Anyone other than me notice that the photos between a few of the linked sites are exactly the same?

Has it ever occurred to you people that acai not only makes you lose weight, but it also turns you into a nondescript myopic blonde?

You know, when you are trying to bullshit people you think you would try a little harder with the photoshop.

BTW the "as seen on Oprah" is probably a reference to Oprah using the word Acai in one of her shows so that's not deceptive at all.

The BS continues though. Look at all of the glowing comments. Then look at "comments temporarily closed well I try to catch up to you people!" How convenient.

But wait, there's more! In the picture of the "big" girl she weighs, what, 180? After losing 25 pounds (through the diet miracle known as photoshop) she is thinner then my 115 lb wife.

then=than whoops

If you wanna know really funny, some of the ads for this diet have before and after pictures. Of course, the person on the before side is a guy and the after side is a girl. Genius.

Step 1: Get questionable-looking girlfriend.
Step 2: Force feed Acai berries and colon cleanser.
Step 3: End up with girlfriend looking like that blonde 'after' pic. And probably pissed at me.

The comments on the last four "blogs" are the same.

"This is amazing! I wish I knew about this 5 years ago."

"lol, you and me both Deb :)"

"I tried the total cleanse thing a while ago and it worked pretty good but I didn't know about the acai powder stuff. I'll give it a try and let you know."

"were can u get both of the products"

@cuchanu:

maybe the photo was taken from orbit.

bwahahaha what shenanigans these folks are up to. I opened each link on a different tab and when you click to each one.. it's almost eery just how alike they all are. Jenny and naomi's are identical.

and yeah, "closed comments" LOL

I wonder if any of these sites are run by those "10 free web site ideas" adds you see on tv late at night. You know the ones we all watch cause the two women on it have huge cans.

Cookie cutter websites that direct all the traffic to a single order site.

They look like affiliate marketers to me. If you click one of the links, you go through about 7 affiliate redirects before you get anywhere.

So, the actual companies selling this garbage are protected. They're not doing the lying after all!

The internet is filled with 'affiliate marketers' like this, filling the web with spam. They only do it because they think they can get rich quick. And they might since Acai is the HOT thing right now. The scams have a short shelf life. You guys will be writing about the next diet scam in a matter of months.

Sarah Haskins from Current.com had a great thing on diets. Thanks Consumerist for getting me hooked on her from the jewelery article she did.
[current.com]

@EdnaLegume: Shenanigans, we have a call of shenanigans!

If only the assorted sites were hyping Home Eugenics/Cloning solutions instead.

@PalmPre_GitEmSteveDave: You've been peaking around Jez again, I know it!

Açai tastes pretty disgusting :\

lol I tried to post a comment calling them a liar. not all the comments sections say they are "closed", but none of them work. =\

lars2112,
There is a new "marketing guru" product out that promotes arbitrage. Basically put up a site and make money through click thrus and the like. It is not affilates, these guys actually get paid for information submitted.
google, arbitrage conspiracy, that is the new marketing hype.
Basically, by the time the gurus have the market nailed and put out a product it is too late.
Not a scam really, just the dumb public buying in too late. Why would anyone mass market true how to get rich tricks. They make as much or more selling the "knowledge".

Oh no! They're decieveing the customer! What gives!?

2 step guide to dieting with this product:
1) Consume it.
2) Die.

I think so many of these sites have the same 'teaser ad' reading:

1 Flat Stomach Rule: Obey

And when you click the link there is NO ONE RULE to obey. The lies start right off the bat.

@Crabby Cakes is playing Goldfish.: No, I swear, Consumerist posted her jewelery video. Unless it was a Jez cross post...

This reminds me of the new spam email going around
with FACEBOOK as the subject heading.

I love the bad obviously photoshopped "before" and "after" image followed by this "disclaimer":

"(Hey Chris, awesome job in cleaning up my photos. Thanks!!!)"

Fuck, these people are hilarious. They're worse than that fake SONY "All I want for xmas is a PSP" blog a while back.

