Buy Walking VideosDateline NBC Investigates Infomercials
Infomercials used to be the staple of late-night television, but it seems like I can watch infomercials twenty-four hours a day. With so many channels on television, there is ALWAYS an informercial playing. Most of the time they are selling weight loss pills, equipment or some cream that is supposed to make your cellulite go away. Can you believe them? According to Dateline NBC, don’t waste your money.
What Dateline found is what I’ve suspected all along:
“The Federal Trade Commission has launched an on-going crackdown targeting ads after the FTC found deceptive weight loss ads running ‘rampant’ and more than half of all weight loss ads studied contained at least one false claim.”
If they are willing to have one false claim, how can you trust all their others?
Dateline NBC made pills out of Nestle Quik and tried to see if they could get an infomercial made. They not only did, but the infomercial company even found a dermatologist willing to stand by it for a mere $5000. They also had people on the infomercial giving testimonials, but they were just actors who had been paid $50 each. In the end, no one even noticed that the pills were made out of Nestle Quik during the filming.
Next time you’re tempted to try the new diet pills, remember this Dateline undercover investigation. You could be paying $30 a bottle for Nestle Quik.
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October 2nd, 2006 at 3:40 pm
I come from a family infomercial junkies. Some things like diet pills, and hand blenders turned out to be wastes. I never took the pills. There is so much junk out there. When my mom got me deal a meal for me and that worked but Richard never made a lot of phony promises. I wish I stuck with it. It took me years to figure out you must keep with the program after you hit goal.