Posts
- A doctor, often with a foreign accent begins a sincere-sounding appeal. She's sacrificing herself to help people and the medical establishment and big pharma are out to get him or her.
- The doc claims you should hurry before big pharma shuts them down. They don't know how long this miraculous cure will be available at this special price. The video may be taken down at any moment.
- After a brief pitch you are directed to a video that will "change your life."
- The doc claims it's a free treatment using things in your fridge.
- Pretty quickly you see it's going to cost you something green that's not in your fridge. It turns out to be some proprietary bled of herbs nobody has ever tried before but works miracles.
- The video is long and repetitive and keeps baiting you with "in just a few minutes I'll tell you everything."
- The video wades through accusations against the medical system and big pharma and mentions the names of some companies like Walgreen's and Pfizer.
- The video claims that specific medications are designed to keep you sick and dependent on it.
- When you finally get to the bit where you find out a bottle is NOT $29.99, but $39.99, and a total of $59.85 with shipping.
- Watch out for the small print when they put up a second product to clean your gut or something like that. The "I don't want this" link is in small print and if you miss it you get two bottles of gut cleaner for $99 each. In the end you're out $259.85.
- When you call to cancel the order, they keep offering you cheaper versions of the order you accidentally made and if you demand a refund they tell you it will take 7-10 days to get your money back.
- The bank can't block the transaction if it was by debit card until the preauthorization is cleared, then the bank has to file a claim to get your money back and that can take another 7-10 days.
So the company keeps your money for almost 3 weeks. If they scam enough customers, they draw considerable interest on all that the money for 20 days from each customers. And so long as they can keep a well made ad, they can keep a steady stream of cash milked from customers they have conned passing through their bank account.
It's a dirty rotten practice. I once took a course in writing video scripts for marketing pieces like this. I did a couple of such scripts and gave it up. I researched the products in question and wrote truthful dialogue as best as I could. The client kept correcting me and asking me to put in manipulative text that included false claims, manipulative dialogue and fear-mongering. I found that I just couldn't do it.
And knowing what I know, these subtle frauds managed to deceive me. They stole money from me in exchange for something for all I know is some cheap herbal snake oil cure. I mean the stuff might work really well to stabilize your blood sugar, but I can't get past their business practices. I'd hoped to test the stuff, but not for $59.85 plus 199.85 for something I didn't even want because they hid the I don't want it button.
And Facebook made money off the whole thing. And what's really galling. Mark Zuckerberg has the nerve to get all sanctimonious about community standards.
© 2025 by Tom King
