There's no such thing as a free teeth whitener

Herb Weisbaum • Profile • E-mail

Tracy Howard is very careful about using her credit card online. She only shops with companies she knows are reputable. One day while surfing the Web, she spotted an ad for a “free” sample of tooth whitener.

“It was on a legitimate Web site, so I thought it was a legitimate offer,” Howard, from Bothell, Wash., said.

It wasn’t. Howard paid $5 for shipping. She put the charge on her credit card.

The Dazzle White arrived in about two weeks; a little silver tube with an applicator brush. No invoice. No instructions. But that didn’t really matter, she says, because the tube was empty.

“I figured the joke was on me.”

Howard wasn’t laughing when she saw a charge for $58 from Dazzle White on her next credit card statement and another $58 charge the month after that.

By requesting the free sample, Howard had signed up (without knowing it) for monthly shipments of the product.

Dazzle White, which is based in Alberta, Canada, has at least a dozen Web sites, including DazzleWhiteNow and DazzleWhitePro. The Better Business Bureau in Edmonton gives the company an “F” rating. The bureau’s reliability report says most people who pay the shipping don’t even receive the free sample.

The company did not respond to my e-mails requesting a comment.

“This is a huge online problem right now,” says Alison Southwick with the Council of Better Business Bureaus. “The number of complaints is exploding.”

In the last year, more than 1,100 people across North America have complained to the Better Business Bureau about a free-trial teeth whitener promotion.

“They think they’re signing up for a no obligation offer and they get billed as much as $80 a month for these products that keep arriving at their door,” Southwick explains. “They’re also billed $50 to $60 a month for other products and services they never agreed to buy.”

Oprah hoax Dozens of Acai berry weight-loss Web sites use celebrities’ names to sell their products. For example, click an online ad called “Oprah’s Amazing Diet” and you’ll find a “blog” about a woman who supposedly lost 57 pounds in two month using two “Oprah-Endorsed Amazing Weight Loss Products.” But Oprah Winfrey is not associated with, nor does she endorse any Acai berry product. In August, Oprah sued 40 Internet companies marketing dietary supplements. Despite all the marketing hype, Acai berries have nothing to do with losing weight. According to the Center for Science in the Public Interest, no studies have looked at these products and there’s no good reason to think that the berry might help. Source: Nutrition Action Healthletter

Bogus free trial offers are used to sell everything from worthless work-at-home opportunities to questionable nutritional supplements. For the past few years, numerous companies have used this pitch to push Acai (pronounced ah-sigh-EE) berry and Resveratrol weight loss products, as well as colon cleansers.

Stop already!
Sherry Marshall of Seattle got sucker-punched when she responded to an online ad offering a free trial of an Acai berry weight loss product. Marshall was willing to pay the $4 shipping and handling.

She had no idea the company, FWM Laboratories of Hollywood, Fla., would send her additional bottles of the stuff and bill her $88 for each of them.

Since the shipments came without invoices, she had not idea how to contact the company to stop them. Luckily, she spotted one of the company’s ads that listed a phone number. Marshall says she spent 20 minutes arguing with the customer service operator. Even after threatening legal action, the bottles kept coming.

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