Acai Berry Power "FREE" trial

Simone1_2

I've been looking into this for a while. I started using these berries a while back and have heard of no end of problems encountered by others. I started a blog about acai berries then I ended up reviewing various products as well as some of the dodgy ingredients (e.g. Maltodextrin) that goes into these products.

I'm still trying to add more info when I can. I review products. What I do not do is review the company/organisation that produces/sells them. On my website I have placed a warning paragraph in red to alert people of scams and what they should do about it. To save time, I've pasted it, word for word, below:

Warning Regarding Some Acai Berry Sites


Acai berries have become big business and as a result there has arisen a number of unethical websites selling acai berry products. I am not here to tell you which site is or isn’t ethical. In fact, some sites who are ethical over time switch to unethical tactics, and visa-versa. So I can’t give you any guarantees because things change. However, I can give you some pointers to watch out for before you purchase:

1. Never order a Free Trial of Acai – the Acai is never free! Some sites are offering a ‘free’ trial of Acai then charging customers’ credit cards each month and sending further products to them.
2. If the site is heavily marketing a free trial they also sell single bottles of their products. Purchase a single bottle first.
3. Ensure the seller has a contact number which works. Sometimes they may have one but it is very well hidden, e.g. in a ‘Contact Us’ on the page footer. Check the number works before you purchase. Can you talk to a real person? If not, it is highly unlikely you will reach a person when you are trying to stop that auto-billing.
4. Before signing up for a free-trial of acai berry, we recommend checking the following websites for scam reports on the brand that you are considering : "Complaints Board" (www dot complaintsboard dot com) and "Rip Off Report" (www dot ripoffreport dot com). Another helpful tip is to type the brand name followed by the word “scam” into any search engine.

I hope this helps?:A

Sorry that the hypertext links are not clickable, being a newbie I wasn't allowed to link them. But the sites are quite useful.

marneystyles

Did u just cancel your card. An it stopped altogether.

miss_vic81

hi - i think this will be my final update as this all happened to me back in january - you can scroll back a few pages to see my story - no money what so ever has been taken out of my account apart from the postage taken from the free trial. i used a debit card and didnt have to cancel my account. i phoned the customer services number a day after i placed initial order and everything was cancelled. i did receive the free trial however despite cancelling it before it was posted - but as i said everything worked out okay.

macca2824

Hi Guys. My 1st ever post!!! My brother fell for this as well and never even got his samples. Once he had cancelled, no more money was taken.

Has anyone actually tried the product(s) and had any side effects - positive or negative, or is it a 100% massive scam?

Linn*

I am an ex Local Billing employee, the owners of acaiberryexclusive.com and another sites with these fake diet products.

The business model is to offer a FREE SAMPLE, only charging you the postage (this is an excuse to get your credit card number) and, then, due to HIDDEN Terms and Conditions, charge people incredible amounts of money for pills, which in any retail place cost less than 6 US$ per bottle.

The owners of those sites are Clay Douglass ( Mitch Platt and their plan is to scam as much possible and, then, go for another product and do the same (SCAM).

It is easy to contact them through the information who appears on the site registration of acaiberryexclusive. Now, they discovered this hole on their ability to remain hidden and are registering the new sites using a Marketing company located in the US:

ACAIBERRYEXCLUSIVE.COM - Whois Information
Registrant:
Douglass, Clay clay.douglass@viveraglobal.com
Viv3 Lab Limited
Unit 5, Mill Road Industrial Estate
Linlithgow, WL EH49 7QY
GB
Domain name: ACAIBERRYEXCLUSIVE.COM
Administrative Contact, Technical Contact:
viveraglobal, Hostmaster hostmaster@viveraglobal.com
Viv3 Lab Limited
Unit 5, Mill Road Industrial Estate
Linlithgow, WL EH49 7QY
GB
+44.08082389891

Hosting for Local Billing and for the pills sites is held in the Netherlands, in a company called RedBee.
Also, they are using a company called Phytoscience, located in the same address than viv3, to make the handling and the postal distribution of the products. The manager of Phytoscience is called Chris Swanson and his email is chris@phytoscience.co.uk.

