Many sites selling acai berry supplements are offering free trials, which has many people asking, "Is acai a scam?" The answer is more complicated than yes or no. Acai berry itself is a very nutritious super fruit with a great deal of potential as a health supplement. But its popularity means there are a good number of companies looking to make a quick buck, even if that means scamming you out of your hard-earned money. But if you know what to look for, you can help protect yourself from these scammers.
What Makes For a Scam Offer?
At first glance, a free trial offer for acai supplements may sound like a risk-free proposal. Who wouldn't want to be able to try the potential health benefits of acai at no cost at all? This would even sound downright wonderful to those who want to take advantage of the said weight loss effects of acai berry. Many consumers have been lead down the path of deceit because this is how they saw the free acai offer: a harmless gift from a legitimate company. They easily forget how even the most successful food companies only hand out bite-sized samples or offer few sips when promoting a new product because it simply wouldn't pay to give out so much.
The Free Product
In most cases, individuals who avail of the free trial offers get just what they promise in the ad, usually a bottle of acai supplements good for a few weeks. But don't be fooled by whatever supposed price they put on the giveaway though. It would be so easy for them to value a free sample bottle at $50 for instance, and then give you one that's only worth half that.
Rather than a quality supplement, they are shipping you a dried out and nutritionally empty product. They are looking to do several things with this gift. First, they want you to think they are trustworthy. They want you to think that you really did get a free $50 gift of this amazing supplement. They sent you free acai berry, they are clearly trying to win you over. The acai berry scam artists also want you to think you are having some benefit from this product. Since you now think they are trustworthy, you're more likely to experience a placebo effect and actually think the supplement has done something.
So what is the catch?
Regrettably, that is only half of the story. Many people who have signed up for such a free trial ended up not only with a bottleful of inferior supplements (which isn't quite so bad as long as it's free), but also with a regular subscription they never even knew they signed up for.
It starts off very simple. You have to sign up for a trial subscription to their newsletter, which says it can be cancelled at any time, in order to get your free acai berry. But you have already fallen into the spider's web. When you try to cancel the subscription, if you even remember, they will make it an endeavor. By the time you actually get it cancelled, if you even do, you will already have been signed up automatically for something else. And this something else is going to cost you. You are now caught in a struggle to cancel the payments while they waste your time and run up your bill.
How Do They Get Away With This?
What these companies are counting on is that few people would have the time and patience to go through the process of making a formal complaint or even argue and demand for their money back. Even though these companies are actually making acai a scam, they cover it up cleverly enough in the guise of fine print so the customer actually feels he is at fault. In the end, the deceived customer would even feel grateful that he was able to cancel the regular subscription at all and end up with just losing a few tens of dollars.
So how do you avoid the acai berry scam? Obviously, the best option is never to get involved in the first place. While the free acai berry looks tempting, leave it be. They are not offering you a free sample, they are just dangling a lure and looking for the next catch with their free acai berry scam.