Acai Berry Scam

This scam is world wide. It has now made it to Australia and the advertising market is LIT UP with responses to scam ads.

The scam artists prey on your inability to “see” what you are looking at or understand what you are looking at or reading.

Case in point: I ran across an ad in paltalk that looked like the one below and to the untrained eye would look like a breaking news report that exposes some dark secret about acai berry that doesn’t do what it’s claimed to do. So you click on the ad and your browser opens to a web page for the Daily Health Alerts news page which looks very official including what looks like a news reporter in a professional looking snapshot with a caption. The web page is even designed to show today’s date, plug in some user comments with todays date and a day or two earlier, and plug in an expiration date of today plus 1 day to establish a sense of urgency.

It is safe to open the page from the link I provided above and you can look through it as I explain its parts here. First thing that alerts you to a scam is the professional looking photo of a woman with a caption that causes you to think she is a real reporter or journalist for a news company, until you click on her photo which takes you to a web advertisement page for the acai berry.

There is no official company called the Australian Health Inquirer even though a logo is posted top left. You will also notice that the Fox News Special Report at the right sidebar has no video or image or working link, because there isn’t really one.

Second point, the headlines suggests that something has been uncovered and after reading the article you discover that nothing diabolical was uncovered after all and that the opposite is true. The article causes you to believe that the reporter was duped by doing her own test of the product and proved to herself that the product actually works, like a miracle.

Then we come to point #3 at the bottom where the user comments would normally be. We find that there are 10 out of 177 comments showing, BUT WAIT! there are only 9 comments showing, not 10 and the last comment has todays date on it. WOW, I JUST missed being able to post a comment, but the comments are “closed due to spam activity” and you are left with nothing to do but read the 9 (not 10) comments that appear to be real from today and the previous day.

These comments talk about “going to”, “about to” “planning to” try the product, and some even say they did try it at exorbitant fees to help you, the reader, feel like you are special by getting the chance to take a free trial offer which by the way, EXPIRES tomorrow! This type of urgency is seared into your mind to make a better selling ad.

Now the truth:

Amazingly enough if you visit the root web address of http://www.dailyhealthalerts.com you find that it is NOT a website with daily health alerts at all. In fact it is a base for the different fake ad web pages to be hosted. There are many other websites on the web just like this mentioning a single mother of two who lost an amazing 42lbs in 3 weeks, or some professional single mother with no time to exercise who lost 37 lbs. in 4 weeks, etc., infinitum.

It’s a real shame that Oprah had an entire show on the effects of acai berry and literally HELPED the scammers sell more product that does nothing more than simple red wine and exercise.  Sadly, Oprah is responsible for helping a LOT of scammers. Don’t become a victim.

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China – Toy Ban

Do not purchase toys “Made in China” is fast becoming the talk in an overwhelming number of social circles across the US and other countries.

China has successfully grown a reputation for itself as the most dangerous toy manufacturer in the world. With repeated and continuous violations of manufacturing toys that are a choking, laceration, lead poison hazards and now toxic “date rape” chemicals applied to their toys, it is no wonder China is becoming known as the “Killer Toy Maker.”

With a list of approximately 800 recalled toys, the US CPSC (Consumer Product Safety Commission) keeps us informed as to the hazards of toys made around the world. Not surprisingly, over 95% of the listed products are made in China.

Here are a few examples:

• Spin Master Recalls Aqua Dots…
  Spin Master Recalls Aqua Dots – Children Became Unconscious After Swallowing Beads
  Hazard: The coating on the beads contains a chemical that can turn toxic when many are ingested. Children who swallow the beads can become comatose, develop respiratory depression, or have seizures.
  Coated with the industrial chemical 1,4-butanediol, the chemical metabolizes into the “date-rape” drug gamma hydroxy butyrate, and may cause breathing problems, loss of consciousness, seizures, drowsiness, coma and death.
  Supposed to have been coated with nontoxic 1,5-pentanediol, a chemical commonly used in computer printer ink. But that chemical generally sells for three or four times the price of the toxic compound found on the tainted toys, 1,4-butanediol.

