Acai Scams - Acai Offers- Acai Warnings
As soon as Acai hit the mainstream media, it happened.
Company's looking for a "fast buck" decided to jump on the Acai bandwagon, making it extremely difficult to be able to recognize legitimate Acai products, and companies from whom to buy.
Acai Offers ...
Commonly advertised as a "Free Acai Trial", be very wary. While generally not breaking the law, the small print in these Acai free trial offers is mostly ignored by people buying from these sites, and causing much annoyance and financial hardship.
Simply, you are offered a "Free Trial" paying just for shipping. Here is a sample "terms and conditions", with any offending names removed:
When you order the risk-free trial of XXXXXX your credit card will be charged only $X.XX shipping and handling. You will have a full 14 day free trial period from your original order date to decide if XXXXXX is right for you. If you are enjoying XXXXXX, then do nothing, and at the end of your 14 day trial period you will be charged seventy-nine dollars and ninety five cents for the trial bottle you received. If you find that XXXXXX is not right for you, simply contact our Customer Service Department to cancel your membership within 15 days of your original order date, return the unused portion of the product to us (or the empty packaging if fully consumed), and you will not be charged any additional fees. Approximately 30 days from your original order date, and every 30 days thereafter, a monthly supply of XXXXXX will be sent to you, and your credit card on file will be billed seventy-nine dollars ninety-five cents plus five dollars and ninety five cents shipping and handling (total eighty-five dollars and ninety cents).
This is how basically they all work. They entice you with a great sounding offer for a couple of bucks, and trap you. How? Well most people won't have read the small print, and believe what they're getting is what's been heavily promoted - a free trial. It's NOT. You will be billed for that trial bottle in 14 days, and then every 30 days.
As you can see from the terms, you have to contact the "Customer Service Department" within 15 days. Try looking for that phone number!
The other thing, is that you're being charged over $80 for an Acai product you generally know absolutely nothing about. Where does it say, freeze-dried, or organic, or vegetarian, or fair trade. And the sites we've seen offering these trials, are selling you 60 caps per bottle. So that's more than twice what a legitimate site like us will charge for a bottle - with half the capsules!
Concentrated 4:1 Acai
Many companies are selling Acai concentrates, quoting a ratio of 4:1, with anything up to 1,200mg per capsule.
Looks great, but the problem is that 4:1 does not mean that it's 4 times more powerful. 4:1 means that (for example), a 1,200mg capsule of 4:1 Acai only has 300mg of Acai in it. What they are doing, is using the wet (unprocessed freshly harvested Acai) weight against the dry (processed Acai powder) weight - So 4 kilos of fresh Acai made 1 kilo of Acai powder.
Whereas sites like ours put a full 500mg of Acai powder in each capsule, these sites are putting 125mg of Acai powder in each capsule, claiming that the 4:1 ratio means you are getting 500mg equivalent of Acai fruit ...
This is really important to realize when you're comparing prices.
Pure Acai™ (our brand) - 120 capsules of 500mg full powder at $39.97
This equals 60g of Acai at 66 cents per gram
Other Brand - 60 capsules of 1,200mg 4:1 at $39.97
This equals 18g of Acai at $2.22 per gram.
Seen on TV banners
You've seen those red and white graphics which say "As Seen on TV" on several Acai web sites. They are used to add "authority" to a product, implying that as it was (supposedly) seen on Television ... so, of course, it must be a quality product.
No.
Was it the actual product that was seen on "TV"? More often than not, it was not their branded Acai product that was on "TV", but Acai itself being discussed. Some companies automatically put this image on their site to "mislead" visitors that their product has more authority as it was seemingly featured on some television program.
When you see this, check that it was their product. And, even if it was, still do your homework about the quality and guarantees being offered. Many of the free trial Acai offers are the ones promoted on TV - they can afford the adverts.
Have we missed anything? Let us know here so we can keep this page updated!