I’ve been noticing the occasional product on the daily deal site I frequent that is, how to put this delicately, BS.
Today I saw one that I just had to have some fun with and hopefully give people some idea of what the product is really about at the same time.
In this case the product was an “Energy Calcium Activation Cup”. I hadn’t heard of these before but the altmed buzzword combo of “energy” and “activation” got my attention.
The forum moderators tend to be quick to remove questions about products that are overtly critical so I had to play a bit dumb and make sure I didn’t get too much to the point. The outcome was quite amusing:
You can see the discussion at:
http://www.grabonestore.co.nz/energy-calcium-activation-cup/discuss (or archived at http://www.webcitation.org/6GTWgpSot just in case the entire thing gets deleted after this post goes live)
I would like to thank the company liaison Sabina Chadliwa who here was very forthcoming and quite speedy in comparison with other companies I have interacted with in this way. No offense is meant to her – but BS is BS.
Scepticon 
heh.. the discussion seems to be closed and the deal gone..
Blast. It sounded like a great product for satisfying both my general unspecified toxin removal needs and stopping my papers flying around in the wind.
Yeah, those tricky guys delete anything with a hint of criticism. If I had the time/energy I’d set up a forum where these deals could be discussed freely. I bet people would appreciate getting reviews of things that have been sold before.
Damn they missed the biggest bs buzz word – “quantum”. Now that’s a missed opportunity. “Quantum energy calcium activation cup”. That has a certain ring to it
They obviously don’t have the right marketing person on the job. 🙂
Nano is big right now too, Quantum Energy Nano Calcium Activation Cup.
GrabOne’s annoyed me in the same way. I’ve had comments removed when trying to point out that something’s bullshit and had to change tactic to “just asking questions”, basically asking what things do and asking for evidence supporting it.
I have a bit of a hobby of making complaints to the Advertising Standards Authority, but GrabOne’s ads never last as long as the process of having a complaint upheld takes so they pretty much always end up “Settled”. Very frustrating – they seem to essentially escape the industry’s self-regulation in this way.
I see there is a psychic reading on there today…..
Anyway, I understand the motivation for grabone to be uncritical of their products to a degree and keep on the topic of questions about products. But it’s still frustrating when patently ridiculous items and services can’t have even a sniff of a whiff of a ghost of criticism.
Last week a ended up having a couple of conversations with GrabOne representatives who claimed that they avoid allowing therapeutic claims in advertisements on GrabOne and just let the customers decide from themselves. That’s all well and good, aside from the fact that many advertisements very definitely _do_ make therapeutic claims, but it seems they’re more interested in running a successful business and less interested in ethics and not being enablers of health fraud. Very frustrating.
Yeah, sounds like they are trying to walk a line of impartiality (or at least make it look like they are) and not succeeding. A better idea would be to list the items, but allow criticism to remain on the discussion. Meh, easier to delete everything I suppose.