Allison Jacobs asked:


If you’ve been shopping around for hoodia diet pills lately to help you with your weight loss efforts, you’ve probably noticed those free hoodia sample offers. Before you accept any of them, you’ll want to read this article carefully. As the old saying goes, nothing in life is free – and hoodia is no exception!

What most consumers don’t realize is that none of those free hoodia trial offers are free at all. They all charge a fee of some kind usually under $10 and it’s usually for shipping and handling. In return you get one bottle of hoodia or a small supply of hoodia patches. You may be thinking that even if you have to pay $10 for a hoodia product, you’re still getting a good deal. That may be true, but the point is you are not getting free hoodia because it costs you something.

I’ll agree I’m splitting hairs, but here’s where I think you’ll agree that these free hoodia trials are actually very costly. When you sign up to accept these free hoodia offers, they require a credit card to pay for the nominal shipping and handling fee. You usually have around 15 days to try the hoodia product they send you. If you don’t cancel within 15 days, then you are automatically enrolled in a monthly auto ship program. Every month after that initial free hoodia trial, you will be sent a month’s supply and your credit card will be charged the actual price of the product. I’ve seen the charges as low as $50 and as high as $80. That doesn’t sound like free hoodia to me!

If that’s not bad enough, most of these hoodia products that are being offered for free don’t contain authentic hoodia gordonii! I have not been able to find one free hoodia offer that can provide proof that the product contains authentic hoodia gordonii. Even if some of them do, they contain so little of it that it would make no difference in your appetite.

There are two things you want to look for as you consider these free hoodia samples. You want to look for a CITES certificate clearly displayed on the website and independent lab test results. The CITES certificate is required by all companies that export hoodia gordonii from South Africa, where the plant is grown. If a company doesn’t have a CITES certificate, then they can’t legally export and sell authentic hoodia gordonii.

Independent lab tests provide scientific proof that the material used in the product contains authentic hoodia gordonii. Companies that sell real hoodia gordonii diet pills have these tests done on a regular basis and proudly display the results on their websites. The funny thing is, you will be hard pressed to find any of these tests on these free hoodia trial offers!

The other important point is that free hoodia doesn’t even make smart business sense because of the price of the raw material itself. Hoodia gordonii is scarce right now because there is more demand than there is supply. As a result, it is very expensive. Supplement companies couldn’t possibly afford to give away authentic hoodia gordonii for free or they’d go out of business very fast. The cheapest you’ll find a bottle of authentic hoodia gordonii diet pills is around $32, with the average price hovering around $50 per bottle. There is no such thing as free authentic hoodia that I have been able to find.

The next time you see a free hoodia sample offer, do yourself a favor and keep on shopping! These offers are not only free, but the quality of the product you are getting will not help you achieve your weight loss goals.

Allen McDaniel asked:


I have a feeling most of you hear are familiar enough with dieting that you don’t buy into all the hype, but I perhaps this information will be valuable to some of you. I’ll start by talking about a current set of events. I’m sure all of you have heard of the “acai berry” diet pills that have been spreading across the internet like wildfire lately. If any of your email addresses happen to have been sold to a diet pill salesman, you’ve probably gotten a few emails trying to promote these acai berry pills.

How did this acai berry craze get started and why is there so much hype? It got it’s big boost when Oprah featured the acai berry on her show as the #1 “superfood”. Some clever yet deceitful marketers thought they could use this to their advantage by selling a diet pill centered around the acai berry and advertise it as being “featured on Oprah” and “endorsed by Dr. Nicholas Perricone”.

The truth is that neither Oprah nor Dr. Perricone ever said anything about the acai berry having any weight loss properties. But that didn’t matter. They knew that it would still sell. But having this fake “endorsement” from Oprah wasn’t enough. They also decided to give away “free” trials of the diet pill to get more people to try it. The problem with that though, is that since it doesn’t really help you lose weight, nobody would order again after their free trial.

How did they get around this?

They got around it by using another deceitful marketing trick. If you read the fine legal print on the page where you sign up for your free trial, you’ll see that by getting a free trial, you are agreeing to sign up for an automatic rebill each month for a resupply of the product, unless you cancel before the free trial period is expired. Not many people read the fine legal print, I know I don’t, so most people didn’t think to call up and end their free trial. Then, when their credit card was billed for the $80 resupply, it was too late to do anything about it. Not only that, but even if you did try to call and cancel your order, you were often met with a busy signal or sent straight to voice mail. It was very hard to get through to an actual person on the phone.

But EVEN THAT wasn’t enough.

To promote the diet pill even MORE, they started an “affiliate program”. They paid “affiliates” (who are basically the same thing as salesman) up to $30 or more for each person who the affiliate got to sign up for a free trial. Anyone can become an affiliate for these acai berry diet pill manufacturers. All you have to do is sign up for the program and then start sending out links to their webpage with your account name attached to the end of the link so they can track it. That way they know, anyone who visits their site from a link that has your account name comes from you, so if they sign up for a free trial, they know to pay you the commission. Usually salesman only get a % of a sale. When you buy a car, the salesman might get 2-3% of the price. But these acai berry manufacturers were paying salesman 600% of the sale price! (free, but $5 shipping) This high of commission is practically unheard of because usually companies can’t make a profit by giving their salesman MORE money than the company is getting paid for the product. BUT, because each customer is automatically signed up for a monthly rebill that very few people cancel from, that’s why the commissions are so high. And these high commissions draw salesman like crazy. There are literally tens of thousands of affiliates (or salesman) trying to sell these acai berry diet pills. And since there is so much anonymity on the internet, these salesman are willing to do anything to get that commission, including lie and deceive. Let me show you a few examples.

