Acai Berry scams have been rampant for more than 18 months now, and they are constantly evolving to fool ever more unsuspecting victims. In general, there are 2 very different categories of scams:
- The “Free Trial offers” that promise to let you try the product and you only pay for shipping
- Selling a watered down juice, or cheap extract powder at full price – often 4 times what it is worth
By far, the Free trial offers are the worst. The excitement of getting a free sample causes the victim to overlook fine print at the very bottom of a website that actually signs them up for a VERY expensive monthly subscription ($80 a month or more), that is VERY hard to cancel.
These scams have been going on a while, but the techniques used are getting trickier all the time. In particular, the sales pitch used by the free trial scams. The most prevalent used to be the personal experience blog, like hilarysweightloss. Before and after pictures showed great results, but were actually from a stock photo web site, and not of an acai berry user. This web site was copied thousands of times and used to rip off hundreds of thousands of desperate dieters.
Now, and even more insidious pest is popping up – the fake news report. Websites are made to look like a news site, with lots of generic news articles. One well written article is planted “reporting” on the acai berry trend and linking to a certain free trial they want to push. Julia miller news 6 is one such fake site that looks like a real news station’s website.
Visitors that stumble across one of these fake news websites are often fooled into believing it is a real news site, so they trust the link, and soon sign up for the nasty monthly subscription. I’ve heard many people express disbelief that these sites are legal, and to tell you the truth, I don’t really know. But I suspect it is much like the free trial offers themselves. These scammers know the loopholes in our laws and skirt the edges. And if they do cross the line and get in trouble, they simply close up shop and pop up next week with a different company.
A website isn’t the same as a physical store that you can come back to if you have a complaint, so do a little research when in doubt. In this case, if you google Julia miller news 6, the top listing takes you to a page on our website warning that it is a scam, so we have been able to help some people avoid the scams. Remember, the web can be a dangerous place – be careful out there.
I don’t get it there are multiple post on THIS website talking about the scam and how it doesn’t work. Then you turn around and look at THIS website and they sell this stuff?? lol…. I know they are BBB but seriously…. hard to sell a product when you have a dedicated page to the acaiberry scam.
I too fell victim to the channel6reports/health scam and ordered both Acai Optimum and the Advanced Cleanse free trial offers.
The free trial page clearly said 1 charge of 99.95 with a rebate. Nothing about a second charge of 99.95, per their general terms and conditions.
I called them but they refuse to refund. I have since called my bank to block the charges. Will update later.
thankyou for your warning i did almost fall for it if it were not for puttin one digit wrong on my card detailes i would have been conned as then the small print came up saying i would be billed $80 a month i am so glad i did make the mistake with my detailes there must have been someone watchin out for me. it is so easy to be fooled especially when you think a a news reader has tried it. and they get you hooked thinking you are getting something to try for free…oh well back to the drawing board for me… thanks for your warning
What tipped me off to its fakeness is I saw the same add by two different “news reporters” from two different “channels” with the same exact add word for word about their “wonderful experience.” Give me a break.
I fell victim today to the channel6reports/health scam for the Acai Optimum and the Advanced Cleanse free trial offers. I managed to get a promise for refund of $99.96 for the Acai Optimum but not for the $99.96 for the Advanced Cleanse. I requested the credit card company to refund the charges to my account and am waiting to hear whether they did cancel the charges. I am only sorry I did not check your site before hand.
Acai Berry ok scamer are there and will be there all the time.but this warning say nothing about that actual product, well!!
Yes, I got taken as well. It is almost impossible to make contact with anyone you can understand. BY the time I hung up, I wanted to pull out the phone cord.
It’s the companies doing this scam.
Remember, you need to keep on this to cancel because the banks will consider this a reocurring charge and will still hold you responsible. You can’t shake the charge by cancelling the card.
Don’t forget, these guys are selling the maximun burn xtreme and the colopure. Botrh connected but with different numbers.
fyi the picture they use for Julia Miller is actually of a french journalist named Melissa Theuriau. It’s amazing how they get away with these scams.
The typos in the “article” tipped me off that it was fake. I seriously doubt an actual reporter would publish such mistakes.
Gina – The email confrimation they sent you has the order number and the phone number. You did keep the email order confrimation didn’t you?
I’m very confused, because they send you the product with no billing slip nor is there a contact number. Can I get a contact number for th AcaiOptimum?
