Crush llc, Power 500 and Super Shady Diet Offers

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rgordon83

rgordon83

it's a wig
Dec 27, 2007
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Ok, Let's talk Acai (in case we haven't enough lately). Now i realize this thread is probably gonna bring on all kinds of flaming, but i don't really care.

Those of use who promote free trial diet offers are often able to rationalize it by saying "Well if the consumer read the terms, they would know what they were getting into. And what did they thing "free trial" meant?" Plus most of these products have the details of the trial in the first shipment.

And i think that's borderline fair.

But one of the offers i was promoting took the shadiness to the next level. I was promoting the Acai Berry Power 500 offers, as many people are, until i found out just how big of a scam it is.

Essentially, Acai berry offers can pay out $35 for a free trial because they know almost all consumers will get billed AT LEAST once b/c they didn't read the terms. In those cases people then cancel and maybe they are out $79 if they didn't realize in time. Not the end of the world.

But Acai Berry Power 500 takes it a step further by making their cancellation line busy 99.9% of the time. And when you do get through, you will be on hold for 45 minutes, until you hang up in frustration. Sometimes the number on their sites doesn't even work at all.

So now people are getting billed over and over and they can't stop it no matter how hard they try. Then, in the end, people have to cancel their credit cards, which is a pretty big deal if you ask me.

Search google for Acai berry power 500 scams and you'll read 100's of stories of people having to cancel credit cards from this offer.

So who's responsible?
Well, this offer is run by Crush llc. if you click your link, you will see it quickly redirect through their site. So i started checking out other dieting offers from Crush llc and started testing the cancellation number on their terms and conditions page. Guess what? None of them worked. Same crap as the Power 500.

Now i know most people on this site could care less who they scam or how many people have to cancel credit cards because of them, but i do care. And i would rather make less money on other offers than screw people hardcore. So i refuse to promote any Crush llc offers now

Here are some shady crush llc offers:
All Acai power 500's (us, ca,uk,au,nz)
Extreme Acai berry
A bunch of colons.
i'm sure a lot more that i haven't seen

So if you don't wanna totally scam people hardcore, check your links and see if they redirect through Crush llc. If they do, change them.

I started split testing a bunch of other Acai offers and i found that there are some that were even doing better than the power 500 or Extreme. Here are a few offers i tested over the past few days that have LEGIT cancellation numbers (i tested them. They all work, and have automated systems. Plus they also have email cancellation abilities).

These did as good, or better than the power 500.
Vital Acai (A4D)
Natural Made Acai (Clickbooth. Private offer, ping your AM)
ColonMed 700 (new offer on hydra, converting like mad for me)
Wu-Yi Easy Weight Loss tea (A4D, CX Digital, Every other network)

There are a bunch of others out there. You can to a REALLY easy split test with this script Prosper202 Self Hosted Apps

Keep in mind that all the offers going through ebizprogram redirects are insanely slow this week until they fix their server (Acai ultimate on Eads, Acai Supreme on Copeac, etc..)

Hope this post helps less people get scammed. As affiliates, we should be doing at least some research on companies before we promote them. Unless you just don't give a shit about people as long as you get paid. In which case you will eventually fail.
 
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rgordon83 said:
Hope this post helps less people get scammed. As affiliates, we should be doing at least some research on companies before we promote them. Unless you just don't give a shit about people as long as you get paid. In which case you will eventually fail.
Click to expand...


You just failed internet marketing as a whole Robin Hood.

And were you not just bitching about people talking about acai and you start this thread.

Next thing you know you'll say that the CrazyFox work at home business and Don Lapre tiny classified ads are scams

Either be a sheep herder, or get your ass back into the flock
 
I was all excited for this thread- thinking it may bring up something I'd like to see brought to light, but opened and was wrong.

It's like this one time I was making out with this girl at a club and then I felt a little poke.. Damnit!
 
nachoninja said:
You just failed internet marketing as a whole Robin Hood.

And were you not just bitching about people talking about acai and you start this thread.

Next thing you know you'll say that the CrazyFox work at home business and Don Lapre tiny classified ads are scams

Either be a sheep herder, or get your ass back into the flock
Click to expand...

You missed the point. It's one thing to promote something that doesn't work. Its totally different to promote something that is flat out stealing from people no mater how hard they try to stop it. Especially since there are so many other Diet offers that don't have the same issue.

In no way was i saying not to promote diet, work from home, ringtones, etc.

