The Single Mom Teeth Whitening Scam
Like so many things in life, we’ve been sold the idea that we can only be happy when the colour of our teeth is a shade of white that will match our kitchens or bathrooms. Actually, for once I can’t blame the ad-men as it turns out that in the 17th Century, some barbers would use nitric acid to whiten teeth! Even worse, the Ancient Romans thought that urine was good for whitening teeth!
Nowadays, teeth whitening is usually based around using peroxide products. Luckily, if you’re vanity demands you risk acid burns, increased tooth sensitivity and gum irritation there are plenty of options from professional dentistry to varying-degrees-of-dodgy-and/or-ineffective home applications.
But what if you’re vain and cheap? Well, if you believe in the adverts the internet spews at you then it turns out that a single mom/mum has found a new (and cheap) solution. I’ve seen a couple of versions of this, one by a ‘Sandy C.’ and one by a ‘Becky Bell’, but the basic set up is the same.
Each of these obviously fabricated women has a ‘blog’ with just one story on it which turns out to be the inspirational story of how each of them stumbled upon the wonderful ruse of using two ‘free’ trial products simultaneously to whiten their teeth.
Each ‘blog’ is littered with a trail of gratified clones all clamouring to shout that this ‘really works’ so as to convince the unwary reader of each site’s legitimacy. Likewise, both blogs use the logos of prominent news organisations to make readers think that these sites are more legit than they actually are.
So far, so suspicious. Each of the blog supplies ‘promo codes’ so you can get your own ‘free’ samples. The point is obvious. You are supposed to think ‘what have I got to lose?’
The sad fact is you can potentially lose quite a lot. Like the acai berry scams, these teeth whitening scams are based on the idea that anyone who thinks that this looks like a good deal is probably not savvy enough to read the terms and conditions attached.
All of these scams work on the following basis:
- You sign up for two products and only pay a minimal amount for postage.
- After a set period of time (usually 14/15 days) if you haven’t cancelled they will take a set amount from your account (anything up to $80). They will keep taking money on a monthly basis until you cancel your order. They will usually mention this in the small print, but they’re banking on you being too stupid to notice this.
- They make it difficult or impossible to cancel. They do this by making it hard to find a contact number, by making you wait on hold for ages, by putting you through to someone who doesn’t speak intelligible English or by just flat-out ignoring you.
The really smart thing about this scam is that they get you twice for two ‘different’ products which means they sell twice as many of their scam products and make it twice as difficult to cancel.
There are plenty of ways to get whiter teeth, but folks the sad fact is there are (probably) no easy or cheap ways. Please don’t let these scam artists make a fool out of you. And if you have been caught out by this, then please do yourself a favour and cancel your credit card, because they will keep on taking money from you for as long as they can.
