The Mill Creek man and nine others who are under investigation for allegedly creating fake news websites to promote their "acai berry weight loss products" were engaging in an age-old practice on the world's newest, biggest-ever medium.
Fad diets have been around forever, but the potential of the Internet to reach the largest pool of "customers" must make scammers drool like Homer Simpson coveting a donut.
While complaints about fad diets are always the same (it doesn't work), it's the websites, which are "deceptively designed to look like news reports, including sites using the domain names wwwBreakingNewsAtG.com and www.Channel9NewsReport.com" that are at the heart of the Federal Trade Commission's lawsuit to stop the advertisements.
The sites violate federal law by using the logos of major news outlets to mislead consumers into thinking they're reading real news reports, the Associated Press reported. The sites used fake endorsements from news organizations, including CNN, Fox News and USA Today.
"Almost everything about these sites is fake," said David Vladeck, director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection. "The weight loss results, the so-called investigations, the reporters, the consumer testimonials, and the attempt to portray an objective, journalistic endeavor."
It's true. But it also makes you wonder about the majority of people who say they "get their news online."
One typical lawsuit, against Tanner Garrett Vaughn of Mill Creek, says his website claims that a reporter tested an acai berry product and lost 25 pounds in four weeks without dieting or exercise. The FTC says no real reporter tested the products.
That's because real reporters don't endorse products. And real news websites don't list diets under "breaking news."
If one ignored the fake celebrity and reporter endorsements, the claim for acai berry (cited in the ad and in the lawsuit against it) is this: "The Acai Berry Products, alone or in combination with the Colon Cleanse Products, causes rapid and substantial weight loss." The FTC states the products "do not cause rapid and substantial weight loss..."
Indeed. Substitute any diet fad, from "vinegar-soaked-foods" to "grapefruit only" for "acai berry" and the conclusion is the same. The FTC received multiple complaints from people who paid from $70 to $100 for acai berry weight-loss products after "being duped by the fake news sites," AP reported. But as all the hucksters know, people who believe there is a magic weight loss food or formula (or better yet, a pill!) are duping themselves.
It's helpful to know that the phrase "without dieting or exercise" is a very plain disclaimer that the "product" doesn't work.
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