But i AM saying if there is a specific company that is ruining peoples lives by essentially "hijacking" their credit card and not letting them get out of it, why not promote the same type of offers from companies with more legit practices? ESPECIALLY when the offers convert just as good, if not better..
 
rgordon83 said:
You missed the point. It's one thing to promote something that doesn't work. Its totally different to promote something that is flat out stealing from people no mater how hard they try to stop it. Especially since there are so many other Diet offers that don't have the same issue.

In no way was i saying not to promote diet, work from home, ringtones, etc.

But i AM saying if there is a specific company that is ruining peoples lives by essentially "hijacking" their credit card and not letting them get out of it, why not promote the same type of offers from companies with more legit practices? ESPECIALLY when the offers convert just as good, if not better..
Click to expand...

In all fairness- you'll find that both online and offline continuity programs (remember the whole "National Geographic cancel ANYTIME" TV ads? Columbia house? Girls gone wild?) make it incredibly difficult to cancel yet usually all fall well within written law (which is of course why they exist at such high volumes).

I'm not accusing nor defending any specifics in this thread- but generally that is how anything 'giving' anything away makes money in most cases. If it seems too good to be true.....


However most consumers don't know or don't care about this. Look at all the shitty "As seen on TV" products- all suck except of course Shamwow and the old skool Ronco Muthafuckin Food Dehydrator! Beef jerkey like whoa!
 
Sonny Forelli said:
In all fairness- you'll find that both online and offline continuity programs (remember the whole "National Geographic cancel ANYTIME" TV ads? Columbia house? Girls gone wild?) make it incredibly difficult to cancel yet usually all fall well within written law (which is of course why they exist at such high volumes).

I'm not accusing nor defending any specifics in this thread- but generally that is how anything 'giving' anything away makes money in most cases. If it seems too good to be true.....


However most consumers don't know or don't care about this. Look at all the shitty "As seen on TV" products- all suck except of course Shamwow and the old skool Ronco Muthafuckin Food Dehydrator! Beef jerkey like whoa!
Click to expand...

Again, i agree with you. But once the consumer DOES find out the nature of their free trial, and they want to cancel, they should be able to do that without having to cancel their credit cards...
 
rgordon83 said:
But i AM saying if there is a specific company that is ruining peoples lives by essentially "hijacking" their credit card and not letting them get out of it, why not promote the same type of offers from companies with more legit practices? ESPECIALLY when the offers convert just as good, if not better..
Click to expand...

No ones life is getting ruined from an acai berry diet bean rebill, and if it is maybe they should shut of the internet access and run around the block to get their fat ass into shape. Cancelling is as simple as calling your CC company and charging back or cancelling your card - the people you reference are the same fucks that complain about shipping charges and taxes when they buy shit online, a minority of customers that like to bitch and moan.
 
I think this is a completely legit concern and I've been bringing it up in the IRC room.

I've been monitoring complaintsboard, ripoffreport and the other consumer complaint sites to see which of these offers aren't just autoship programs, but are downright scams. Crush LLC / Acai Power500 / ExtremeAcai recently altered their TOS to include over $200 worth of autoship bullshit. They have no clear cancellation process, and questionable customer service. I've called their 800 #'s and haven't gotten anyone on the line. They consist of 90% of the complaints online.

Acai Supreme -- They have minimal complaints, and as I understand it, they are actually capping their own offer while they hire more staff to handle customer service and get more inventory in. These guys didn't get blinded by greed and seem to be making sound business decisions if what I was told is accurate.

VitalAcai which has 0 complaints thus far online. Their parent company on BBB I think has a B rating (compared to Crush LLC's F). Their 800 number is always answered and their cancellation process is automatic.
 
invisible777 said:
I think this is a completely legit concern and I've been bringing it up in the IRC room.

I've been monitoring complaintsboard, ripoffreport and the other consumer complaint sites to see which of these offers aren't just autoship programs, but are downright scams. Crush LLC / Acai Power500 / ExtremeAcai recently altered their TOS to include over $200 worth of autoship bullshit. They have no clear cancellation process, and questionable customer service. I've called their 800 #'s and haven't gotten anyone on the line. They consist of 90% of the complaints online.

Acai Supreme -- They have minimal complaints, and as I understand it, they are actually capping their own offer while they hire more staff to handle customer service and get more inventory in. These guys didn't get blinded by greed and seem to be making sound business decisions if what I was told is accurate.

