Those ubiquitous Web ads promising a flatter stomach if you obey "one weird old tip" are actually
The agency has filed 10 lawsuits against some of the many companies behind those ads, The Washington Post reported July 6. Since the ads claim to link people to news sites that report on the diet products being sold, the suits accuse the companies of not properly disclosing their financial ties to the products and not substantiating the claims they make.
The websites, which are actually unrelated affiliate marketing sites despite their similarities, place repeated charges of nearly $80 on consumers' credit cards even though they promise the samples they are sending are free, the FTC says.
The charges are for shipments of more of the weight-loss product, and the shipments can only be stopped with a phone call. The FTC says the calls are lengthy and frequently disconnect before the shipments can be cancelled.
Although the FTC did not have an estimate for the total value of the unwanted card charges that have been made by these marketers, the Post article says the marketers could have in excess of $1 billion in total revenue.
Part of the reason people trust the marketers is that their ads appear on legitimate news sites — including that of the Post, its article said.
Though the websites promoting the diet products are unconnected, they use nearly identical tactics, the article said. Many use an image of a newscaster purportedly named Julia Miller, though the image is actually of a French newscaster named Melissa Theuriau, who says she was unaware that her image was being used by these websites.
The sites also claim to have endorsements from CNN, ABC and other news organizations; these claims are false, the article said.
The reason the websites look so similar even though they are unrelated is "because it's cheap" to recycle the content, David O'Toole, an FTC lawyer, told the Post. "It's easy to use it again and again because it keeps costs down. And it works."
