So, I Put on a Patch and the Weight Comes Off? And it's Got a Money-Back Guarantee?

[Chastain86]

Mrs. Chastain and I played hooky from work today, and found ourselves watching TV at around 7:30 this morning. We flipped on Comedy Central (or the channel that’s NORMALLY CC) and found an infomercial.

Not bizarre yet. But wait, we’re getting there.

The product in question was a “patch” not unlike the various nicotine patches you see on the shelves of drug stores. Apparently there’s some sorta mojo workin’ in the fat patch, because they immediately started showing all the formerly-fat people that lost weight thanks to their miracle cure.

The commercial GUARANTEED you would lose 20 lbs. in a month, or you get your money back.

Now I’m pretty sure this is a crock of crap, but the guarantee intrigues me. How, exactly, can anything in a patch help you lose 20 lbs of weight in a month? Even if it was pumping pure diuretics into you, could you really expect to lose 20 lbs of water weight in a month?

Just curious if anyone’s tried this, or anything like it. I’m not thrilled about shelling out $60 for a month’s supply of magic beans, but the guarantee’s got the hooks in me. Anybody got an inside scoop?

[ultrafilter]

If it really worked, don’t you think you’d see it somewhere other than an early morning infomercial?

[gigi]

Here are details on a patch which uses bladderwrack, some sort of algae which they claim has been used for centuries to combat obesity.

These studies demonstrate that Shape-PATCH significantly reduces cravings and suppresses the appetite and hunger by the second day of use. In many cases it controls the appetite as soon as by lunchtime if it is affixed early in the morning. Typical weight loss ranges from 2 to 5 lbs. per week!..Shape-PATCH facilitates the most natural and sure method to lose weight: eating less!..

One of the great advantages of Shape-PATCH is that it is not a “diet”. In fact, when you start to use Shape-PATCH you continue to eat everything you like, but you automatically eat less than you are used to eating. In other words, you reduce your calorie intake without changing your eating habits or being hungry. So you force your body to melt-off stored fat to get its daily needed calories and at that very moment you begin to lose weight!

By the time you lose all the weight you want, you do not need to use Shape-PATCH or any other aid to maintain your NEW weight. This is because by then your body will be used to a lower calorie intake and you will not need to eat as much as before to feel full and satisfied at every meal, and therefore you will not regain the weight you lost. {ed. note: yeah right}

So it’s either a placebo that masks your cravings or a substance that masks your cravings, either way reducing your caloric intake. I guess if it makes that easy to do, it will help you lose 20 pounds in a month. Say you drop eight just from water and diet changes in the first week, then it’s less than a pound a day after that.

So customers will lose some weight, or even none, and the vendor hopes they won’t bother to ask for their money back. Or they don’t care because the product is cheap to make. I can’t imagine that, though, as they “select… algae from non-contaminated sea waters, and also using only the section of the plant containing the purest ingredients. And we do not stop there: we use an exclusive herb extraction process that avoids any damage to the algae and preserves the original concentrated appetite suppressant properties found in Bladderwrack.”

[SpoilerVirgin]

Money back guarantees are very commonly used by scammers, or people selling products that are not entirely legitimate.

From a site about hair products quackery:

market research shows that very few of us actually bother to ask for our money back on a substandard product. The time and hassle is apparently too much for most of us. Con artists know this too and use the money back guarantee knowing most people will most likely throw their product in the trash when it does not work. Other fraudsters won’t leave anything to chance. They may offer a money back guarantee but then tell you must use the product for several months to see if there are any results. In several months time their web site and contact details may no longer be valid. Alternatively, they may add clauses to the money back guarantee. Perhaps you must use the product following instructions to the letter. When the product fails to work the seller may claim you did not follow the instructions properly and so you forfeit any right to your money back.

There is also a good article about fraud and money back guarantees on this health care products site.

Anyone can offer a money back guarantee. Not every guarantee is fraudulent, but fraudulent advertising very frequently offers guarantees. The existence of a guarantee shouldn’t be the thing that convinces you to try a product.

[N9IWP]

Also, is there shipping & handling involved?
Because usually that part ISN’T refunded.

Lest say the patch costs $1 to make. They sell it for $10, s&h of $3.
Say it costs $1 to ship.
They make $1 per returned unit even if they don’t reuse returned items.

Brian