Report on Acai Berry Scams is Updated

May 2, 2011 - PRLog -- Hamilton Media LLC has recently updated its in-depth report on consumer scams involving acai berry nutritional products. The Acai Berry Scam: A Briefing for Attorneys, Regulators and Victims is now timelier than ever, as the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and other agencies launch a new crack-down on the acai berry industry.
The Acai Berry Scam provides an extensive analysis of the recent history of consumer scams involving acai berry products, including its newest chapter.
On April 19, the FTC announced that it had requested restraining orders against 10 marketers of acai berry products to stop their allegedly deceptive marketing practices. The marketers were operating websites that appeared to be news reports, even using the names of real news outlets without permission. But the articles that masked as news reports were really stealth advertisements for acai berry nutritional supplements, using the credibility of legitimate news media to make wildly exaggerated claims of acai berries’ benefits.
The fake news websites were only the latest campaign by marketers in recent years to take advantage of the way that acai berries have captured the public’s imagination as a product with nearly magical properties that promote weight loss, prevent cancer, and provide numerous other health benefits.
Meanwhile, there has been little if any scientific evidence to back up the marketers’ claims.
Government regulators and consumer advocates have repeatedly taken action to shut down ventures that use myths about acai berry products to prey on consumers’ insecurities about their health. But new scams, using largely the same tactics, seem to pop up as soon as others are shut down.
What’s more, offers for acai berry dietary supplements and other products have been the basis for many online scams that overbill consumers’ credit cards and charge them for products and services that they didn’t order. The new fake-news acai berry sites are alleged to have used the same tactics.
The Acai Berry Scam is detailed enough to be used by attorneys and regulators in their initial investigations before initiating new actions against acai berry marketers.
But it should also be of interest to anyone in the nutritional products business and to many health-conscious consumers.
The Acai Berry Scam can be downloaded for $14.99 at http://acaiscams.com

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Hamilton Media is the publisher of an in-depth report on the proliferation of consumer scams involving acai berry products.