Submitted by Anne Landman on
Power Balance of Orange County, California makes rubber bracelets with a holographic inset that "are designed to work with your body's natural energy field" to increase strength, balance and flexibility. The bands sell on Amazon.com for anywhere from $4.25 to $30.00. The company has poured tens of millions of dollars into a marketing campaign that features sports heroes and athletes like Shaquille O'Neil promoting the product. But on December 22, 2010, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission ruled that claims that the bracelets improve strength, balance and flexibility "were not supported by any credible scientific evidence," and made Power Balance admit that it engaged in "misleading and deceptive conduct in breach of 2.52 of the Trade Practices Act of 1974." The Commission told Power Balance to stop making bogus claims about the product, refund the purchase price of the wrist band to people who feel they were misled, publish a corrective advertisement to keep consumers from being misled in the future and remove the words "performance technology" from the brand. The Australian ruling isn't valid in other countries, however.
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Anonymous replied on Permalink
Lawsuit Anyone?
"Then there should be no problem NOT making bogus health claims to sell the product."
Like I already said, take a good look around the internet, and go try locking everyone up selling a fortune cookie.
"Well...in the sense that "Everybody does it, why don't you go pick on someone else?" is a p***-poor defense...hey, you're right! :-)"
That's not what my argument is at all. Try reading. Try thinking, for that matter.
Anyways, at this point, I think YOU'RE a scammer. You're trying to divert the discussion from -- something else I ALREADY said - the point about one of these geniuses who plotted out a deep pocket lawsuit, went out and bought a 4.95 bracelet, and started a very frivolous suit.
I think you're one of those "genuises" at this point. So you know what? Go take a hike. Arguing with you is pointless. You don't even make a semblance of trying to respond to what someone is actually saying.
I'm sure you will lose your bogus scamming lawsuit. Every judge in the country will laugh you out of the courtroom.
Anonymous replied on Permalink
Finishing your argument off completely ...
I have since (also) checked your reference to amazon and found out that you aren't even telling the truth. Amazon DOES promote them as a magical product.
PLUS, the amazon reference shows that people do buy this product without any such understanding, as there are lots and lots of buyer comments asserting that they just like the bracelet as fashion. Backing up what I said in my earlier post.
Gone hiding, haven't you, without anything left in your argument. It's silly and unsubstantial. You're probably one of the claimants in this ridiculous deep pocket law suit: you bought a bracelet for 4.95 and are now sueing the athletes just as you planned from the beginning of YOUR scam.
Mutternich replied on Permalink
'Gone hiding, haven't you...'
Sorry, I'm still here.
And it wasn't strictly speaking a reference; I just said "Check Amazon."
But here's a reference:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=powere+balance+bracelet&x=0&y=0
The one claim shown on that page as of right now -- "Performance Tech Designed To Work With Your Energy Field" -- is in a sponsored link to www.PowerBalance.com. In case you don't know what a sponsored link is, Amazon has thoughtfully provide a "What's This?" link to an explanation of the term.
Yes, Amazon gets revenue from sponsored links -- tsk-tsk, Amazon, for this one -- but it's not Amazon that's promoting them as magical products.
Funny, neither this PRWatch item nor the Australian source it derived from --
http://www.bizcommunity.com/Article/196/12/55645.html
-- makes any mention of a lawsuit. Are you by any chance having a PR senior moment?
If there were a lawsuit, you'd have no more proof of my being a claimant than I have of your being, say, a paid shill for those deep pockets suckering shallow pockets. But if such a suit is planned or in progress, I have no other interest in it than hoping it teaches those particular deep pockets a memorable lesson.
Anonymous replied on Permalink
Talk about dishonest
"IF there were a lawsuit"
What a FBS artist you are. It's all over the internet on a google, just like Ouija Boards.
Poor, poor baby. You bought a 4.95 bracelet and it didn't heal you.
Mutternich replied on Permalink
By gosh, you're right, there is a lawsuit!
Made my morning to hear it. :-)
I'm really not in on it, though; I don't waste my money on crap like power bracelets in the first place.
See, one reason there's a market for lawsuits like this one in this country is that our "take everything you have" government lacks the initiative and the guts to go after big-money scammers on it own. Australia seems to do a bit better in that regard, even if the penalty handed down in the Power Balance case was just a slap on the wrist.
Bad analogy. Fortune cookies come with the meal and no one takes them seriously anyway. The Power Balance pitch, however, is deliberately crafted to mislead and deceive and part credulous people from their money.
There's no reason to sell the bracelet with a pitch like that one -- the biggest steaming pile of crap I've ever seen, BTW -- if the sellers don't expect to sell more bracelets and make more money with it than they would without it. So it really doesn't matter how many people bought a bracelet only because they think it looks cool; the ones who were influenced by that pitch were SCAMMED. As you just admitted when you said,
Never give a sucker an even break, in other words. I hope y-- ...excuse me, THOSE guys...I hope they get taken to the cleaners.
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