March, 23 2009, 02:18pm EDT
Consumers Warned of Web-Based Acai Scams
Companies Use Fake Blogs, Fake Endorsements, Fishy Science, and Hard-to-Cancel Credit Card Transactions to Bilk Consumers
WASHINGTON
The Center for Science in the Public Interest
is warning consumers not to enroll online in supposedly free trials of
diet products made with the trendy Brazilian berry acai (pronounced
a-sigh-EE). There's no evidence whatsoever to suggest that acai pills
will help shed pounds, flatten tummies, cleanse colons, enhance sexual
desire, or perform any of the other commonly advertised functions. And
thousands of consumers have had trouble stopping recurrent charges on
their credit cards when they cancel their free trials.
Even web sites purporting to warn about acai-related scams are themselves perpetrating scams, according to CSPI.
"If
Bernard Madoff were in the food business, he'd be offering 'free'
trials of acai-based weight-loss products," said CSPI senior
nutritionist David Schardt, who authored an expose of the scam in the April issue of CSPI's Nutrition Action Healthletter. "Law enforcement has yet to catch up to these rogue operators. Until they do, consumers have to protect themselves."
CSPI
says that if-despite the total lack of evidence that the product
works-you still want to take advantage of a "free" trial of acai, use a
prepaid credit card with a low credit limit or a virtual credit card
that shields your real credit card number from unscrupulous online
vendors. Visit the web site of the Better Business Bureau, which in January announced that it had received thousands of acai-related complaints.
Look for the BBB seal on e-commerce sites and click on the seal to confirm its legitimacy, CSPI advises.
Acai
began attracting attention in 2005 on the belief that its juice was
especially high in antioxidants. In truth, acai juice has only middling levels of antioxidants-less
than that of Concord grape, blueberry, and black cherry juices, but
more than cranberry, orange, and apple juices. Even so, the extent to
which antioxidants by themselves promote health is a matter of some
debate. No credible evidence suggests antioxidants promote weight loss.
In early 2008, Acai got a jolt of publicity when
Dr. Mehmet Oz included acai among tomatoes, blueberries, broccoli, and
other healthy foods in a segment on Oprah.
A guest on Rachael Ray also discussed an acai beverage. Since then, ads
on Google, Facebook, and major news media web sites have misleadingly
steered consumers to sites with names like Oprah-best-acai.com , OprahsAmazingDiet.com, DrOzMiracle.com, rachaelray.drozdiet-acaiberry.com
and dozens of others. OprahsAmazingDiet.com links to a blog post by a
woman who supposedly lost 57 pounds using Oprah-endorsed products, and
displays authoritative-looking biographies of Oprah and Dr. Oz. It then
links to an offer for AcaiBurn, sold by a company that lists an address
in Cyprus as its headquarters. Other sites link to FWM Laboratories of
Ft. Lauderdale and Hollywood, Fla., which has an F rating from the
Better Business Bureau and scores of horror stories about it on Internet complaint forms.
Oprah Winfrey, Mehmet Oz, and Rachael Ray have all publicly
disassociated themselves from the acai sites that make unauthorized use
their names.
"When I logged on to my Hotmail account, I saw an
ad about how Oprah lost weight on this diet, and I enrolled in what I
thought would be a free trial," said M Chanel Pinkett, a graduate
student from Gaithersburg, Md. who signed up for a free trial at AcaiBerryDetox.com,
a site run by FWM Laboratories. Pinkett's "free" trial actually cost
$174.26. After posting a complaint on complaintsboard.com, which has
thousands of acai-related complaints, she told her story to
Washington's WJLA-TV.
"There are no magical berries from the Brazilian
rainforest that cure obesity-only painfully real credit card charges
and empty weight loss promises," said Connecticut Attorney General
Richard Blumenthal. "Aggressive Acai berry pitches on the Internet
entice countless consumers into free trials promising weight loss,
energy and detoxification. These claims are based on folklore,
traditional remedies and outright fabrications-unproven by real
scientific evidence. In reality, consumers lose more money than weight
after free trials transition into inescapable charges. We will
investigate these allegedly misleading or deceptive nutrition and
health claims and take action under our consumer protection statutes-as
we have done with other food products."
FWM Laboratories, Advanced Wellness Research, and
other acai companies benefit from dozens of fake diet blogs that steer
unsuspecting consumers to sites plugging free acai trials. The woman
depicted on Tara's Diet Blog, Olivia's Weight Loss blog, Alicia's Diet Blog, Becky's Weight Loss blog, and at least 75 other blogs is a German model named Julia
who has nothing to do with acai or any weight-loss product. The German
photographer who made the original photos of her available on
Istockphoto.com said the pill companies manipulated some of the "after"
images to give the impression of weight loss. The fake blogs were first
uncovered by a real blog, wafflesatnoon.com, written by an ad-industry
insider.
