I have a friend who sells Acai pills over the Internet. He’s a great businessman, and saw this niche long before the Acai berry furore gripped the nation with the help of Oprah Winfrey. Since the popularity of Acai blew out of control, many people have been moving into the industry in hopes of getting rich quick. Unfortunately many of these people resort to questionable sales tactics in order to move their businesses forward. Naturally these people place the entire industry a bad light.
Is good news, therefore, when someone like Central Coast Nutraceuticals is forced to settle with the Arizona attorney general to the tune of $1,375,000 for engaging in what were described by AG Terry Goddard as “deceptive on line advertising and sales practices”. Goddard brought the action after his office received hundreds of complaints against CCN. CCN’s settlement is tantamount to an admission of guilt, but it can only be a drop in the ocean in terms of the profits accrued as a direct result practices.
CCN are now bound to provide more information to potential customers regarding the deals they are signing up for.
The problem was that CCN were deceiving customers who signed up for their ‘free trial offer’ of Acai juice. In fact it was not just a free trial, and the customer was unknowingly signing up for a subscription. Not only did CCN charge the customer as and when they felt like it, but they were shipping additional products that had never been ordered. In fact in some cases, the Atty Gen stated, products were being sent that had been explicitly unselected during the on line ordering process.
CCN’s continued reluctance to cancel these scam subscriptions what part of the reason why Goddard went after them.
So it’s great that companies like this are being forced out of the marketplace slowly but surely. It’s not so great, however, when you consider loss of faith that incidents like this cause. Customers will be more reluctant than ever to buy online right now, even though organizations like my friend’s are completely legitimate and aboveboard. Let’s just hope the bottom of the industry doesn’t fall out just because these jokers wanted a quick buck.