• Curious George Plush Dolls …
  Curious George Plush Dolls Recalled By Marvel Toys Due to Risk of Lead Exposure
  Hazard: Surface paint on the toy’s plastic face and construction hat contain excessive levels of lead, which violates the federal lead paint standard.

• Swimways Corp. Recalls “Skippy” pool toys…
  Hazard: The elastic tongue of the fish can break and forcefully come out and cut the users’ hands during launching of the toy.

• Magnetix Magnetic Building Set…
  Magnetix Magnetic Building Set Recall Expanded
  Serious Injuries Continue to be Reported to CPSC
  Hazard: If a child swallows more than one tiny powerful magnet detached from the plastic building pieces or one such magnet and a metallic object, the objects can attract to each other inside the intestines and cause perforations and/or blockage, which can be fatal, if not treated immediately.

• Pokémon USA Recall of Pokém…
  Recall of Pokémon Plush Toys
  Hazard: The stuffing of the toy may contain tips of sewing needles
• Sony Computer Entertainment…
  Recall of Certain AC Adaptors Sold with Slim Version PlayStation® 2 Systems
  Hazard: The recalled AC adaptors can overheat and melt. This poses the risk of fire, burn and shock injuries to consumers.
• New Easy-Bake Oven Recall F…
  New Easy-Bake Oven Recall Following Partial Finger Amputation
  Hazard: Young children can insert their hands into the oven’s front opening, and get their hands or fingers caught, posing entrapment and burn hazards.

• Bendable Dinosaur Toys Recalled…
  Bendable Dinosaur Toys Recalled by Kipp Brothers for Excessive Lead
  Hazard: The recalled toys pose a risk of lead exposure to young children.

If you were a country that wanted to subdue, takeover, or destroy another country, wouldn’t it be a great plan to kill off their children first and then kill as many of the adult population as you could in a conventional war? This would prevent the country from reproducing or seriously limit their chances of procreation leaving them incapable of rebuilding their forces for, at best, many generations.

I think it’s time to stop patronizing a country that builds “killer toys” and boycotting their distributors. What do you think?

Soul Mate Scam

Love Soul Mate scam of the century. It amazes me how much time people have on their hands, and spend it thinking up ways to rip off America.

When you see ads that say “find out the exact name of your soul mate“, do NOT be tempted to take the test. It’s not a test at all. in step 1 you will enter your gender, in step 2 you will enter your zodiacal sign, or star sign. In step 3 you will enter your first name, (are you getting a feel for this yet?), and in step 4 you will enter your cell phone number.

MY What???? That’s right, and what you don’t notice is that at the bottom of the red bordered screen, out of your immediate view, is the “fine print.” In the fine print you will discover that after you have entered your cell phone number, you will be sent a PIN for you to discover the name of your soul mate. You must reply to the text message with your PIN to reveal your soul mate. Once you have replied to the text message, you are subscribing to a weekly prediction service and agree to be charged anywhere from $5.99 each week to $19.99 a month [depending on who your cell service is with].

The ONLY way to stop this service is for you to send the word “STOP” to the number [short code] 89623, which appeared briefly on the “enter your cell phone number” page which you probably breezed right past and didn’t notice the fine print hidden obscurely out of view at the bottom of the page that you must scroll down to see.

What a great scam huh? This is the typical “preying on human nature” scam that Banks on the fact you will be excited, eager and in a hurry to find the answer. In your haste you will zoom right by the important information that will quietly and invisibly relieve you of your hard earned cash on your quest to find out the name of your soul mate.