You can find sites like these by just guessing. Just type in some girls name followed by “weightloss.com” or “dietblog.com” and you’ll find hundreds of sites like these. They are all made by salesman who found out that these are effective ways of playing on peoples emotions by trying to get people to trust them to get them to sign up for a free trial. Anyway, I think I am beginning to rant. I’m sorry this post is so long, I just feel like I have to let people know the truth. I have an insiders view into this industry and it makes me sick to see what all goes on.

And it doesn’t stop with diet pills either. It happens with every product sold online. Belkin makes internet modems and routers. They were PAYING people to write fake positive reviews about their products on sites like Amazon.com. Really the only way to get honest reviews online is to visit heavily moderated forums and listen to people who have built up a longstanding reputation with the site.

The only way to find honest reviews of diet products is to visit a heavily moderated forum with a close-nit community. Visit Best Diet Pill Reviews.org and submit your own reviews of any diet pill or plan you’ve tried so that we can build a community focused on weeding out spam and advertising and get straight to the facts about dieting and weight loss.

I hope this article has opened your eyes to the tricks employed by online marketers. It’s a sad state of affairs, but when it comes to online product reviews and suggestions, caveat emptor (let the buyer beware) has never rang more true.



Free Acai Berry

Janine Michaels asked:


You can barely look anywhere on or off the internet these days without seeing one of those prominent ads for acai berry weight loss capsules. These supplements are relatively new on the weight loss scene and there are lots of claims being made regarding their positive effects on a person’s ability to take off unwanted pounds.

 

Let’s just say that the acai berry is the newest weight loss craze. As with other fads, there are numerous companies looking to cash in and line their pockets with money from eager dieters. While looking at these offers, I’ve come across an alarming marketing angle that some vendors are using to gain access to your hard-earned money for as long as they can: Free Acai Berry Samples.

 

Now on the surface there’s nothing wrong with giving away a free product sample in order to allow a consumer to try out the product. It’s done all the time by reputable companies. The consumer understands that in order to get the free sample, they have to pay a small shipping and handling fee. Fair enough.

 

However, I found out that there is an acai berry scam that unsuspecting consumers are falling for and it’s costing them big. You see, there are websites that offer a free sample of the acai berry diet supplement for free, but it’s not really free because after your order is complete you’ll notice a $29 charge showing up on your credit card within a few days. There’s usually no explanation for this charge, because you thought you were paying only a small shipping and handling fee.

 

Unfortunately, this first charge isn’t the end of the story. After a week goes by, you’ll be charged an additional amount – anywhere from $78 to $89 usually. When you call the company to complain, you may find that their phone number is disconnected. This kind of thing is normal for scams.

 

The worst part about this scam is that you may not even get the product you ordered. Sometimes people get the supplements and sometimes they don’t. Even if you do get the promised sample, your credit card will be charged up to $89 per month indefinitely.

 

So, here’s what happens: You think you’re ordering a product to try out and see if you like it for a few bucks. In reality, you’re paying a large shipping and handling fee, plus, a large monthly fee for one bottle of diet pills you may not even use.

 

Outrageous!

 

The only way to save your credit card account at this point is to call your bank and dispute the charges. The bank should close down your card and issue you a new one while they investigate your dispute. It may take up to two weeks for you to get your new card, so this is another inconvenience for you.

 

As far as the merits of losing weight with supplements containing acai berry, I’m not providing an opinion on them one way or the other, since I don’t have enough information on whether they work well as a diet aid.

 

I myself do not review or promote dietary supplements of any kind. I don’t take them myself and I don’t recommend them to anyone. This is a personal decision I’ve made based on my own research. I generally don’t think that diet pills work for weight loss because they mostly offer a quick fix to an issue that takes time and commitment.

 

Most people who go the diet pill route will be disappointed in their results. The touted active ingredients in diet pills are often watered down by processing so much that they offer no real benefit. Plus, they’re filled with stimulants like caffeine that can cause unpleasant side effects.

 

I’ve come across several sites online featuring allegedly fake weight loss stories using acai berry that are offering free samples. If you are thinking about trying this kind of product, please be very careful. It would be cheaper if you went to your local drugstore to buy these supplements at regular cost. Or, try the acai juice which many people have tried and like.

 

My best advice is: If you’re really serious about losing weight, stick with the healthier methods that are featured on a reputable weight loss review site. Find a plan you like and stick with it for several weeks. It’s realistic and it works.



Free Diet Pills

Alice Belanger asked:


Acai berry diet pills are a great method to reduce weight in a healthy manner, however, you do have to be cautious so that you are not cheated when acquiring acai supplements.

For a start, if you have read all the details of any offer, you will know that most of the time, such offers are not rip-offs. You can count on getting a sample of acai for the cost of shipping and handling but you also need to read the fine print to understand the additional costs that may ultimately be involved. You are signed up for a trial plan but when the plan is done, they will send you more products and bill the same credit card that you initially used for the trial.

If you have decided not to continue after the trial period, it is therefore your responsibility to cancel the subscription so that they stop sending the acai berry and avoid getting charged each month. In other words, you will be aware that this is a legitimate offer by reading all the small print of the offer, where your credit card will be automatically charged for subsequent shipments if you do not tell the merchant to discontinue and therefore have no sound reason to get upset.

Please also know that there may be deviations in the quality of Acai offerings that you’ve in mind.

Be cautious of nonproprietary brands of acai where some makers indulge in cheap techniques for production and packaging. It is essential that you buy acai from a merchant who doesn’t heat process the fruit and ideally gets it freeze dried instead.