Scam Alert: PowerBalance comes clean about fraudulent wristband claims

Ok, ok. So ‘magic bracelets totally aren’t real’ shouldn’t come as too big of a shock to anyone, but the marketing wizards from PowerBalance have had to fess up and set everyone straight about the claims they made about their innovative product.

For those of you that haven’t heard about these wristbands, they’re brightly coloured and were (self) reported to increase wearer’s balance, strength and flexibility. They were popular amongst weightlifters, medical patients and anyone looking for that extra edge. The PowerBalance website was stocked full of promotional copy that ‘backed up’ the claims with a lot of medical and scientific evidence.

That was until they were busted and were asked to, you know, provide some of that scientific evidence. When they couldn’t, they offered this tasty piece of schadenfreude in an Australian-wide press release:

We admit that there is no credible scientific evidence that supports our claims and therefore we engaged in misleading conduct in breach of s52 of the Trade Practices Act 1974.

If you feel you have been mislead by our promotions, we wish to unreservedly apologize and offer a full refund.

So, if you’ve got any of these on your wrists, you can stop covering them up and get a full refund from the company. We encourage you to do so, and would love to hear about how they get you your cash back.

If you haven’t seen enough, Power Balance is coming out with some more total BS another great product: ‘Performance Mouth Gear’. It’s basically a mouth guard, but… better? Check it out at TechCrunch as we all continue to avoid the latest from these scamsters.

Got any other products that Mogo-ites should be aware of? Hit the comments and let us know. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a lot of powerful bracelets to throw out…