Acai Berry weight loss blogs under investigation
From the archive: published Mar 26, 2009, 17 years ago. Details may have changed since.
The US Federal Trade Commission and several States are investigating blogs that promote Acai Berry as a miracle weight loss solution.
The 80 or so blogs, including beckysweightloss.com present themselves as legitimate blogs from customer who have lost weight using the product. However, the blogs share a few things in common, such as using the same stock photo of a German model.
Besides there being no proof that Acai Berry works, the companies behind the blogs also catch consumers another way. Promising 14-day “free trials” of Acai berry products, the companies make it virtually impossible for consumers to cancel the trial, resulting in charges to credit cards ranging anywhere from $59 to $89.
Jeremy Schoemaker shares his thoughts here and has video of a news report detailing the scam.