Consumer beware: two health scams on the Internet.

Two ubiquitous ad campaigns circulating on the Internet have raised major concerns. Both prey on the near-universal desire to look good, be healthy, and live longer. One involves free trial offers for the latest nutrient fad, acai berry supplements, that gives disreputable companies direct access to your bank account. The other called RealAge appears to be a fun test about your health habits and assigning an age that is likely to be older or younger than your real age according to the answers. Those who sign on as members are unwittingly granting the sponsoring pharmaceutical companies access to their personal health information.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest broke the story about the acai berry, a South American fruit hailed as a powerful antioxidant that produces weight loss--two alleged features just ripe for a scam. What makes this story worse than usual is this: Disreputable companies are advertising "free" trial offers on the Internet. Many who take the offer and give their debit or credit card numbers to cover shipping and handling find that they are enrolled in an "automatic shipment program" with nightmare consequences.

In some cases, the companies keep shipping and billing for their products. Some people report that they have been sent overpriced products and billed $80 or more. Worse, people find that they cannot cancel the original order or get through to the company's 800 hotline. The companies can take the position that customers have been warned beforehand. The "terms of agreement" are spelled out in the Web site's fine print that hardly anyone reads.

For more, see "Web Self-Defense" by David Schardt in the current issue of the Nutrition Action Health Letter, published by the Center for Science in the Public Interest. For special offers for this subscription-only newsletter, go to www.cspinet.org.

The other scam called RealAge made the front page of The New York Times last month. Its ads usually pop up when people are reading online articles about health or lifestyle.

Click into the ads and you'll see this enticing headline: "What's your real age? Prepare to be Shocked. Take the test." Who can resist after seeing the thumbnail sketches (complete with pictures) of people who answered the call. The real-life people featured are five to seven years younger than their calendar age. Listed for each are several of their answers about lifestyle and family history ("talks on the cellphone while driving," "jogs for a half hour three times a week," "both parents passed away in their late 40s"). People who take the test are expected to answer 150 or so questions.

"While RealAge promotes better living through nonmedical solutions, the site makes its money by selling better living through drugs," wrote the Times reporter Stephanie Clifford. "While few people would fill out a detailed questionnaire about their health and hand it over to a drug company looking for suggestions for new medications, that is essentially what RealAge is doing."

RealAge reports that more than 27 million people have taken the test. They were asked throughout the test if they want to become members, and nine million gave their e-mail addresses to sign up. Many are unaware that their test results go into a marketing database or that RealAge acts as a clearinghouse for several major drug companies, allowing them to use test answers to sell medications.

RealAge is considered to be a marketing sensation that has garnered much publicity, in part because it is endorsed by Dr. Mehmet Oz, who makes frequent appearances on Oprah.

Maryann Napoli, Center for Medical Consumers [C] 2009

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