Scam products

[addy]

So, Reebok and Sketchers have been ordered to pay out because of false advertising--- i.e. claiming those weird chunky shoes could tone your butt.

Why do so many other products get away with it? I've watched infomercials that make the stupidest, most outrageous claims. Like those those vibrating "exercise devices" that you strap on to your belly and supposedly it "tones your abs". And this marker you could supposedly use to "erase" the scratch marks off your car.

WTF? Why is it even legal to bandy those lies willy-nilly? Does it fall under a freedom of speech clause I'm unaware of?

[billy]

i think the scratch one gets away with it because it's done in a country that doesn't use ad standards. i doubt it would get shown in the uk.
some of the exercise ones are shown though. i think they get away with it because the add "when used in conjunction with a calorie controlled diet etc. that said they're definitely fake and should be banned.
my favorite one is the scar remover, 4 applications blah blah and the scar tissue disappears

[srijantje]

i go nuts about all those creams that are supposed to make you whiter,poor people,they get bombarded here with that kind of shit,playing on their feeling of inferiority[white is beautiful]

[Touchstone]

If all the penis enlargers I've tried had worked I'd have a todger the size of a telephone pole by now.

[billy]

we have the whiteners here too and it's big big business
not so many penis enlargers though

[srijantje]

no use for philipino's,not enough space to put it
oops,not the sewer?

[Erthona]

"no use for philipino's,not enough space to put it". No the problem is that twice nothing is still nothing!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Why do so many other products get away with it? I've watched infomercials that make the stupidest, most outrageous claims. Like those those vibrating "exercise devices" that you strap on to your belly and supposedly it "tones your abs". And this marker you could supposedly use to "erase" the scratch marks off your car."

Here they always have a disclaimer that says something to the effect of..."All that stuff we just said about this product---"JUST FOOLING!"

If a product is on an infomercial it means no legitimate company found it worth investing in.

But really, if someone buys something from an infomercial they pretty much get what they deserve. If it looks to good to be true, then it probably is. Anything you buy that is suppose to replace having to go to the doctor might actually work ,but at such a low level you will never see any benefits. Sure you can buy ibuprofen over the counter, but no matter how many you take, it want come close to morphine! It's like it is true that a certain wavelength of light will induce healing (I've seen these things advertised on infomercials for like 200.00 dollars), but to get one that is powerful enough to do anything, will cost over 5000.00 dollars, because the parts to build a laser of that wavelength and power are just that expensive. there's no way around it. So while it is true that a laser of that particular wavelength will assist healing, and grow hair, the power rating is about a hundred times less than the minimum you would need to ever notice results. That's why you go to the doctor who has a high powered machine that actually will get some kind of result, and not buy one from an infomercial.

whatever happened to "Caveat emptor" ?

dale

[Touchstone]

They "get away with it" because you ie. "the people" don't actually care about it as much as you're implying you do.

The cold hard truth is that if you want the State to prevent advertisers from straying "too far" from the truth then you need to a) fund, via taxes, the investigation by the State of every claim that anyone ever makes about anything and b) trust them to not just get the testing right but also to reveal the results honestly.

And most people are not only unwilling to pay higher taxes just to receive proof that people they don't trust anyway are lying; they also don't trust the state to tell them the truth either.

[Erthona]

I would say I trust the government about as much as I trust an infomercial, and I have no need to supplement the Nanny state, in fact i wish the government would get it's god damn hand a little more out of my pocket. Gawd, I can't wait until Obomacare kicks in. Just what we need another social security type ponzi scheme. How many people do you think know that if all the tax were removed from all the phases of oil production, transportation and refinement, that gas would only be slightly more than a dollar a gallon? Yeah, give me two more of that!

Dale

[addy]

I suppose we will always live in a dysfunctional society (it seems to be the nature of the beast), and "healthy mistrust" is the only reasonable philosophy we could abide by