These sites are hosted on the same servers and tout the same product but they *have* tweaked the layout and photos:
[marshasdiet.com]
[lindasdiet.com]

Note that [www.big2fit.com] and [bigtofit.com] are hosted on the same server and run the same scam with different products.

I saw one of these ads the other day, and I was thinking it was neat that a diet ad would actually post a chunky 'after' picture without posting the ubiquitous obese 'before' picture. Then I noticed the 'lose 25lbs in a month' text beside the picture. And then the ad flickered to the real 'after' picture of the bobblehead girl. D'oh!

Everyday Women Like You And Me

As someone who has been fighting the thyroid and trying to GAIN weight for years...this is the most annoying thing I have ever seen, and the ads for these damn things are EVERYWHERE.

@unobservant: I'm already a nondescript myopic blonde - do you think I can expect to end up looking like Grace Kelly? ;)

Was getting these ads attached to my Washington Post email daily mailings for a while. Would be 2 or 3 every mail for a while. Made me chuckle, since they were obviously always the same thing with different name before "'s diet blog" bit.

@unobservant: Whats to say it isn't one chick with a multiple personality disorder?

Each of her personalities could have a blog about how acai is helping her lose weight.

Or it could be septuplets or something. The whole set could be on Acai.

I think the consumerist is jumping to conclusions on this one.

@cuchanu:

Frankly, I'm not even sure why the 'as seen on Oprah' is a selling point. Have you seen Oprah lately? She's like a freaking cow. Doing an Oprah diet probably means slurping lard.

The next thing you'll tell me is that Peyton Manning's IQ really isn't 132 and all the IQ ads are scams.

Ok, on the first count you are right, this is affiliate marketers at work.

Acai and Colon Cleansing are the "hot products" in the affiliate world right now and these blogs appear to just be templated sites using the same graphics and rewritten content with some generic comments added by the creator. Their "plan" consists of setting you up with trial subscriptions to two products (one acai and one colon) that will charge you on a recurring basis if you don't cancel.

Now, as to your claim about affiliate marketers in general...don't lump us all into the same boat. I make a modest amount of money (hit $900/mo at my peak and will hopefully grow from there) without spamming the crap out of people because I tie my affiliate links into a site that adds value to my users. They LIKE my site.

You'd also be surprised at how many sites use affiliate marketing for their main source of revenue. Guess what...every time BoingBoing posts a book review, that's an Amazon affiliate link and they get a commission off of every person who buys their book. Many of your favorite blogs and other sites use this model as well. Do you listen to Pandora? Have you ever purchased a song using their link after hearing it on there? You just earned them money through the Amazon or iTunes affiliate program.

The list goes on. All of those great financial sites Consumerist links to like Mint and others? They have some advertising on the site, but a large portion of it is affiliate links to banking and credit products.

Affiliate marketing isn't inherently evil. It is the spammers who latch onto anything with low overhead that gives you the bad impression.

Ahahahaha.

I wrote one of those. Got paid my standard rewrite fee. The only instructions were to change it just enough to pass copyscape - no more, no less.

Judge me all you want...there's a recession out there!

@cuchanu:

"as seen on X" can also mean "as seen on our commercial which aired on X once" probably.

@AlxFherMana: Not in V8, it doesn't, and it's a hell of a lot cheaper.

Actually, if you get to these types of sites early enough- they even have a 'talkback, so you can post your own 'results'.

I saw my wife on one of these the other day. I told get off the site and that it was phishing site. She's like but Oprah, ABC News and Rachel Ray (sp?) are on it...!

I was like, "So, the FTC has so many complaints about these sites already." I saw them come up a couple weeks before Christmas on CNN.com...

I smelled scam after posting to 'michellesdietblog' and questioning her about being from my hometown of Portland ME. I knew they were probably using IP address to localize the content and was surprised that my post actually went up unmoderated. But my request to have her name just one of the local pro sports teams in town to prove she actually lived here was taken down within minutes. And so was my post thanking her for proving my point. At another similar blog, my request for affiliate information was never posted nor replied to, so I am inclined to think this is one organization with multiple sites pointing to one order site and not affiliate driven.