We had our own brief run-in with the world of medical device quackery, but decided the Internet was already largely saturated with groups dedicated to humiliating sellers of bunk technology to the gullible. One such site is InfomercialScams.com. They serve as a repository of things you shouldn’t buy, even “at the LOW LOW price of 19.95 (plus 19.95 S/H).” Unfortunately, the site appears to be mostly semi-anonymous customers complaining about the assorted junk products, along with a pile of “defenses” for each product that were almost certainly generated by the company itself (much like the “testimonials” in the infomercials). It would be a little better if there was more info on the product and the assorted manufacturers/retailers/distributors that are selling it.
A typical entry looks like this:
Sauna Belt Burning The Crap Out Of People
Can you really lose an inch in 50 minutes? Burn victims say layers of skin is all they lost with the Sauna Belt. Buyer beware!
Followed by comments like this:
12/2/2006 – Laura writes:
This product is dangerous! We payed twice as much as it said on the tv and shipping and handling was more then the product so we didnt get a free second one at all. The first time i tried it,i got exremely dizzy and felt tired i just wanted to take it off and go to sleep. when the 50 minutes were up i was not an inch smaller but and inch bigger because i had gotten so hot that my stomach had expanded. I used the sauna belt many times afterwards and it just burned me. i had it on low heat and on top of my shirt! the burns lasted for a few days and made me so itchy, my skin actually peeled off of my stomach! and the tiny hairs i have on my stomach were all burned and stank really bad, i was in so much pain it is ridiculous!!!!! no one should buy this product ever!!!!! diet and excercise baby thats the way to go! dont be fooled by all these fast results the infomercials promise you it doesnt work like that!!! if you see something you really want to try wait for it to get patented and buy it at your local walmart and pay almost nothing and if it works u saved urself time money and ur safety because the excercise informercials are all scams!!!!
It’s confusing to see that these people are apparently intelligent enough to find the site and craft a halfway decent complaint (-5 Medgadget Points for overuse of “u” and “ur” in place of “you”), but gullible enough to think that the Sauna Belt in question would allow them to lose inches off of their waist in 50 minutes.
It appears this “sauna belt” was basically a resistor in line with 120V of wall power. Great…
More from Informercialscams.com
Hat Tip: The Consumerist
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