Other addresses of these scammers:
Local Billing Ltd, Pau Claris, 100, 08009 Barcelona, Spain (they are operating from here, it is an useful contact for the police)
clay.douglass@localbillinglimited.com
mitch.platt@localbillinglimited.com
claydouglass@gmail.com

pintsize13

I fell for this scam two days ago, first I tried to order the trial products with my debit card and it did not go through. I tried again with my credit card which was successful and I got order confirmations.
What I found out later on that day was:
1. They tried to take money off my debit card which was surprising knowing the transaction didn’t even go through. But of course they got my card details and tried to charge £65.93 twice, once from Panama and again from Cyprus. Luckily my bank blocked my card suspecting those overseas transactions to be fraudulent.
My bank said once they take off the block the scammers will keep trying to charge my card and the best thing to do was to cancel my debit card and issue a new one. Bummer! So I canceled my debit card.
When I found out about this – so lucky I tried to log on to my on-line banking later on that day – I immediately suspected this Acai Optimum people to be scammers so I decided to call and cancel the order.
2. I call them and tried to cancel but the person on the phone said they have to charge £99.63 for the cancellation because apparently the terms and condition of the free trial is that I have to buy at least one product after the trial. What is “free” about that?
I was on the phone for an hour tried to get them refund my card but of course they won’t. And they said they cancel the shipping and my membership but they will still charge £99.63 for this.
So without even receiving anything, I would be out of almost 100 pounds! By the time I didn’t even trust their product anyway so it didn’t matter that I wasn’t going to get anything but boy, I wasn’t going to let them get my money that easy.
I called my credit card company and they said since the transaction was made this morning the charges were still pending which meant I could cancel my credit card and that was it.
In the end they wouldn’t get any of my money but I don’t expect them to sell my information to credit rating company.
If I couldn’t get my credit card cancelled on the same day, the transaction would have gone through and there would be nothing I or the credit card company could have done about it.
After all it is my fault that I voluntarily handed out my credit card details on-line.
But I hear this blood sucking parasites would keep charging your credit card even after you cancel your membership so the only thing you could you is to cancel your credit card.
Of course if you only find out about these charges after so many days later you will have to pay the money.
It sucks but that’s how this scammers make money.
Todays lesson:
There is no such thing as free stuff in this world

Lastly, did you tried to search ‘Acai berry scam’ in Google?
You wouldn’t believe your eyes, every single sites that comes out of this search are made by these scammers.
Even the site named likes of 'acaiberryscam' they already dominated the on-line search engine.
You couldn’t even trust internet now because they know how to manipulate search engine results.
How scary!

peakoilisnow

Earlier in the thread you may have read about me being scammed and my efforts to be repaid, which eventually got most of the money back.

I used a capital one credit card. For various other reasons I paid this off in april and used it for a balance transfer.

Since April this card has been in a drawer and not used for any transactions.

I got a letter this morning from cap one asking me to phone the fraud dept. Apparently the card number was tried to be used for a number of online transactions in the USA. Basically a few small ones then a big one £245 for headphones - I expect they were gold plated!

All these transactions were declined fortunately by cap one, but it appears that the scammers aren't just ripping people off, they are involved in outright fraud too.

Watch out if you have used a CC with these people

HannahIOW

My OH got caught by one of these companies a couple of months ago - he wouldn't listen to me
Not sure what kind of card he used but probably a CC. He spent ages trying to contact them on the phone and eventually got through to someone and demanded it was cancelled. He did receive the 'free trial' and has only been charged around £1 from his bank so far... I keep reminding him to check they haven't taken anything else.

Still, lesson learnt, he won't do it again lol.

Briar75

I also signed up for the 'free' trial and was then charged approx £60 7 days later. I contacted my credit card company and they gave me the toll free number of the company that owns dozens of sites ripping people off selling 'colon cleanse' and 'acai berry' products. You need to phone this number and cancel your subscription and ask them to email you a confirmation that this has been done. Their telephone number is: 08081683410 and their email address is: [EMAIL="support@advancedcolonmax.com"]support@advancedcolonmax.com[/EMAIL].

If you do not receive your goods within 30 days of them taking money from your account, you can claim a refund via your credit card company.

I've learnt a lot from this and will never be so niave again. :mad:

nicolleaitken

i fell for this yesterday, i was told to pay £1.19 for p+p and that in 30 days i would be charged £60 but i could cancel anytime before that. i got the acai berry and the acai optimum cos supposingly they work better together so i signed up for 2 free trials THE NEXT DAY £122 was taken from my account, the bank can do nothing as i used a debit card and the company say they cannot refund me, all they can do is cancel future payments. i have an email confirming they have done that so fingers crossed! i asked if i cancelled the 'free trial' order would i get a refund then? surely i would do if im not receieving anything i thought! but no they said it had already been sent so i need to pay. There was NO small print on the website i was on, just the note to say that i would be charged £60 in 30 days but i could cancel anytime. Anyway, i think im pretty much screwed and there is no chance im getting my money back but at least its taught me a valuable lesson!