VitalAcai which has 0 complaints thus far online. Their parent company on BBB I think has a B rating (compared to Crush LLC's F). Their 800 number is always answered and their cancellation process is automatic.
Click to expand...

Yeah, vital looks pretty legit. Not to mention my A4D Vital Acai is converting BETTER than my Power 500 i was running with them....
 
rgordon83 said:
Again, i agree with you. But once the consumer DOES find out the nature of their free trial, and they want to cancel, they should be able to do that without having to cancel their credit cards...
Click to expand...

and let me let you in on the unfairness of having good credit vs. bad credit:

I could call up American Express and tell them I want to cancel and have this taken care of with one call lasting less than a minute. They'd block the charge from hitting my card again on their end, and that would be the the last of it (and go after the merchant account that a company is billing through with a chargeback).

However - if you're "Joe 6-pack" to quote Ms. Palin who has a 585 fico score- owes $15k in credit card debt on cancelled cards that creditors are trying to collect and has a shitty Capital One card you're gonna have this problem.

This is the same thing with say trying to chargeback something they bought on Amazon and claim never arrived at their house. I've done this and had zero issues- a idiot friend of mine had the credit card company deny their claim and charge them anyway because it seemed likely my friend was full of shit (and he may have been) and was trying to get a free Xbox.

Fair? not really. But this should be noted and factored into the equation as well. To me it's a similar moral issue of selling someone debt consolidation, cash advance, biz opp, hell even mortgage leads are sketchy as hell if you're an idiot and are dumb enough to believe the L.O. who tells you on the phone that rolling your $65k worth of auto/credit card debt into paying it off over 30 years is a sound financial move.

Whch of course none of this applies to me- I sell bibles. :)
 
Yeah and shit like this ends up in complaints at the places we advertise which screws it for the legit ones because by the time it's realized the offers are banned
 
invisible777 said:
I think this is a completely legit concern and I've been bringing it up in the IRC room.

I've been monitoring complaintsboard, ripoffreport and the other consumer complaint sites to see which of these offers aren't just autoship programs, but are downright scams. Crush LLC / Acai Power500 / ExtremeAcai recently altered their TOS to include over $200 worth of autoship bullshit. They have no clear cancellation process, and questionable customer service. I've called their 800 #'s and haven't gotten anyone on the line. They consist of 90% of the complaints online.

Acai Supreme -- They have minimal complaints, and as I understand it, they are actually capping their own offer while they hire more staff to handle customer service and get more inventory in. These guys didn't get blinded by greed and seem to be making sound business decisions if what I was told is accurate.

VitalAcai which has 0 complaints thus far online. Their parent company on BBB I think has a B rating (compared to Crush LLC's F). Their 800 number is always answered and their cancellation process is automatic.
Click to expand...

this is very fair- per my above comments I was presuming people were/are at least playing by the standard industry guidelines- apparently I'm not well informed on this. Away I sneak....

:food-smiley-010:
 
I would much rather work with a merchant that offered online cancellation even if it means I make a lot less money. I'm kind of a hypocrite here because I've worked with Advaliant's diet offers which don't have online cancellation in the past and I still have a few ads for it running on FB. Other then that I'm not promoting any diet products right now because I decided to take a break from it.

Thanks for starting this thread, I think it's important.
 
I was gonna chime-in about how it sucks when merchants can't get their customer service act together. Then I tested our lines and I was on hold for 5 minutes. This is unacceptable.

It can sometimes be difficult to predict spikes in traffic, or calls from folks who want to cancel before their recurring billing kicks-in. It's not a perfect business. But there are companies who invest a lot into their customer service. The faster you can get someone talking to you, the easier it is to keep them happy with your product, or offer discounts on their next month.

Off to more testing and getting our shit up to snuff...
 
The company running the offers can get in some serious trouble with the FTC and/or state Attorney General offices for hindering the cancellation process. I can't seem to find it right now, but there have been a few cases/rulings about this in the past few years.

Who ultimately takes the blame legally? Is it the company producing the product that hired Crush Direct Response (if Crush isn't actually running the offers themselves, and is just AOR), Crush, the networks, or the end-advertiser? Azoogle ended up having to settle with the Florida AG over deceptive ringtone ads, so the fault can lie anywhere in the chain.
 
They are probably classified as high risk. High risk over 2% CB's for a sustained amount of time = canceled. They obviously arn't pissing people off too bad.
 
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