"These diet 'bloggers' are just a mirage,"
Schardt said. "Their weight loss is courtesy of Photoshop, not acai."
Other acai companies with F ratings from the BBB include Pure Acai
Berry Pro (Advanced Wellness Research), AcaiBurn, Acai Berry Maxx (FX
Supplements), and SFL Nutrition.
One of several online purchases of acai attempted
by CSPI was blocked when the fraud department of the credit card's
issuing bank called the group, flagging the charge as suspicious. The
reason? The funds would have been routed to an overseas bank.
Of course there's good reason why some Internet
supplement scammers might want to stay safely outside the U.S.: The
company behind Enzyte,
an herbal "male enhancement" pill advertised on late night television
with grating "Smiling Bob" commercials, similarly charged consumers'
credit cards after free trials ended. Company founder Steve Warshak is
now serving a 25-year sentence in federal prison.
Since 1971, the Center for Science in the Public Interest has been a strong advocate for nutrition and health, food safety, alcohol policy, and sound science.
LATEST NEWS
Critics Blast 'Reckless and Impossible' Bid to Start Operating Mountain Valley Pipeline
"The time to build more dirty and dangerous pipelines is over," said one environmental campaigner.
Apr 23, 2024
Environmental defenders on Tuesday ripped the company behind the Mountain Valley Pipeline for asking the federal government—on Earth Day—for permission to start sending methane gas through the 303-mile conduit despite a worsening climate emergency caused largely by burning fossil fuels.
Mountain Valley Pipeline LLC sent a letter Monday to Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Acting Secretary Debbie-Anne Reese seeking final permission to begin operation on the MVP next month, even while acknowledging that much of the Virginia portion of the pipeline route remains unfinished and developers have yet to fully comply with safety requirements.
"In a manner typical of its ongoing disrespect for the environment, Mountain Valley Pipeline marked Earth Day by asking FERC for authorization to place its dangerous, unnecessary pipeline into service in late May," said Jessica Sims, the Virginia field coordinator for Appalachian Voices.
"MVP brazenly asks for this authorization while simultaneously notifying FERC that the company has completed less than two-thirds of the project to final restoration and with the mere promise that it will notify the commission when it fully complies with the requirements of a consent decree it entered into with the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration last fall," she continued.
"Requesting an in-service decision by May 23 leaves the company very little time to implement the safety measures required by its agreement with PHMSA," Sims added. "There is no rush, other than to satisfy MVP's capacity customers' contracts—a situation of the company's own making. We remain deeply concerned about the construction methods and the safety of communities along the route of MVP."
Russell Chisholm, co-director of the Protect Our Water, Heritage, Rights (POWHR) Coalition—which called MVP's request "reckless and impossible"—said in a statement that "we are watching our worst nightmare unfold in real-time: The reckless MVP is barreling towards completion."
"During construction, MVP has contaminated our water sources, destroyed our streams, and split the earth beneath our homes. Now they want to run methane gas through their degraded pipes and shoddy work," Chisholm added. "The MVP is a glaring human rights violation that is indicative of the widespread failures of our government to act on the climate crisis in service of the fossil fuel industry."
POWHR and activists representing frontline communities affected by the pipeline are set to take part in a May 8 demonstration outside project financier Bank of America's headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Appalachian Voices noted that MVP's request comes days before pipeline developer Equitrans Midstream is set to release its 2024 first-quarter earnings information on April 30.
MVP is set to traverse much of Virginia and West Virginia, with the Southgate extension running into North Carolina. Outgoing U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and other pipeline proponents fought to include expedited construction of the project in the debt ceiling deal negotiated between President Joe Biden and congressional Republicans last year.
On Monday, climate and environmental defenders also petitioned the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, challenging FERC's approval of the MVP's planned Southgate extension, contending that the project is so different from original plans that the government's previous assent is now irrelevant.
"Federal, state, and local elected officials have spoken out against this unneeded proposal to ship more methane gas into North Carolina," said Sierra Club senior field organizer Caroline Hansley. "The time to build more dirty and dangerous pipelines is over. After MVP Southgate requested a time extension for a project that it no longer plans to construct, it should be sent back to the drawing board for this newly proposed project."
