It’s difficult to traverse the internet these days without coming across the latest promised ‘miracle food,’ acai berries. I recently wrote another hub about a fad diet that promises to get you ripped in four weeks and is also based around acai. However, in this hub I want to specifically address the fact that, aside from being little more than overpriced berries, people are actually getting properly scammed by these products through sneaky credit card charges!

If you go to one of these websites they all typically offer you a supposed free trial. However, to sign up, you of course need to provide credit card details. Anyway, tucked away into the small print of the agreement you sign as part of the free trial is that if you do not cancel in 14 days they will charge you around $65 - $80 (£40 - £50) per month until you cancel!

The worst part of this scam is that they make it very difficult to cancel. It seems as though these companies are giving false or unobtainable phone numbers so that in actual fact it is impossible to get hold of them and cancel your order! Even if you do get through you are often put on hold for a ridiculous length of time to get you to hang up.

While a few people have reported being able to cancel their order. If you find yourself in this situation and cannot contact the company you bought the acai berries from, the best advice is to cancel your card so that they cannot get any more money from you.

It’s worth reiterating that these acai berries and supplements are not good enough for you to be worth the money. Acai berries are basically just another fruit. They have high but not spectacularly high levels of antioxidants which might be good for us but in what way and to what extent is still not fully understood by scientists. Even if acai berries and antioxidants are unambiguously good for you the fact is that they will not help you lose the kind of weight promised by these scams.

If you are taking acai supplements you may also be getting far less of the active ingredient, with correspondingly fewer health benefits. There has also been a suggestion that certain acai berry juices may be contaminated with benzene (a carcinogen) from poor manufacturing procedures.

While there is no confirmation of this at this time you should be asking yourself why exactly you want to risk not only your health but your money on these unproven products!

Ultimately, the best ways to lose weight don’t involve supplements and usually save you money rather than costing you money. Don’t be a victim of these scammers who could actually be endangering your health with their dodgy products!