Do you find infomercials hard to resist?
Are you one of the Americans who spent more than US$8.5 billion last year on baldness cures, fitness equipment, options trading systems and other products after watching 28-minute commercials on late-night television?
Wait, there's more. If you read this article you'll discover the secrets of infomercials and how to resist the pitch for the Rotato Potato Peeler Express, the Eggstractor, the Velform Sauna Belt or John Beck's Free and Clear Real Estate System. You'll be on your way to a richer, fuller bank account.
Sound believable? Somehow the producers of infomercials make it work. Those trying to warn consumers about the possible pitfalls have a much harder time of it. The US Federal Trade Commission issues a stream of warnings at the site www.ftc.gov/ftc/consumer.htm against belts that twitch your abdominal muscles and no-money-down real estate seminars that promise riches. Of course, hundreds of people have to be duped before a product is cited there.
An unusual group of people, including a bodybuilder, a retired psychiatrist and an author of real estate investing and football coaching books, have created Web sites that try to educate the public.
Justin Leonard, who started Fitnessinfomercialreview.com six years ago, said, "I have more credibility because of my background as a bodybuilder."
Leonard has since started 19 other Web sites, including infomercialscams.com and infomercialratings.com, that give consumers a chance to vent or to praise the products they bought. The Wind Storm vacuum cleaner has been under attack by customers, who post anonymously.
For instance, "Cynthia," who said she paid US$282 for four machines, recently wrote in: "It is now March 2006. After numerous weekly calls to the 800 number on my bank statement, I have still not received the vacuums or a refund that was requested in January 2006. I feel so used and abused."
A spokeswoman for Igia, which sells the Wind Storm, said that it had improved customer service in recent months and that it had resolved about 95 percent of disputes.
Reading them can be an eye-opener if only because they alert you to problems besides product quality. In many instances, the refusal to make refunds or the imposition of high shipping costs is as much a concern.
Leonard has bills to pay to keep the sites going, including programmers in India who process consumer comments and pictures of infomercial products. He does something that would make the staff at Consumer Reports cringe: Leonard links to merchants who sell the products, whether they are overwhelmingly panned by his readers or given glowing reviews. He is paid a commission, averaging about 15 percent, on every sale he generates.
Leonard, a 28-year-old Arizona State University graduate student, said he was sued once by a manufacturer because of negative comments about a product, so he removed the offending comments from the site.
"That shows you how much money I don't have," he said. "I didn't want to risk it."
Stephen Barrett, a retired psychiatrist in Allentown, Pennsylvania, who has been chronicling medical frauds since the 1960s, has pretty explicit advice for consumers about infomercials making medical claims: "They should ignore all of them."
But he isn't too hopeful his advice at Quackwatch.org does much good.
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