So who is my soul mate? I don’t know, because I stopped dead in my tracks when I am asked to enter my cell phone number on a web site. However, I am willing to bet that it would have been the name of some celebrity that is also a Sagittarius, or a list of famous celebs with birthdays in December. Or maybe, the name would be revealed to me after I have gotten 6 predictions first, or it would be a name taken from the phone book of a 3rd world country, who needs to be married immediately to an American or they will lose MILLIONS of dollars that is waiting for them in an obscure offshore account because it was left to them by someone who was related to them (by name) and died recently without a will and leaving the money unclaimed. [Some of you may have gotten that if you have seen that scam as well]

Source: http://lovesoulmate.us

***UPDATE***The Soul Mate site has changed their pages to include the “fine print” at the bottom of every page and changed the title to inform you that you will get your soul mate’s name through weekly horoscope predictions to your cell phone.

***UPDATE 6/12/2007***A new website from the same company running love soul mate is now open called My 1 Pure Love. The charges are the same, the scam is the same and still they only offer horoscopes and love “predictions.”

***UPDATE 7/16/2007***Yet another website by the same company has produced “Perfect Lover Calculator” and it appears on myspace.com accounts as “crush Calculator.”

PerfectLover will not issue refunds to persons or entities claiming that they did not authorize the use of their wireless account to receive a Download.

The STOP text of 75557 is the number to use on this service. The terms and conditions are identical to all their other services with the exception of the name change and the terms and conditions were last updated for all their named services in Nov 2005.

***UPDATE 7/30/2007***It appears that the “STOP” numbers that you text back to the company do not work:

December 27th 2006 04:11:32 AM I HAVE THE SAME PROBLEM GETTING MESSAGES ON MY T-MOBIL CELL PHONE THEY’VE CHARGED 20.00 2 MY BILL I WANT SOMETHING DONE AND MY ACCOUNT CREDITED 4 THIS 20.00.I’VE TEXT STOP 2 75557 CALLED 800 # TO NO AVAIL . PLEASE DO SOMETHING THIS IS WRONG ITS A SCAM AND NEEDS STOPED AND REPAY THE MONEY CHARGED ON OUR CELL BILL. THANKS M.M. IN ALABAMA

December 21st 2006 04:38:04 PM I have been charged as well and can not get through on my cell phone for them to stop! WHAT A FREAKING SCAM!I had $30.00 worth on my bill. The phone providers are powerless because of “anti-trust” laws. If they can’t do anything, it is up to us to do it. I am going to start by filing a complaint with the FCC. Don’t know if it will help, but worth a shot.

***UPDATE 8/23/2007***Major changes are taking place since I began this consumer alert post. Today I have discovered that LoveSoulMate.us has changed its home page in the following ways:

1. The title of the page is no longer “Find out the exact name of your soulmate.” It is now displaying “Find out the name of your love soulmate with weekly horoscopes to your cell.“
2. The graphic now includes a notice to all users saying “Don’t miss out on calculating your Love Soulmat’s name! You will also get weekly horoscopes.“
3. The home page of the site now includes links to the Service Info, Privacy Policy, Contact Information and Terms and Conditions. [Please read ALL of these first]

In the contact Information you will note “Please tone dial your number to remove yourself from the service. We do not monitor incoming messages to our service number, so you must send the correct keyword STOP to cancel the service.”

They don’t have a live person monitoring their customer service number at 800-235-7105 so you must use the “STOP” text instead to stop the service. What the Hell??!!??!! But you can enter your cell phone number and they will remove that number from their service, after just telling us that we must use the stop text instead. HUGE red SCAM flag.

So, just out of giggles and grins, I entered a bogus number “588-245-1174″ as my cell phone number, and would you believe the response was “We have successfully removed your cell number from our database. You will no longer receive text messages from Mobile [unrecognized word].“

They removed a number that doesn’t even exist? let alone in their database?? HUGE red SCAM flag.

Now the big scam – At first they were going to tell you the exact name of your soul mate (and they consistently spell soul mate as one word “soulmate” when in fact it is two words which suggests this is not an American company), before changing it to say “don’t miss out on calculating…” What the hell does that mean? Don’t miss out on someone doing the calculating for you? Nope, not at all, as is explained in the “service Info” which specifically states “LoveSoulMate.us is an entertainment service providing weekly readings and monthly love tips. The user is able to calculate some details about their perfect match.” So we have to do the calculating ourselves? from what information, our horoscopes about ourselves? Are you kidding me?!?!

