Negative Option Clauses Used to Sell Phony Colon Cleanse and Acai Berry Diet Plans

Pasted all over the internet are phony diet plans that involve some sort of Colon Cleanse product mixed with an Acai Berry product. What most people aren't familiar with, are the negative option clauses attached to the "free trial offers" by the sellers of these worthless "diet" products. For quite some time now, the Acai Berry product, marketed under numerous names, was the frontrunner for a back-end offer of a Colon Cleanse product. Apparently, the hucksters have switched tactics and are now fronting the Colon Cleanse product with a proposed back-end sale of Acai Berry.

But first, let's review the "negative option clause" tactic, used to lure in an unsuspecting consumer to ongoing purchases of useless diet products by either claiming they're free, or that they're getting a "15-day free trial." A lot of people see ads for these modern versions of snake oil that are going to help you "boost metabolism and increase energy levels." Under the "Terms and Conditions" section, we read the following statement from an ad for Total Cleanse:

I UNDERSTAND THAT THIS CONSUMER TRANSACTION INVOLVES A NEGATIVE OPTION AND THAT I MAY BE LIABLE FOR PAYMENT OF FUTURE GOODS AND SERVICES, UNDER THE TERMS OF THIS AGREEMENT, IF I FAIL TO NOTIFY THE SUPPLIER NOT TO SUPPLY THE GOODS OR SERVICES DESCRIBED.

So what exactly does this mean? Let's read further under the Terms and Conditions section: "The 15-day trial offer includes enrollment in our auto-delivery program, which is subject to the auto delivery program terms described below." Described below is how "unless you cancel, the auto delivery program will begin shipping you a fresh, one-month supply of the product about 30 days after you place your trial order and every 30 days thereafter." But here's where it gets good: "You must contact customer service before the end of the 15-day trial period to cancel and avoid further charges...if you do not cancel, we will charge you $78.84 on the day your trial period ends to the card you provided at checkout and you will continue with the auto delivery program." However, these guys aren't finished. There's also a $5.95 shipping and handling charge, bringing your total to $84.79!

So let's take a moment to translate all the legalese here and see what we're really getting. We're being induced to try for "free," a bottle of Total Cleanse, or whatever name they decide to call it, for a "free trial offer" of $5.95. You're given 15 days to "try it" to see if you like the product. But unless you contact their customer service department "before the end of the 15-day trial period to cancel and avoid further charges," you get stuck paying another $78.84! Under the negative option clause, these fraudsters have duped the consumer into obligating himself to $84.79, not $5.95! Few people will be aware that they're paying this $84.79 until it hits their credit card, and if they try to dispute the charges, they find out that the negative option clause covers the seller and they're just out the money. I would take time to discuss how to cancel the auto shipment of the product, but the routine is the same. You call the toll-free customer service number, you spend hours on hold, the number is either not working properly, the mailbox is full, or the number gets routed to some sort of answering service who promises someone will return the call and then never does. And that's if the number hasn't already been disconnected. You can probably guess that your credit card continues to get charged about every 30 days unless you cancel your card and get a new number.

In case you still need convincing that the negative option clause is nothing but a complete consumer fraud, let's take a quick look at how the negative option clause is used with the back-end sale of Acai Fuel. It never ceases to amaze me how many euphemistic-sounding names these diet scammers can come up with for the name of their phony diet products. Anyway, Acai Fuel states in its terms and conditions, that after the 15-day trial period is up, which supposedly only cost you $6.95 for shipping and handling, you pay $79.99 per month, plus the $6.95 shipping charge. A quick glance at the legal language used to absolve the credit card scammers from any liability are the words, "Fifteen days from original order date, unless I call to cancel, my credit card will be charged $79.99 for the trial bottle." So the initial charge of $6.95 for the "free trial" of Acai Fuel, obligates you to another $79.99 on your credit card within 15 days.

But wait. We're still not through having fun with your credit card. "As a special gift," the Acai Fuel terms explains, "we're offering you a free 21 day trial membership to Fit Factory and monthly nutritionist letter." Free, eh? "If you like your memberships simply do nothing and you'll automatically be charged only $29.95 a month for Fit Factory and $1.17 a month for the nutritionist newsletter memberships." How many of you knew, when you agreed (and hopefully you didn't!) to a free trial of Acai Fuel that you were signing up for a Fit Factory and nutritionist newsletter for another $31.12 a month? Interesting to note that the toll free customer service numbers to cancel auto delivery of Acai Pure and to cancel your Fit Factory and nutritionist newsletter memberships are not the same.

Thus, if you buy into the latest Colon Cleanse scam for what you thought was going to be a $5.95 S & H cost during the "free trial," then added the Acai Pure for another $6.95 S & H, you're actually obligating yourself to four (4) separate, itemized charges to your credit card. Colon Clease or Total Cleanse, costs $84.79; Acai Pure costs $86.94; Fit Factory costs $29.95; and finally the nutritionist newsletter costs another $1.17; bringing your total cost per month to $202.85! The only part about the Total Cleanse product that's true, when combined with the rest of these worthless diet pills, memberships and newsletters, is that it actually does do a "total cleansing" of your wallet! Never mind that the purveyors of these shoddy goods use Rachael Ray's picture without her authorization (visit the Rachael Ray website to view a statement by her about the use of her picture with the Acai products), the whole thing is yet another elaborate twist on using your desire to lose weight and feel healthy against you to max out your credit card.

The problem is that these crooks have the law on their side by burying their real intentions in the fine print. They create a contract with you through the free trial offers when you give out your credit card number and assume most people have enough open to buy to cover about $200.00 worth of charges before people call in to complain. By the time people catch on to them, they've shut down all their toll free numbers and started up under another name with a variation on the same scam. There's no intention whatsoever with any of this stuff to help you lose any weight, which was probably your original intention. If there was any desire to help you with your weight loss goal, they wouldn't trick you into a contract that you have to cancel within 15 days of placing an order that obligates you to these kinds of amounts of money totaling $202.85, which they can turn into a collection agency if you don't cancel your order in a timely manner. So in addition to maxing out your credit card, they have the right to profane your credit as well. But cheer up. Most of these scam artists simply disappear, and then reappear under a new name, and then claim all of their predecessors were scam artists! Evidently, anyone can advertise anything on the web, and make any kind of outrageous claim they want, as long as they can close their doors fast enough to escape undetected.