Is that Infomercial For Real?
Have you ever been up late (or early) and caught one of the infomercials. If you watch long enough you really can be convinced that it is the greatest product since sliced bread (or in some cases the greatest product to slice bread). Having seen tons of these and wondered if the next great business idea, knife set, juicer, etc. etc. is really a good product or if it is just some fast talking scammer trying to take off with people’s hard earned money.
I came across a great website to help sift through the infomercial mess. It is called InfomercialScams.com. It allows you to search through their listings and read articles on all the different infomercials that they have gotten complaints as scams. Also, if you have been taken by one of the scammers you can submit a form to let other people know to stay away.
Another great method, especially for the business opportunity “deals”, is to go to Ebay and do a search for the product you are looking at purchasing. If you see it on there for a dollar or some ridiculously low amount you will know that someone has done a protest posting. This is where someone bought the product or program at full price and to warn others of the scam they are selling it just so the company cannot make money off of someone else. If you still want to purchase the item you can now get it for pennies on the dollar. I hope this helps everyone stay away from the scammers.
February 11th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
This is awesome, thank you! Although I must say I absolutly adore infomercials. I usually don’t stay up that late but there will be some on weekend afternoons sometimes. My boyfriend gets mad that I have to watch them while I’m getting ready to go out…
I don’t know why I love them — I guess because everyone is always so happy and excited — it doesn’t matter what they are selling (make up, financial get rick quick advise, cookware)…I find them hilarious.
At the same time, I’ve never bought anything from them and probably never will. It is sad that so many people fall for those and spend their hard earned money — especially for the “get rick quick” schemes — but at least the word gets out better these days as to which are scams…in the meantime, great entertainment for me!
February 12th, 2008 at 9:29 pm
I use to be a video editor on big named commercials. Mostly, they’re all scams in some way, they’re generally tricking you into having some kind of reaction to buy a product. Sure, it might be of value, but the actual commercial is a vehicle to entice you to watch something that’s not real. I can tell if a commercial is going to be :15, :30, or :60 seconds long in the first 3 seconds, they’re all built the same.
However, advertising pays for our blogs
And our free TV (standard television anyway, not cable).
I do kind of like infomercials. They’re great for entertainment. But my thought is if they’re super legit, life changing products, they wouldn’t need an infomercial, they’d be in Time or Entrepreneur or CNN.