24 February 2011

Quackery Update

Posted by Dan Satterfield

You can get something for your wrist that will give real benefit. The cost is about the same. It's called a WATCH.

It’s been awhile since I wrote about the i-Renew or Power Balance bracelet scam, but there are some interesting developments in the quackery area.

My wife grabbed this shot at our local Wal-Mart last week. It seems you can now buy one without calling a number seen on TV! More interesting, perhaps, are the lack of claims that it will help your balance (or health) in any way. They are missing from the Wal-Mart display!

I wonder why! 😉

The Government of Australia forced Power Balance to admit that their ad was a lie, and demanded they completely refund the money of those taken in. However, there is more to this story.

If you want to scam someone these days, you have to do your internet home work first. You must put together dozens of fake web sites that will show up if someone “Google’s” your product. Especially phrases like “i-Renew Scam” and “Power Balance- does it really work?”

Don’t believe me? Look at what you get if you Google the phrase “Kangen Water Scam”

Results for a search of "Kangen Water Scam" on Google. Notice how there are several sites that are offering information. Only a few are legit.

Just to be clear here, “Kangen Water” is also a major scam. If you bought a machine to ionize your water, you wasted your money. There are actually some excellent sites that explain why. One of these sites,  Snake oil on tap, made it into the list above. I suspect many of the others listed are put up by distributors of this scam, and IMHO they are designed to confuse you.

I’m rather proud of the fact that if you Google “iRenew Bracelet Scam”, you will see the following:

There’s a link to my original post on the bracelet fraud, and now there are others as well. If you’d done the same search a year ago, you would have found nothing but praise for the bracelets!

No post I’ve written has had as many comments as that one. What surprised me the most was how many people were insulted that I called their miracle cure a scam. The placebo affect does work wonders! Makes one almost want to let them believe…

Dan