weight, didn’t they?

I really wish there was a way to regulate these weight loss scams on the internet. Preying on people desperate to lose weight. People looking for a magic pill. Ending up just losing money instead of weight.