PreScript Advice
If you think you’ve had your bank ‘cleaned out’ by any of a multitude of ‘life cleanse’ or ‘colon cleanse’ type internet scams, there is only one real remedy…
Ask for a charge-back against the company through you credit card company. Your reason, when asked, is that the company has either:
- Not adhered to their own claimed ‘Terms and Conditions’ or
- The company cannot be contacted through their advertised channels
If the company fails on any of these two key points they have no excuse not to refund you. In fact, if they deliberately make contact difficult, it’s criminal.
Introduction
Dangerous Scammer Investigation
It all started with a ping to my website from the Drupal Forums (see http://drupal.org/node/608514).
It turns out that the webmaster was using a piss-poor Californian host called byet.org. This host detected when an Amazon advert was going through and redirected it to the viper’s den called MyBookFace.net, taking a nice skim on the profits in the process (see my articles on the crippling con website here https://strangelyperfect.tv/5552/mybookface-crap/ and here https://strangelyperfect.tv/5612/mybookface-google-utah-and-nevis-scamboys-united/)
MyBookFace.Net Again
The redirect was still working on the user’s website (devoted to head and neck cancer, https://www.squamoussupport.info/). The key bit is to click on the head and then the Amazon Store link in the bottom right. Sure enough (today), you get taken to MyBookFace.net!!!
It’s like the return of a boil on the bum for me. Now, depending on how you access this shit-hole, you’ll see various things.
The first page is sometimes loaded with “White Teeth” ads, from you know who(see here and here for instance), which are accessed via a false newspaper ad containing the key(yukky)word “mom”. Sometimes it’s Mary Steadman — again!
I’ve had two popups, several hours apart during my checks, that both claimed I was the lucky 1,000,00th visitor to the site and thus deserved a prize! This popup by-passes the pop-up blocker in IE8. Give it a go – you too can be the 1,000,000th visitor!!!
If you allow further pop-ups, the fun really starts!
More Fun With MyBookFace.Net Popups!
During one session, using the ‘Private Browsing’ feature in Firefox, I got the Mary Steadman fake newspaper ad again – wahay!. In this were two adverts; for Acai and Colon Cleansing.
They both originated from the same place and had similar designs. The Acai one (at acaiberryexclusive.com) I left, because the Colon one has some VERY, VERY DANGEROUS CLAIMS in it. (The Acai ones were very similar, actually, but I’m trying to keep this post short-ish)
EffectiveCleanse.com
EffectiveCleanse.com loads with the strap line “Life Cleanse”. It’s contact address is in County Durham in the UK again! (just like all the UTAH scams). This time the address is:
LB LFP Internet Ltd.,
101 Deneside,
Lanchester,
Co Durham,
DH7 0LZ,
UK
A small hunt for this address produced several companies, all apparently squashed into someone’s living room only a mile or so from the UTAH scammers elsewhere in Co Durham! There are many unhappy folk about who’ve had dealings with companies at that address. Similarly for the company name itself...
EffectiveCleanse Claims
Everything is visible on the full-screen dump in the image here by clicking on it. Their claims would be laughable if they weren’t so dangerous. (In many respects, the claims are very similar to those of Monavie, currently being investigated by Vogel, Cyberxion, Food Tech of California and others on this entertaining post by LazyMan about the scurrilous Monavie here: https://www.lazymanandmoney.com/monavie-scam-was-my-wife-recruited-sell-snake-oil/#comments)
- Possible the most dangerous claim that this company makes is that it will “Repair Digestive Tract”!!! This is seriously bad stuff. There are only two ways to repair your gut and that’s either surgery or a massive dietary change, usually by stopping all alcohol intake, reducing fat consumption etc. Some of the ingredients can relieve IBS and constipation by their topical application and ingestion from their fungicidal, antiseptic or mucilaginous properties . But this is not the same as “repairing the digestive tract” by any judgement. Indeed some ingredients will make intestinal damage worse!
- It also claims to break down DEADLY TOXINS!! Again this is a wholly unsubstantiated and untrue claim worthy of a prison sentence. Let’s consider a few deadly toxins – cyanide & botulism, say. Do you really think these few internet pills will stop death from cyanide? Do you think that taking these pills would have saved the Jews in the cyanide gas chambers? Of course not. If they’d said “slightly bad toxins” that would have been more accurate. But deadly? That’s something else.
- Helps prevent intestinal pathologies…. WTF! This one is good…. Pathology is the study and diagnosis of disease! So they are claiming that this product will stop you from studying …er…various intestinal problems? I repeat – WTF? !!!
- The word “FLUSH” appears a lot – “flush out excess weight”, ” flush harmful toxins”. Should it read “make you go to the bog a lot”, because it will. Some of it’s ingredients also induce abortion and breast milk-flow but no warnings are given about this (shades of Thalidomide here). Some have been found to cause cancer. Some either bung you up or give you the trots dependant on the quantity taken! It’s a bit of a fine balance between flush and bung. I don’t think I’ll be using my guts as a testing ground!