Now, the Privacy Policy which states “Removing Yourself From Database –You may unsubscribe from any or all services by messaging the word STOP.“”Law –The only case where we will provide all neccessary information is where we are approached by representatives of the law enforcement bodies.“[necessary is misspelled]Lets Summarize:

1. The Crush Calculator, the Love Soulmate calculator/prediction, The My 1 Pure Love prediction/calculator, are not really calculators or predictions at all.
2. They wont provide any information to anyone unless they are approached by a law enforcement body, in other words, only if they are sued or summoned to a grand jury investigation.
3. “STOP” text message doesn’t work.
4. Calling the company at their customer service number won’t get you a live person because it’s not monitored by a live person.
5. Entering “ANY” number at the customer service number will be removed from the database even if the number doesn’t exist or is not your own. (we don’t know if any number is actually removed)
6. “Any and All services” implies they do own more than one service under different names. (The terms and Conditions verifies this by giving the same customer service number for all the names stated above in this scam)
7. Contradictions, bad or incorrect english and lies [about removing a number from the database and the effectiveness about the STOP text message] all suggest a non-American company and Scam.

This scam needs to be reported to the United States Dept of Justice Attorney Generals office by as many consumers as possible. Click the “Contact Us” link once there.

***UPDATE 7/04/2009*** The global Privacy Policy has been changed to reflect as follows : “We reserve the right to disclose your personally identifiable information as required by law and when we believe that disclosure is necessary to protect our rights…”

“…You have no right, and waive any right you may otherwise have, to pursue any of our service providers or your cell phone carrier for any violation of this Privacy Statement.”

Now I have no idea who the idiot is, pretending to be the legal adviser or legal staff of Mobile Messenger and Mr Tsvetnenko, but this clown has gone way overboard to tell us that we have no rights and that we waive our rights just because he wants us to.  I’m sorry, this is laughable.  Also this service has spread to Facebook under many company names such as IQquizapp, Inc, and MobiConnex (officialIqquiz.com). The Privacy Policy and the Terms & Conditions now use the term “The Company” to represent all the individual company names used for this world wide scam.

Below is a list found on the officialiqquiz.com website to unsubscribe:

“

Playphone – Does NOT Accept Nextel or Boost Traffic

To cancel your Subscription Plan, send a text message with the text “STOP PP” to 77888, or such other number as may be designated on our Website (http://www.playphone.com), or, send an e-mail to refunds@playphone.com or contact 866-661-2076. The termination shall become effective at the end of the billing period in which you gave your notice of termination.

Ringaza – Does NOT Accept Sprint Traffic

Subscribers may cancel by texting STOP to 75714. To know more about Ringaza’s Terms & Conditions please visit our Web site (http://www.ringaza.com) or contact customer service at support@ringaza.com.

Jamster – Does NOT Accept Sprint, Nextel or Boost Traffic

To cancel your Subscription Plan, send a text message with the text “STOP” to 75555.

SendMeMobile

To stop receiving the security code confirmation text messages or to cancel any service at any time, text “STOP” to 77899, or contact our SendMe Mobile customer support team directly help@sendmemobile.com or call 877-3-SENDME or text HELP to 77899.

GameOn

To unsubscribe send “STOP” to 77877.

Mobile Messenger

This is an auto renewing subscription service that will continue until cancelled anytime by texting STOP to short code 46357.

Solow

Text “HELP” to 23687 at any time for more information about how to play. You can also contact SoLow customer service at help@solow.com or by calling 1-877-402-3687. To stop receiving the security code confirmation text messages or to cancel a service at any time, text “STOP” to 23687.

Flycell

To Unsubscribe simply text STOP to 69999. For more information on unsubscribing visit Flycell here.”