I forgot to add to my post that my credit union called me immediately after I clicked ‘ok’ for the order. They asked me if I had made the purchase. As I was answering their question, I read the so-called ‘confirmation’ email. I voiced my complaint that it wasn’t the correct amount, but they only directed me to file a dispute. Sigh. Lord Jesus, please forgive these people cause I’m having a REALLY hard time.
What was I thinking?!!! I’m not an internet novice and I fall for this?? My “$1.49 shipping” turned out to be $101.45 and a link to get a rebate of $99.96. Oh my word! I turned in a complaint to the AZ BBB and found that they’ve received 580 complaints in the last year. Of that, 553 were resolved – so I’m optimistic. I’m also filing a credit card dispute with my credit union. Good luck to all victims out there!!!!
I too was sucked in by this bogus report. I notified my credit card company and I also called the customer caRE nimber. The operater was a jerk and said he would refund half and the other half when I sent the product back.
Oh No!! I have been scammed!! I am very worried. Don’t know what steps to take to cancel this.
I received both Acai Optimum and Advanced Colon last night and something told me to do some research on it. I came across this page and did a few investigation. I click on the Acai optimum terms & conditions and their it was, $79.95 subcription fee. I have to admit that news 6 article got to me i honestly thought it was real. anyway, after reading all you guys comments, i called my bank n cancelled my debit card because i dont want them to scam me anymore. this site is very helpful and i am glad i came across it before it was too late. but i have a question, does it work? i two and i dont want to take anymore if it doesn’t?
THANK YOU! I got on just now to order the “free trial.” I stumbled upon the story with news 6 last week. I had read the deadline fo the free trial was today so jumped on to order and came accross this website. I’m so happy. I knew it had to be too good to be true and never heard of news 6 but was excited about Julie’s results and thought it won’t hurt, it’s FREE! Thanks again for preventing me from getting ripped off!
hey i got something i want u to look at and i believe it might be another fake news thing but i need to check what u think. my girlfriend found it and sent me the link cause i’ve been looking for a job since last July (2009) so if u could let me know if i’m right or not that would be EXTREMELY helpful.
FREE! Don’t you believe it!
May 30, 2010
I was one of those who believed this was from Julia Miller, news 6. Believed she had actualy tried it & was reporting that she was doing great on it. I though it was kinda strange the way she reported how good it was, but had never really been scammed before. Should have trusted my instinks!
This was my 1st. attempt at trying any “diet” supplements – - – NEVER AGAIN! Boy, did I learn my lesson.
SCAM! WASTE OF MONEY! RIPP OFF!
Thank you so much. I am one of those desperate to diet peeps but I have been burned before by the “free” trial offers as well. I guess we should really stick with the tried and true saying “if it sounds too good to be true…then it probably is (false, that is)”
Thanks again. Trying to find that “magical” pill to aid in my exercising so I can look nice for my brother’s wedding. In case you cared…chuckling out loud. Too much time on my hands that is…
Michelle
I fell into the trap on 4/27/2010 and ordered 2 free trial products offered (the acai berry pills and some colon health pills). The website stated that the offer went until Friday 4/28/2010. I received both of the first 2 bottles without more than 2 days of a wait. Then I went on vacation and forgot about the free trial deadline to cancel, so my card was charged again. Upon returning from vacation, I called on today 5/20/2010 to cancel both products after getting 2 separate 800 numbers from my banking account. After going back to the original link I noticed that the comments are from the same people and in the same order however, the dates were more recent showing that some were made on 5/19/2010 (yesterday) when I specifically remember that the dates were closer to my original purchase date.
To make matters worse when I called the number to cancel the acai product, a female representative named Tiffany took the info and sent a confirmation email. When I called the number for the colon health, a male representative named Oran (spelled how it sounded) came on the line and told me that I had just canceled my account and had been sent out a confirmation email. I asked him which product was he talking about since I clearly hadn’t canceled the colon pills yet and he instructed me that the only product that they have are the colon pills.
Answer me this, how when the products are no where alike, can you have 2 separate numbers and they reach just one of the products. I may still have to deal with this, but I will obviously not be dealing with either one of these companies again.
E – Yes, it is very upsetting what they can get away with. Mostly because the pop up and then disappear.
IMO, google is partly to blame because they take money to show the ads for these scammers, when they could easily stop showing them.