David Sligh, conservation director at Wild Virginia, said: "Approving the Southgate project is irresponsible. This project will pose the same kinds of threats of damage to the environment and the people along its path as we have seen caused by the Mountain Valley Pipeline during the last six years."
"FERC has again failed to protect the public interest, instead favoring a profit-making corporation," Sligh added.
Others renewed warnings about the dangers MVP poses to wildlife.
"The endangered bats, fish, mussels, and plants in this boondoggle's path of destruction deserve to be protected from killing and habitat destruction by a project that never received proper approvals in the first place," Center for Biological Diversity attorney Perrin de Jong said. "Our organization will continue fighting this terrible idea to the bitter end."
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Seismic Win for Workers': FTC Bans Noncompete Clauses
Advocates praised the FTC "for taking a strong stance against this egregious use of corporate power, thereby empowering workers to switch jobs and launch new ventures, and unlocking billions of dollars in worker earnings."
Apr 23, 2024
U.S. workers' rights advocates and groups celebrated on Tuesday after the Federal Trade Commission voted 3-2 along party lines to approve a ban on most noncompete clauses, which Democratic FTC Chair Lina Khansaid "keep wages low, suppress new ideas, and rob the American economy of dynamism."
"The FTC's final rule to ban noncompetes will ensure Americans have the freedom to pursue a new job, start a new business, or bring a new idea to market," Khan added, pointing to the commission's estimates that the policy could mean another $524 for the average worker, over 8,500 new startups, and 17,000 to 29,000 more patents each year.
As Economic Policy Institute (EPI) president Heidi Shierholz explained, "Noncompete agreements are employment provisions that ban workers at one company from working for, or starting, a competing business within a certain period of time after leaving a job."
"These agreements are ubiquitous," she noted, applauding the ban. "EPI research finds that more than 1 out of every 4 private-sector workers—including low-wage workers—are required to enter noncompete agreements as a condition of employment."
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has suggested it plans to file a lawsuit that, as The American Prospectdetailed, "could more broadly threaten the rulemaking authority the FTC cited when proposing to ban noncompetes."
Already, the tax services and software provider Ryan has filed a legal challenge in federal court in Texas, arguing that the FTC is unconstitutionally structured.
Still, the Democratic commissioners' vote was still heralded as a "seismic win for workers." Echoing Khan's critiques of such noncompetes, Public Citizen executive vice president Lisa Gilbert declared that such clauses "inflict devastating harms on tens of millions of workers across the economy."
"The pervasive use of noncompete clauses limits worker mobility, drives down wages, keeps Americans from pursuing entrepreneurial dreams and creating new businesses, causes more concentrated markets, and keeps workers stuck in unsafe or hostile workplaces," she said. "Noncompete clauses are both an unfair method of competition and aggressively harmful to regular people. The FTC was right to tackle this issue and to finalize this strong rule."
Morgan Harper, director of policy and advocacy at the American Economic Liberties Project, praised the FTC for "listening to the comments of thousands of entrepreneurs and workers of all income levels across industries" and finalizing a rule that "is a clear-cut win."
Demand Progress' Emily Peterson-Cassin similarly commended the commission "for taking a strong stance against this egregious use of corporate power, thereby empowering workers to switch jobs and launch new ventures, and unlocking billions of dollars in worker earnings."
While such agreements are common across various industries, Teófilo Reyes, chief of staff at the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, said that "many restaurant workers have been stuck at their job, earning as low as $2.13 per hour, because of the noncompete clause that they agreed to have in their contract."
"They didn't know that it would affect their wages and livelihood," Reyes stressed. "Most workers cannot negotiate their way out of a noncompete clause because noncompetes are buried in the fine print of employment contracts. A full third of noncompete clauses are presented after a worker has accepted a job."
Student Borrower Protection Center (SBPC) executive director Mike Pierce pointed out that the FTC on Tuesday "recognized the harmful role debt plays in the workplace, including the growing use of training repayment agreement provisions, or TRAPs, and took action to outlaw TRAPs and all other employer-driven debt that serve the same functions as noncompete agreements."
Sandeep Vaheesan, legal director at Open Markets Institute, highlighted that the addition came after his group, SBPC, and others submitted comments on the "significant gap" in the commission's initial January 2023 proposal, and also welcomed that "the final rule prohibits both conventional noncompete clauses and newfangled versions like TRAPs."
Jonathan Harris, a Loyola Marymount University law professor and SBPC senior fellow, said that "by also banning functional noncompetes, the rule stays one step ahead of employers who use 'stay-or-pay' contracts as workarounds to existing restrictions on traditional noncompetes. The FTC has decided to try to avoid a game of whack-a-mole with employers and their creative attorneys, which worker advocates will applaud."
