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The Federal Trade Commission said Tuesday it's settled its first action against a marketer who used fake paid reviews to boost sales of its product on Amazon.
The FTC had accused Cure Encapsulations of paying AmazonVerifiedReviews.com to write and post fake reviews to maintain an average Amazon rating of 4.3 out of 5 stars for the company's garcinia cambogia weight-loss supplement. The agency had also accused the company of making false and unsubstantiated claims, including reviews that said the product caused weight loss of two or more pounds each and "literally blocks fat from forming."
[...] Under the terms of the proposed settlement, Cure Encapsulations is barred from making claims about the health benefits of dietary supplements without supporting clinical evidence. The defendants are also required to notify its customers of the allegations against it and identify for Amazon which reviews it purchased.
A $12.8 million judgment was levied against Cure Encapsulations, but it will be suspended when the company pays $50,000 to the FTC and fulfills other tax obligations. The full amount of the judgment will be immediately due if the commission finds the company misrepresented its financial condition.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Wednesday February 27 2019, @08:38PM
I've had good results with Gingko and Ginseng as well, although I bought the herbs in bulk and made tea rather than buying pills. Epimedium can be fun as well. And of course Valerian and Chamomile are great for sleep (although personally I find Valerian to be a bit too strong for me, knocks me out well but then I have trouble getting up the next morning). One of the other major issues with supplement pills is that they frequently don't actually contain what they claim to contain. I forget exactly which herb it was, but I recall one that I was looking into a few years ago where part of the plant is therapeutic and part was toxic (leaves vs roots or leaves vs flowers, something like that)...and of course most of the common supplement brands contained both parts. Or some of them just contain sawdust or some other filler. So I think you're much better off if you buy bulk herbs and make a tea from it or something like that, the dosage might not be quite as consistent in theory, but in practice the dosage in those pills could be absolutely anything.
As for vitamins...My girlfriend just got a trio of vitamin pills prescribed by her doctor, and she's on medicare too so I kinda doubt they'd be willing to pay for those if there was any doubt as to their effectiveness. The biggest problem with those AIUI is simply that your body can't typically absorb that much that quickly, so a large percentage of it does go straight through. I've got some multivitamins that I take sporadically which seem to help when my diet gets particularly atrocious...but I like to break 'em in half to spread the dose out a bit as well, which I assume probably helps a bit....