Perhaps the funniest claim is that it will “Increase Focus and Energy”…. It’s a pity the author didn’t try and focus a bit harder. Because further down the page is the mind-numbing misspelt paragraph which reads (I kid ye not):
According to National Geographic – “Human waste is a sinisteer(sic) world of monstrous creatures that feed on living flesh- Parasites” (sic) Parasites feed on Humans ams(sic) your body may house more than you know. The US alone contains widespread parasites accross(sic) the nation.
My spell-checker has gone berserk on that. I can’t believe that National Geographic actually printed that!
And anyway, human waste in a healthy person is certainly not pathogenic. The bacteria in one’s gut DO NOT “feed on living flesh” as they claim. They are an essential part of living and without them, we’d all die. If they mean worms etc, then again, they do not feed on your flesh – they feed on your gut contents! They live on shit!
Terms Disagree with Claims
Well it had to be somewhere, didn’t it? Despite all the criminally outrageous claims on their front page, their T&C actually states:
Our Products have not been evaluated by the FDA or EU Health Authorities, and Our Products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.
Fortunately, they have a UK contact number of 0044 20305 10825, which makes it a London number. Why not give them a call and see which bit is correct – does it cure, or doesn’t it?
You’ll also see here, in small print, only once, that you’ll be charged £69 per month for 30 days supply. Except it’s written thus: “At the end of your 15 day trial period you will be charged GBP 69.”
Of course, upon reading the consumer complaints listed at the bottom here, you’ll find that many people can’t get through on the phone. In that case, the information on their FAQ page to the question:
I did not place this order and do not recognize the charge on the credit card statement. I think it is fraud.
…should be taken with a large grain of salt. The answer they give is that making a false claim of fraud is a criminal offence. Er..no. It isn’t. All you are doing is to resolve a dispute over charges to your credit card that you consider erroneous. It’s not a criminal offence to dispute the bill!!!! This is what they say to frighten you, and it’s only to frighten you:
We take Credit Card fraud very seriously and considerate it a crime. Our Risk/Fraud Department will verify that the transaction is indeed fraud and was not ordered by you. In such case we kindly ask you to contact us and our Customer Service Team will be happy to assist you. Please prepare the following information before calling or writing to us: name on your credit card, descriptor(s) on the charges, amounts, and date(s) of the charges, your billing and shipping address.
We would like to inform you that making a false claim is a criminal offense and you will be prosecuted if such claim is made. All information that you provide us, along with all related log files and IP addresses will be forwarded to the local police department and district attorney. In addition the governmental cybercrime agency will use this data to investigate and establish the physical location and computer from which the account was created.
If you can’t contact them through the phone, as many have found to their cost, the above information is doubly bogus.
On the other hand, the claims they make for the product on their main landing page, really are criminal. There is no way in hell that GSK et al would dare say anything like this.
Conclusion
Anyone who has read mine and other’s Google Treasure Chest, Acai, Government Grant and Teeth-Whitening investigations will suspect that there’s more to this business than County Durham alone. They hide their domain WHOIS for a start.
Because of their secretive nature, their misleading and dangerous claims which are in plain contradiction of their T&Cs, and the ‘unreliability’ (and that’s being generous) of their customer service as evidenced by the many complaints, this bunch of clowns are much worse than a comedy act. Scammer or crook? I couldn’t possibly say, but fetch me a bargepole to poke them away. Tommy Cooper would say “Scam-Crook; Crook-Scam. Scam-Crook; Crook-Scam. Scam-Crook; Crook-Scam.”
I’ll finish now, using words taken directly from their webpage by saying :
The US alone contains widespread parasites accross(sic) the nation.
(Mostly in Utah, from my experience, but not exclusively in the US.)
Extra Links(Just a few of the many complaints about this lot):
- https://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/life-cleanse-c268129.html
- https://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/viv3-labs…c373087
- http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1823427
http://fraudeacai.blogspot.co.uk/2009/09/fraude-con-acai-power.html(in Spanish)- https://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/lb-lfp-internet-ltd-c268728.html
- http://cacaweb.com…tradingplanetltdcom-arnaque.html (French website which has done a brilliant exposure=connection routine and even demonstrates how the linked companies manage to ‘accidentally’ get the wrong country code in their WHOIS records!) Two new County Durham companies and addresses are now added to my catalogue of shame because of this….see below
Imprint of www.acaiberryexclusive.com
LB Cassiopeia Media Limited LB Cassiopeia Media Limited
118 Fines Park
Annfield Plain
Stanley
Co Durham
DH9 8QZ
Tel: United Kingdom +38 616 004 917
Imprint of www.effectivecleanse.com
LB Eridanus Entertainment Limited
57 Langden Close
Templetown
Consett
Co Durham DH8 7NG
Tel: United Kingdom +39 064 523 0442
Postscript (30/10/2009)
As with the Google Treasure Chest/Money Tree (Kit) bollox, because I’ve posted about the colon parasite scammers, this website is now attracting Google adverts from those very scammers. I use advertising to help fund the costs, my payments in a round-a-bout way coming from the scammers! I couldn’t possibly comment any further except to point you to my privacy policy page.
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