I read the article from Julia that tested acaipure. I was curious so I googled news 6 with Julia and found it again only to see that she claimed to have used acai slim. So I knew it was definately a fake.
Here’s the other despicable issue that nobody has mentioned. MSNBC approved the advertisement apparently. The news media giant ought to be sued for exposing so many people to this scam in the first place. Shame on you, MSNBC. Alot of people lost money, because your advertising sales executive was to busy making a commission rather than validating the claims to begin with.
I just read part of it, terribly printed. Capitals where there should’t be, very unprofessionally made, knew immediately it was a fake. Being a Canadian I knew it was lacking the .ca in the address as well.
I followed an ad to the fake Channel 6 site “channel6reports.com/health.” That was my first clue to be suspicious. I also noticed the typos. Then I thought it was strange how biased towards the products the “reporter” was. Then I noticed that everything on the page was about the acai berry. Hmmm! When I clicked on the site’s link for Home page, it brought me back to the
“report” I’d just been reading. Clicking on other links took me to a completely different news site called “newsvine.com.” Try to go to just “www.channel6reports.com” and the page doesn’t even exist! I’m re-reading the article and laughing at myself for even considering it to be true. A second reading makes it obvious that the scammer who wrote the article did not have the literacy skills that a professional reporter’s writing style would reflect. Bottom line- if it sounds too good to be true, further investigation usually proves that it is!
The typos in the text were my first clues that this report was too good to be true. And, just a hunch that the model/reporter did not need to lose 45 pounds.
Here’s an important sentence from the small print on the page at onlinehealthnews7.com
“Thus, this page, and any page on this website, are not to be taken literally or as a non-fiction story. ”
Caveat emptor. Let the buyer beware. One sentence is all you need.
Julia Miller of News 7 is being shown as a writer for
News 7 in the Jackson Tennessee area.
Sorry, but ABC News 7 has nobody by that name employed there.
Maybe I’m more circumspect than some others, but to my mind these scams are so obvious that I wonder how they make money…..
Clearly there are victims everywhere.
Yes, once you are suspicious and check a little, their web of lies fall apart quickly. But some people think “hey, it’s free” and jump in before thinking about it.
BEWARE SCAMMER ALERT!
Someone needs to nail those Acai/Colon cleanse scammer guys to the wall! I got scammed, stupid me I believing what I read on the internet about both of those supplements. Here is my experience; I saw the add thought it was really from news 6 news6health.com/
I know that was so stupid! Ordered the two bottles. Luckily I printed the order confirmation page. Then I did my research (yeah I know A$$ backwards) and came across this site explaining the scam. I had seen that they had authorized the two $5 charges to my card last week but had not actually posted them to my account. I tried calling the customer service numbers on the news6 site and they kept changing from one “different?” supplement company to another with different mailing addresses.
As I opened one and called and they denied they where the company. Funny thing they had a similar supplement offering for a “trial time” then they would keep sending you new bottles every month, $10, $20, $60, $90 each. The scammers just don’t give up!
Finally I found the customer service number at the bottom of the order confirmation page that I had printed when I ordered. I called it and spoke with Amanda #GS050 she confirmed I had ordered the bottles from them and it was within the 14 day trial period. Customer # 877-529-3745.
Then the fun really began. She tried several times to get me to keep the product even went down to $10 per bottle per month. How nice she was to offer me those discounted deals in her broken English accent. She even made me listen to a recording basically begging me to keep the subscription.
But I had enough of the games and firmly requested that I wanted to cancel the supplement subscription!!! I also informed her (on the advice of my lawyer) I was recording the call (which I was actually doing on my ipod). Don’t think I will need it but it was fun to listen to her get nervous.
And get this, Amanda then said I would need to mail the empty bottles to 7102 West Roosevelt Street, #100 Phoenix AZ 85042. If I did not mail them I would be charged $70, oops she then stuttered and changed it to $90 charge for each bottle. I couldn’t believe the audacity of these people. She didn’t want to give me the company website for “security reasons”. After, I got off the phone I received a confirmation email with the RMA numbers and address to ship to.
You can rest assured I will mail them back their bottles of useless supplement. Maybe I will put something fun inside the bottle for them to enjoy. So I then went through the hassle of cancelling my debit card. Yes I was dumb enough to use my actual bank account debit credit card.
I was really gullible and almost deserved to get taken. Don’t be fooled, they are scammers. I am grateful you put up this website to warn everyone. I just wish I had read this site earlier and saved me all the hassles! THANK YOU so much!
