My Oh, For Fuck's Sake Award Winner for today:
It's so bizarre, even compared with certain previously-mentioned sites, that you'd think it was a joke. But the domain registration looks kosher (joke sites usually have some sort of obvious giveaway in the whois data), and there are tons of search hits.
Has anybody seen these things advertised on late-night TV, or something?
I wonder what crap they were selling before pink LEDs were available.
(I await the Google ads this post will attract with a Lovecraftian sense of fascinated horror.)
25 July 2008 at 6:20 am
You got the expected reaction from me before I read a single word on the site. The overwhelming color did it first. Then I was struck, er rather blasted, by the plethora of fake-medicine/science buzzwords. Shall we count the words/phrases?
"technology"
"scalar wave"
"state of the art" (is this phrase ever used for legit products any more?)
"quantum space"
"address all facets of health [and] disease"
"unity plane consciousness"
"digital user interface"
"unified field protocol"
"organic natural sine wave"
"revolutionary"
"training protocol"
"neutral waves of energy"
...
Mind you, this is all on the front page, and I only scanned about half the space, not even touching the testimonials. I guess I have a limited tolerance for either the BS or the oversaturation of pink.
Here's a question: is the typical
suckercustomer for this type of product also a typical customer for the herbal/homeopathic remedies? Are they rejecting (real, far more advanced, but mundane-sounding) medical technology while embracing this (simple, fake, but exciting-sounding)pink flashlightgadget?25 July 2008 at 7:45 am
A couple years ago, my wife was having some back problems and went to a chiropractor. He did an adequate job of cracking her back, relieving the stressed joints or whatever that does.
Then he turned to his assistant and uttered words to the effect of, "Give her a basic treatment". The assistant pulled out a device and began bathing my wife's back in what looked like nothing so much as the beam from a supermarket barcode scanner. You probably know the ones I mean, the ones with multiple lines going in different directions, doubtlessly designed for lazy or clumsy checkout clerks.
I asked what the device was supposed to do, and they said that it was energizing the cells on her back.
My wife was in pain, we had a three kids with us, including a newborn, and it was a small town. These are my excuses for not providing them chapter and verse describing why this wouldn't work - I would have started with the heavy sweater my wife was wearing during the "treatment". But I'll be honest: trying to explain things to quacks has proven disturbing reminiscent of the time I tried to teach a pig to play Mozart's 9th.
Interestingly, I ended up at that office providing some technical support later that year. They had a computer that was hooked up to some kind of magnetometer or something. They claimed that you could measure something in a patient's back with the device and then as the patient came in over time for more treatments, the profile registered by the device would change, thus proving that the chiropractor was doing SOMEthing.
25 July 2008 at 9:16 am
I have something pretty similar that I find very helpful
25 July 2008 at 9:22 am
One of the comments to their 4-post-total blog is particularly entertaining. Wherein "Jamila" points out that children are inclined to believe whatever you tell them (she doesn't word it quite like that of course), including one slightly depressing example of an autistic child "self treating".
I hope they didn't like being able to, you know, look at stuff before being handed the glorified laser pointer. After all, no one would stop them shining it in their eyes, the "quantum scalar waves" will probably let them see chakras! Presuming you actually get a laser diode somewhere in your pink torch, that is.
It appears from a quick google that Paul and Lillie Weisbart have been doing the convention/seminar circuit for a while, although it's hard to tell if they were doing it before they started using it as a vehicle to sell these things.
On a slightly puerile note, the top banner of the website is exceedingly good at making the whole thing look like a sex toy.
The pricing is pretty impressive too.
25 July 2008 at 10:17 am
So far the Google ads are just for domain name sales. :(
25 July 2008 at 2:28 pm
The pricing is pretty impressive too.
I agree. I'm seriously in the wrong line of work. I've simply got to come up with a plausible-looking product that will appeal to the masses and register a web site. Maybe even submit it to Dan for review; despite his best efforts to the contrary, people still believe that this stuff really does work.
25 July 2008 at 5:31 pm
So far the Google ads are just for domain name sales. :(
Indeed!
Despite Mohonri helpfully throwing in a bunch of keywords that'd have to attract ads for anything related to this product, none seem to have arrived.
The only thing that's actually gotten the Google ad server's attention (so far - some of the stuff in this comment may get noticed too) is, as you say, "domain registration".
Which means, my friends, we've found something rarer than rubies: A ludicrous scam that nobody's selling via Google ads.
There are some things for which Google just won't accept ads, like various kinds of gambling (search Google for "roulette" or "baccarat" and I don't think you'll ever see any sponsored ads), or some of the well-known work-from-home scams I mention here.
But if you want to try to run a car on water, buy a quantum talisman, treat your cancer with mystic vibrations or talk to a wide variety of "psychics", their Google ads stand ready to help you.
None for this, though.
So it is officially too stupid to advertise.
25 July 2008 at 6:31 pm
Everyone, if you haven't already, go and look at the price. Seriously.
But wait, check out the wholesale page. If you order an undisclosed volume you get them at wholesale price and can
sell them at a profitcontribute to the spiritual wellness of all humankind. Who'd have thought there'd be MLM involved with a quality product such as this?25 July 2008 at 8:43 pm
Oh, wow!
I thought the price would be something ridiculous, you know, something like a few hundred dollars or so. But the "family pack" would buy a small car - new, from the dealer!
So not only is it a scam too stupid to advertise, it's also a scam specifically targeted at stupid people with lots of money, who like pink!
Hmm, I think I'm beginning to like these people, they're specifically targeting the Paris Hiltons of the world! :-)
26 July 2008 at 12:40 am
How about this from the blog:
Sometimes people like this are deluded enough to believe that their products actually work. In this case, you really get the feeling that these people know full well that they are scamming customers out of massive amounts of cash. The quote above is carefully worded to avoid getting in trouble for selling a "cure" without proper testing.
26 July 2008 at 2:24 am
Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow! OK, better... I think I've beaten the stupid back out of my brain.
26 July 2008 at 8:13 am
Kind of expensive for a purple flashlight you can program to strobe (although not easily--it sure took Mr. Demonstrator a lot of button presses to make it flash).
Just how dumb do they think we are? Just how dumb are they?
26 July 2008 at 2:12 pm
They know *exactly* how dumb we are. That's the infuriating part: not that they try to sell us this horseshit, but that people actually buy it.
28 July 2008 at 7:28 pm
people like this should be locked up for good.
29 July 2008 at 6:51 am
I've long said that instead of having databases like the Do Not Call registry, whereby we tell scammers to leave us alone if we affirmatively opt out, we aught to have a Suckers Who Fell For It registry, where your name, address, and phone number are permanently recorded for public viewing if you actually buy crap like this (or from a telemarketer or email spam). Then people who feel like speeding along societal evolution can help to, uh... reduce demand.
10 August 2008 at 10:47 am
Well, there are two HUGE Scientology banners. There is a nice Scientology banner talking about truth (nice) at the top, and then there is a vast vertical banner at the top right telling you that the truth is in their interweb TV station. I predict this post will attract even more Scientology ads, and a sniff from their lawyers just to see if indeed you are not reviewing any of their magic cure devices.
8 May 2010 at 11:44 pm
Great Post. I wrote about the scam too and the owners of scalar wave threatened me with a law suit so I remove my post. If you want even more science fiction, I think the main person selling the product is Kalon (I am not sure what planet he comes from) at quantum-healing-lasers.com. It does all seem over the top.
9 May 2010 at 10:12 am
Ooh - I hope they threaten me, too!