Recently, a friend told me about a business he is involved in relating to “Kangen Water”. Kangen is a very expensive ($4000+) water filtration machine that supposedly (according to various people trying to sell the contraptions) offers an astonishing number of medical benefits (including reductions in cancer, epilepsy and autism) from alkaline water.
The man I know is enabling vendors in the multi-level-marketing scheme to sell these “magic water machines” to people who really can’t afford them by selling a system that helps do real-time financing for people who don’t have the $4000 up front.
If you’re still not convinced this is a scam, look at the “Dr. Michael” video at http://www.kangentablet.com/downloadsmedia.html
I feel this business is highly unethical. Do you think it’s legal? What, if anything, can be done to stop the business from misleading people into losing thousands of dollars to this scam?
The thread will come up every time someone googles “Kangen water filtration”. So just keep posting to message boards like this one so as to warn off people from this product.
Also, I would stop being friends with this person if you think he’s being unethical. You aren’t going to be able to convince him that he’s doing a bad thing, but you can choose who you associate with.
Do you want to bust his ass by reporting him to the police? As far as I know, the sentences for fraud don’t seem to be very harsh (not as harsh as they should be, frankly).
Not really a bad thing but people do need to understand that goverment agencies cannot protect them at every level. Sometimes it is an expensive lesson.
There’s always going to be gullible people, tho - there’s a never-ending flood of them. What’s the catchphrase “there’s a sucker born every minute” ? Especially if you consider that people who are immune to some sorts of cons or woo are still susceptible to other forms. My husband is one of the most logical people I know, but he still plays the lottery, you know?
There’s also the detail that if you save them, they’re not learning anything from the experience, and sometimes those sorts of painful experiences are necessary for people to start wising up.
It sucks, but you can’t save the world from their stupidity.
Cut your losses and your ties with your scammy friend, and consider dropping a tip to your local investigative journalist or news-station for a local comment-piece aimed at protecting vulnerable elderly people or whatever the local audience-du-jour is.
Report him for what? Selling snake oil is not illegal. There are thousands of homeopathic remedies out there that at best do no harm but it is not illegal to sell. Unless the FDA jumps into the fray I don’t really see a legal question here. Its just ionized water.
Yeah, you’re probably right (unfortunately). There might be a case for fraud here, but as you say, people sell all kinds of snake oil without being charged with fraud.
Going with your local news station is probably the way to go, then.
They are popular all over the world, especially Japan. The product does what it says it does. It makes water alkaline. Any testimonials used in advertisements are just the opinions of those stating it. As long as there is a disclaimer stating that the benefits have not been scientifically verified there is no recourse. Since this really isn’t a new story I doubt the local news will care too much.
I know someone whose mother was taken for hundreds of thousands of dollars by hucksters. Was this woman a sucker? Was she stupid? Was she one for the Darwin awards?
No, she was suffering from early stage dementia, and was intimidated into not telling anyone about her losses.
Every time I hear people talking about people who buy into scams “need to learn a valuable lesson” or whatever, I think of the helpless person who lost damn near every penny she had saved for her retirement, just like a responsible person is expected to do.
Idea: tell your friend you have a great product to pitch to people who also buy the Kangen water machines, and have him loan you his prospective client list. Then send them all the link to this site.
I know, it’s a long shot.
There’s the problem - someone foolish enough to believe the claims made for “alkaline water” won’t be deterred by rational debunkings.
If he and the pitchmen are making direct medical claims that are false, it is against the law. Report him and his company, and if this doesn’t go anywhere, hit the local news stations and newspapers. Why do you consider him to be your friend, anyway?
You don’t have to do much of anything. Once he figures out that you’re not going to support him in his endeavor by introducing your friends and family to him, he won’t be a friend much longer.
And even if this scam manages to stay just this side of the law with respect to the medical claims (including them only in testimonials, having the appropriate disclaimers in the fine print, etc.), it’s still unethical as hell, and the part about the local news still applies, and ditto on not wanting this sleazebag as a friend anymore.
Again, the product does exactly what it is supposed to do. It ionizes water. Thousands or even millions of people around the world believe there is a health benefit. The units are not made by fly by night companies in a back alley. They are made by well established companies. If you check google you will find articles by major news outlets like CBS and the WSJ. Just because you’ve never heard of it doesn’t mean it’s new. I think it’s bullshit. I think it’s unethical as hell. But it is no more illegal than hundreds of other natural or homeopathic remedies. Reporting will do nothing. It is not against the law so local law enforcement can not do anything. And it has been around for years and the FDA is well aware of it and doing nothing.
He’s not selling the filtration units himself; he’s selling a financing system to the people who sell the filtration units.
So not only is he not doing anything illegal; it doesn’t even sound like he’s doing anything dishonest assuming his financial product works as it is supposed to.
Now if it were me, I would be bothered by the fact that my product was making it easier for my customers to defraud other people. But I don’t see anything you can or should do about it, indirectly by helping people not to get scammed by the filter scheme in the first place.