Among those applauding was Jean Ross, president of National Nurses United, who said that "the new FTC rule will limit the ability of employers to use debt to lock nurses into unsafe jobs and will protect their role as patient advocates."
Angela Huffman, president of Farm Action, also cheered the effort to stop corporations from holding employees "hostage," saying that "this rule is a critical step for protecting our nation's workers and making labor markets fairer and more competitive."
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Discriminatory' North Carolina Law Criminalizing Felon Voting Struck Down
One plaintiffs' attorney said the ruling "makes our democracy better and ensures that North Carolina is not able to unjustly criminalize innocent individuals with felony convictions who are valued members of our society."
Apr 23, 2024
Democracy defenders on Tuesday hailed a ruling from a U.S. federal judge striking down a 19th-century North Carolina law criminalizing people who vote while on parole, probation, or post-release supervision due to a felony conviction.
In Monday's decision, U.S. District Judge Loretta C. Biggs—an appointee of former Democratic President Barack Obama—sided with the North Carolina A. Philip Randolph Institute and Action NC, who argued that the 1877 law discriminated against Black people.
"The challenged statute was enacted with discriminatory intent, has not been cleansed of its discriminatory taint, and continues to disproportionately impact Black voters," Biggs wrote in her 25-page ruling.
Therefore, according to the judge, the 1877 law violates the U.S. Constitution's equal protection clause.
"We are ecstatic that the court found in our favor and struck down this racially discriminatory law that has been arbitrarily enforced over time," Action NC executive director Pat McCoy said in a statement. "We will now be able to help more people become civically engaged without fear of prosecution for innocent mistakes. Democracy truly won today!"
Voting rights tracker Democracy Docket noted that Monday's ruling "does not have any bearing on North Carolina's strict felony disenfranchisement law, which denies the right to vote for those with felony convictions who remain on probation, parole, or a suspended sentence—often leaving individuals without voting rights for many years after release from incarceration."
However, Mitchell Brown, an attorney for one of the plaintiffs, said that "Judge Biggs' decision will help ensure that voters who mistakenly think they are eligible to cast a ballot will not be criminalized for simply trying to reengage in the political process and perform their civic duty."
"It also makes our democracy better and ensures that North Carolina is not able to unjustly criminalize innocent individuals with felony convictions who are valued members of our society, specifically Black voters who were the target of this law," Brown added.
North Carolina officials have not said whether they will appeal Biggs' ruling. The state Department of Justice said it was reviewing the decision.
According to Forward Justice—a nonpartisan law, policy, and strategy center dedicated to advancing racial, social, and economic justice in the U.S. South, "Although Black people constitute 21% of the voting-age population in North Carolina, they represent 42% of the people disenfranchised while on probation, parole, or post-release supervision."
The group notes that in 44 North Carolina counties, "the disenfranchisement rate for Black people is more than three times the rate of the white population."
"Judge Biggs' decision will help ensure that voters who mistakenly think they are eligible to cast a ballot will not be criminalized for simply trying to re-engage in the political process and perform their civic duty."
In what one civil rights leader called "the largest expansion of voting rights in this state since the 1965 Voting Rights Act," a three-judge state court panel voted 2-1 in 2021 to restore voting rights to approximately 55,000 formerly incarcerated felons. The decision made North Carolina the only Southern state to automatically restore former felons' voting rights.
Republican state legislators appealed that ruling to the North Carolina Court of Appeals, which in 2022 granted their request for a stay—but only temporarily, as the court allowed a previous injunction against any felony disenfranchisement based on fees or fines to stand.
However, last April the North Carolina Supreme Court reversed the three-judge panel decision, stripping voting rights from thousands of North Carolinians previously convicted of felonies. Dissenting Justice Anita Earls opined that "the majority's decision in this case will one day be repudiated on two grounds."
"First, because it seeks to justify the denial of a basic human right to citizens and thereby perpetuates a vestige of slavery, and second, because the majority violates a basic tenant of appellate review by ignoring the facts as found by the trial court and substituting its own," she wrote.
As similar battles play out in other states, Democratic U.S. lawmakers led by Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts and Sen. Peter Welch of Vermont in December introduced legislation to end former felon disenfranchisement in federal elections and guarantee incarcerated people the right to vote.
Currently, only Maine, Vermont, and the District of Columbia allow all incarcerated people to vote behind bars.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular