Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Online Scam?

My mom who is always my biggest support system sometimes sends me e-mails with links to articles about health and fitness stuff since I've started writing this blog. I really appreciate it and sometimes she will send me something that is so interesting that I even use the information in my blog. Mom's are great aren's they? Well I know mine is. So today I am going to talk to you about one of the one's that she sent me.

The article was about the "Get Slim Acai" and "Colon Cleanse" diet. The woman in the article claims to be a reporter for somewhere and she said that with all of the claims that the combination of these two diets was amazing she of course got to be the guinea pig. Another reason was because she was getting married and wanted to lose around 30 pounds before her big day.

The article claims that the stuff did work to "Julie" the reporters surprise. She claims to have had more energy and all of the other things that come along with using Acai. If it truly did work for her that is great, but here is where things started getting interesting for me in regards to the article.

Not only were there several links within the article/blog where one could click to get free samples of the "get slim acai", but also there was a lot of talk about how she went with this particular brand because not only is it the most trustworthy, but also because it didn't try to con her into any hidden agreements. If you are just looking into a product how do you know which one is the most trustworthy? You wouldn't. This just sounded like a glorified advertisement to me.

Another thing that struck me as intersesting and made this particular article an epic fail for me was the part about how the reporter was getting married soon thus making her the guinea pig for the diet. Two reasons this stood out to me. The first one not as big of a deal as the second. So I'll tell you the first one first.

First off the advertisement/article talks about how one doesn't need to change up their eating habits or workout to lose weight with this miracle diet. Yeah right that is not what "Julie" was doing. If she were getting married in a few months and still wanted to lose 30 pounds she should be working out and dieting, which means that she would already be doing the right stuff in terms of reaching a goal. This may not be a huge thing for others reading it, but it certainly made me think.

The second thing I will point out to you about this is the real kicker. Last spring I was looking some things up online, months before I ever started this blog and I stumbled upon an article about the lemonaid diet (the Beyonce detox diet that I blogged about a few weeks ago). In the article a reporter for somewhere talked about how she was getting married soon and was wanting to lose 30 pounds or more before her big day, thus making her the obvious guinea pig for the project. Sound familiar? I really think that they simply changed the name and the picture of the reporter and switched out the words "lemonaid diet" with "get slim acai". The other artile also had product placement.

I am simply pointing stuff out to you so that you don't end up getting internet scammed. It happens all the time and I would like to say that I had a small part in making sure it doesn't happen to anyone else. Just because you read it online doesn't mean it is true. Be smart media consumers and you will go far. Had any experience in this area? Or if you have tried this particular product and know that it works I'd love to hear that too. Regardless just tell me what you think. Thanks!

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