Acai berry supplements are popular in the health-related market today and for good reasons, too. But there are many cases where the efficacy of this newest superfood is placed under a cloud of doubt mainly by people who claim to have been duped into an acai berry scam. Why is this so?
Well, the answers lie in the scams operated by unscrupulous individuals with the intent to make wads of money from the acai berry’s popularity. These scams are often run online but an increasing number are also conducted on a face-to-face basis. An example of the latter is the pyramid type scams with acai berry supplements as the primary product.
In this article, the online acai scams will be discussed. You may have experience with one or all of these fraudulent schemes although we have to emphasize that the credible sites outnumber the online scams. The trick is in choosing the reliable sites but that’s another story.
Free Trial Bottle Offer
In this scam, the oft-anonymous owners of the site will offer a free bottle for the trial period. This free bottle will be made to appear as, well, free of charge to entice the prospective customer to enter the program. We can safely surmise that many will fall into the trap and actually sign up for the free trial period without reading the fine print.
And therein lies the subsequent problems. If you take the time to read the fine print, you will realize either of two things:
• The bottles are not actually free. You will be made to pay for their shipping charges with the cost per bottle of the delivered product automatically deducted from your credit card at a future date. You may be getting the acai berry supplement for “free” now but you will be paying for it soon.
• The total cost of the supposedly free bottle is higher than if you had availed of the product sans the free trial in the first place.
But even when you come to these realizations, you will find yourself unable to back out of the transaction once the shipping charges have been deducted from the credit card. Cancellations are virtually impossible with every roadblock possible standing in the way with grace periods as the most commonly used.
Membership Charges
A related issue to the free trial bottle offer is the deduction of membership and other hidden charges once sign up to the program is complete. You will, of course, not be informed about these hidden fees. But you will get an unpleasant surprise when your credit card bill reflects unauthorized payments to third parties.
Don’t even think about getting refunds on the amounts paid or even having the charges stopped immediately. Again, the scam operators will do everything possible to avoid paying out money or stopping cash inflow from their victims.
Mix with Other Ingredients
And then there are the scams where the acai berry is mixed with other fillers, additives and other non-essential ingredients. Obviously, the intent is to save on manufacturing costs although the site owners will continue to entice potential customers into buying the product, This is usually done by making claims that, say, the acai berry-green tea mix is more potent than just acai berry alone.
All of these three reasons make for the bad publicity that acai berry is undeservedly getting from the press, so to speak. Dig a little deeper and you will see that there are legitimate sites selling the best acai berry products. Remember, being healthy and vital is one’s own personal responsibility – so be diligent, and the answers will always be given.