I too got sucked in and I tried the free ACAI Berry Plus. It also took 15 days for me to get out the trial product but unfortuantely 15 days later my credit account has been charged $177.89 (Australian Dollors) for a product that I have not received. I am immensly disappointed,
I need my moneyback as the product does not agree with me.
I got suckered in on this one and I have given to the MO.A.T office to try and work it out.
It took 15 days for me to get the one product and 20 days to get the other one so I got no free trial period at all and then they sent me an Email.com afterwords telling me about the charges for the membership, I got the stuff and I am trying it so far nothing on one and I can’t take the other one at all and stay off the pot.
I almost got caught with the latese online 6 report for a work at home scheme. I lost $2.97 for the shipping of the “kit”, then started reading the fine print and the $139.00 that would be charged after the “3-day free trial”. How in the world do you test something in 3 days. They got me with the article showing a lady and her little child, out of work, from Reading, Pa. I live in a suburb of Reading and too am unemployed so I thought I’d try it. Now all I’m concerned about is are they going to use my Visa debit number??? Do you know?
THis was the address they gave: online6reports.com/FINANCE/online-jobs.php
Thank you so much!!!!!!!!!!!! I was getting on the computer this morning to order the products. I didn’t remember the site from when I had looked at it yesterday, so I googled it, and this site popped up.
After reading all the comments, I went back to that site and started looking for the mistakes everyone else noticed afterwards. You guys are right. There are so many things wrong with the site.
A few of the things I’d noticed was that the videos off to the site were supposed to be from legitimate news websites, and they were pulled from youtube. Next, at the bottom, it says the copyright is Uptown Media, which I googled as well. It took me to a magazine website that hadn’t updated the copyright since 2008.
Next, I noticed that the comments box has been closed due to spam. If it was a legitimate company, they would have been able to get rid of spam, and companies actually like the feedback. And, if you click on any of the other links to read the news, you will be sent directly to a website called Newsvine.com. So, not even with the same name. I also saw the change in the trial offer ending. It did change from when I saw it yesterday.
Another was that every ad on the site was for an acai promotor. News casts are not like that. One last thing was that if you look at the very top, it says something about subscribing. Those aren’t even active links. The links that should have been active would be on normal websites but not on here. Thanks for saving me a ton of money!!!
Ohmy goodness thankyou!!! I fell for the scam and ordered both the colon cleanse and the weight loss. I saw that the free trial was suppose to be a month and it was 2 weeks when i ordered and the promo code didn’t reduce as much as it should but i was excited and clicked anyways. As I have already lost 50lbs and i need to lose about 50 more in order to be eligible for a scholarship at my school to be within the proper height/weight standards for it. Well luckily i do use a prepaid card so i suspended my card and will be seeing if they will let me get a new card. It’s a prepaid bank account actually w/direct deposit and bill pay and there is a 2 dollar charge to talk with customer service.
I just read the “katherine Miller” newscaster site with the free trials. Sounds so true!! 30 pounds of crap lost in 4 weeks? Awesome! One thing everyone should be wary of, is a website with cheap looking graphics of major newspapers, publicatons, tv stations. These are just pulled off the internet and thrown onto a website. If they were legit, they would be crisp and more ‘professional’. This applies to all fad sites. If you think something is true, type it into google but add ’scam’ to the line. Guaranteed to get a hit.
I believe the woman being shown is really named
Melissa Theuriau. She is a French news caster for LCI.
Here are several pictures.
http://forums.vr-zone.com/peek-boo/32829-possibly-the-most-beautiful-newscaster-ever.html
Well I believed them. Not only did I believe the Acai Optimum and Advance CLeanse diet but I also fell for the Dentasmile and Everbrite scam. They say that by using both products your teeth will have better whitening results. One of the products has a 10 day trial but I still have not received it and I already have been charged for it! They are closed now so I have to wait until tomorrow to call and see if I can cancel it without any issues. Since the payment is still pending then I can probably still cancel my credit card like many of you did. Wish me luck!
wow is all i can say! ive been seeing advertisements 4 the acai berry and colon cleanser 4 bout a year now. always offered together, always the same story, same weightloss pics just a different name. always knew it was a scam but then i run across julia miller news 6 website and it seemed sooooooo real that i ALMOST took out my credit card to place the order! but ive been scamed soooooo many times in the past that i decided to google her first and thank god i did! unbelievable!!!
