Hopefully no underwriter in the world would approve an “acai berry” merchant. With the corny websites that promote the “free” trial package and the $.96 “Shipping and Handling.” Would they? Maybe they fell for the “How to get ripped in thirty days” pitch. The chargeback period is longer than that, so I’m sure they will indeed get ripped.
Once the fraudsters have your credit card number for the “S & H” that’s all they need.
1:11-cv-02487 Federal Trade Commission v. Ambervine Marketing LLC, Encastle, Zachery S. Graham
Date filed: 04/13/2011
Date of last filing: 04/13/2011
“Since at least 2009, Defendants have advertised, marketed, and promoted various products to consumers throughout the United States, including weight loss products such as Acai Optimum, Acai Para Slim, Acai Berry Active, Acai Extreme Plus, LeanSpa Acai, Acai Weight Loss, Acai Maximum, Acai Berry Select and Natura Cleanse (the “Acai Berry Products”).
11. Defendants promote these products through websites designed to look like news
reports. The sites use domain names such as usahealthnewstoday.org and usahealthreportstoday.org, and include titles such as USA Health News. The sites often include the names and logos of major broadcast and cable television networks, falsely representing that the reports on the sites have been seen on these networks.
12. Defendants’ websites purport to provide objective investigative reports authored by reporters or commentators sometimes pictured on the sites. The supposed authors of the reports claim to have tested the products on themselves or others with dramatic and positive results.
13. In fact, Defendants’ news reports are fake. Reporters or commentators pictured on the websites are fictional and never conducted the tests or experienced the results described in the reports. The tests and results described on the sites never happened.
14. The sole purpose of Defendants’ websites is to promote the featured products on behalf of third-party merchants who then sell the products on other websites. Defendants’
promotional websites are designed to entice consumers to click on links that will transfer them to a merchant’s website. Defendants receive a commission or other payment for each consumer who clicks on a link and ultimately makes a purchase or signs up for a “free trial” on the merchant’s website. In this context, Defendants commonly are referred to as “affiliate marketers.”
15. Defendants have failed to disclose in a clear and conspicuous manner that they are not objectively evaluating these products and, in fact, are being paid to promote the products. Defendants’ websites either fail entirely to disclose these facts, or fail to do so adequately. The relevant information, if disclosed at all, typically appears in small type at the bottom of the web page, well below the links to the products being sold.
16. In promoting products through their websites, Defendants also make deceptive claims about the products. Defendants have represented, for example, that the Acai BerryProducts, alone or in combination with a companion product, cause rapid and substantial weight loss. Defendants typically claim on their sites that the average person who tested the Acai Berry Products, alone or in combination with a companion product, lost twenty-six pounds or more in one month without any special diet or intense exercise.
17. In truth and in fact, the Acai Berry Products, alone or in combination with a
companion product, do not cause rapid and substantial weight loss, nor do Defendants possess and rely upon a reasonable basis to substantiate representations that consumers who use these products will rapidly lose a substantial amount of weight.”
We can’t train consumers. Can we train underwriters? And their bosses?
Consumer fraud results in acquirer loss.