OK, I’ve been scammed. They (Acaioptimum) have cancelled my ‘membership’ but th 80.00 charge is non-refundable. I am off to the bank to change my card number, just in case…
I fell for the Julia Miller news 6 scam too! They charged me $162 for membership even though I canceled it, they told me I as to late by a few hours to get my money back, such a scam. The product did nothing to improve my weight other than to lighten my pockets of $$$.
do not believe anything these theives say there is no free trial they charged my card in 48hrs this is a ripp off
Hiya, I stupidly fell for the julia miller news article! I ordered my free trial but for some reason started to feel un-easy about it all, i looked it up on the internet and came across this site. i really cannot believe they are doing this…its awful. I phoned up my bank straight away and cancelled my card….which by the way is the best thing to do if you think you have been scammed, no more charges can then be made.
This is truly sad that they are scamming people, I figured I was on the weather website so it was safe (although I did notice it was a sponsored ad which made me skeptical). Then as I skimmed the article, seeing that the “news” was pushing a product was even more suspicious…plus the girl in the picture is like 115 lbs (just guessing by her face) so I’m pretty sure she didn’t need this diet…glad I googled!!!
I was scammed. I jumped the gun and ordered before finding out it was a scam. I just received the products but I also just got off the phone with both companies and cancelled the membership with no problem. They did try to offer me an additional month of trial period but I declined. Hopefully this is the end of it. I’ll keep checking my credit acct.
Hi Gloria , just curious did you use the products and how have they worked for you .
Thanks
Travis
In responce to Vell who commented on March 17,2010. I ordered also but I canceled on the web site 10 days later in the responce from acaiberrypure I was told that the status of my account was closed which told me that it had been canceled. I forgot about it until today when I opened my bank statment and there it was a charge for $149.95 ans a charge for $4.50 for INTL SERVICE FEE!! Ripped twice. I called acaiberry and was told I should have canceled with-in my 14 days (I did}They said tha I had to call to cancel. I’m out $154.45, that is a verrry expensive lesson. Wish I would have checked here first.
I fell for the same acai berry pure, and advance colon cleanse scam too. I cancelled the product withing 7 days of the 14 day trial, and received a cancellation code. I checked my account and notice a 149.95 dollar charge. I called the support line, and they said they did not have a cancellation on file. DONT FALL FOR THESE SCAMS…THEY LOOK VERY REAL. The website is now shut down, but I found a mysterious looking copy cat website that I can bet is the same scammers. BEWARE!
I am skeptic but considering everybodysbody are somewhat different. It may work for some and not for others. In my case i hope so. At 54-h.b.p.-diebetic-c.o.p.d. and230 lbs. After reading a lot of comments, I am concerned and will watch as I take it. I’ll let you know.
The comments form on news6reports.com is even fake, it does nothing, the page it posts to does not exist, it’s all fake.
WHOIS info for news6reports.com
Administrative Contact:
PrivacyProtect.org
Domain Admin ()
P.O. Box 97
Note – All Postal Mails Rejected, visit Privacyprotect.org
Moergestel
null,5066 ZH
NL
IP Address: 208.87.33.231
IP Location: Nassau, Bahamas
I found the News6Report while checking the weather, and thought “Well, it looks legit, it’s on a weather site after all.” I went to it and read the article. I acctually believed it, until I got to the end, where it gives you the free trial links. What got me was that the offer expires tomorrow. And all the “comments” were posted yesterday. Not to mention every one of them used perfect grammar and punctuation. I went through this once before, with the personal blogs. I ordered, and I recieved the colon cleanes and cancelled before they could charge my abbout, but I never did get the acai berry trial, tho my account was charged the shipping fee. After that I checked the site several times, and saw that the offer always expired the next day. Basically, they got me once, just not for a lot of money. WATCH OUT! IT’S ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS A SCAM!!!!!!! ALWAYS GOOGLE BEFORE YOU BUY! ANYTHING THAT SEEMS TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE IS!! The only way to lose weight cheap is the old fashioned way.
Thanks for the good work. This looked too good to be true. That’s why I immediately googled Julia Miller 6news.
Great job!
Good thing I checked before trying. The website looked very professional, just like a real new station. I became skeptical after seeing so many ads related to acia berry on the same site. I was about to take my credit card out, thank you.