Being that Bowtrol is one of the most popular (at least it’s one of the most heavily marketed) colon cleansers on the market, today I’m going to take a good long look at Bowtrol.  As is common with my other colon cleanse reviews, I’ll first look at the product itself to see what one might expect in terms of effectiveness, and then I’ll spend the majority of time on the company that’s behind Bowtrol.  Let’s get started.

Bowtrol - The Ingredients

It took me a bit (it was hiding in the links at the bottom of the page) but I found a link that provided all the ingredients in found in Bowtrol.  They provided this supplement facts label:

As you can see, Bowtrol contains a very common assortment of fiber-based ingredients that are found in many colon cleansers.  Is this an exceptional ingredient profile? Not likely.  But it should perform as well as many other products on the market.

Most website similar to Bowtrols (usually one page sites) provide almost no information about the product or it’s ingredients.  To Bowtrol’s credit (if you are able to find the ingredients link), however, they actually provide a good amount info on each of the ingredients as well.  I don’t see this too often.

The First Red Flag - The “Free” Trial

Whenever the first thing I see on a colon cleanser’s website is the big “Risk Free Trial” offer (with the almost the same arrow and information box on each one), I shake my head a little bit.  So far, every free trial that I’ve seen in industry has been a front for some kind of autoship scam.  Is it the same for Bowtrol?

At first, I wasn’t sure.  I always go straight to their terms and conditions to find the dirt, but in Bowtrol’s case they didn’t have any information about the autoship in there.  I then saw the fine print on the big arrow trying to get you to put in your information that  said “Details on Order Page.”  So before I can even see what I may be getting myself into, I have to give them all of my personal information (name, address, phone, and email)?  I’ll explain why this is a huge problem a little later.

I put in some fake information so that I could see what these “details” were.  I found the following fine print below the purchase options on the next page:

Let me highlight some important details for you:  If you don’t cancel within 21 days “from the date of your order”…”at the end of your trial period we will bill the discount club price of only $89.90 to the card you provide today.”  After that, every two months they will send you 2 more month’s worth of product and charge you the $89.90 plus $6.95 for shipping and handling.

Welcome to the classic autoship scam.  Unfortunately there will be many, many people who quickly go through the checkout process and completely ignore the fine print (and it is fine print) and will be completely surprised to see the almost $90 charge on their credit card 21 days later.

Bowtrol Complaints

When a company uses this type of shady sales tactic, you can usually find a good number of people that complain about it on some of the online complaint boards.  A quick search provided a few examples of people who think they have been completely ripped off (and in a way, they have).

Some of the complaints mentioned that they were having difficulty cancelling the autoship.  Others said that they weren’t even able to reach anyone at the company at all via the phone.  I’ve actually seen these same kind of complaints with many of the companies that offer these kinds of free trials with autoships sneakily attached to them.

Bowtrol’s (Horrible) Privacy Policy

When looking through the terms and conditions for details on the autoship, I found some shocking information about Bowtrol’s “privacy policy”.  Here’s an excerpt:

Sharing of Information. Except as otherwise provided herein, the information we collect from you is shared with our marketing partners or other third parties. We may use the personal information that you supply to us and we may work with other third parties to bring selected retail opportunities to you via direct mail, email, online and telemarketing. HealthBuy.com may sell or rent aggregated statistical information and user, member or former member specific information, including name, address, telephone number and payment information, to our marketing partners or other third-parties.

This is where the problem arises with having to put your information into their system before you can even see the details of the free trial.  They now have your information which, as stated in this excerpt, they can sell to basically whoever they want so that other companies can “bring you selected retail opportunities.”

In other words, be prepared to get a lot of spam email, junk mail, and unsolicited phone calls.

In today’s world, this type of sharing of information is simply unnacceptable.

Bowtrol’s Guarantee

At first glance, the money back guarantee for Bowtrol seems very good at a whole 90 days.  But if you look at it more closely in the terms and conditions, you’ll find that it’s not quite as good or as easy as it first seems.  Here’s an excerpt from the fine print:

• You should return the item to us within 90 days of your purchase date.
• There is a $10.00 restocking fee for each unopened item ($5 if item was less than $20).
• We do not accept items back that have been opened or used. Opened Items are Non Refundable.
• Shipping and Handling Fees are Non Refundable.

So not only are you only able to return unopened bottles, but they also charge you a $10 restocking fee.

And it gets worse.  You also have to have an RMA (return authorization) from the company.  In order to received the RMA, you must submit it online.  They will then email you the RMA.  The specifically tell you NOT to call to receive an RMA.  Basically this is so that they can ignore your return request much easier (they don’t have to argue with you over the phone).  It’s my personal opinion that you’re going to have a very tough time getting your money back.

Other Marketing Tactics

I got a kick out of this one:

Bowtrol puts the logos of these news stations in hopes that it will add some perceived credibility.  In reality, all that this says is that Bowtorl Ads have been freatured on these stations.  And what does it take to have your ad featured on anything? Just a little bit of an advertising budget, nothing more.  Don’t fall for this classic (but overused) tactic.

Bowtrol’s Freebies

A common (and effective) marketing tactic of online companies is to offer you a few freebies if you buy the product.  Bowtrol follows suit by offering a free “membership” in a weight management club, an E-book on weight loss tips, and a “weight loss visualization audio” a downloadable mp3 file.

The audio mp3 is nothing more than soothing music and a hypnotist type voice encouraging you in your weight loss goals.  You could easily find something very similar on internet for download for around $1.  A far as the weight loss tips, you can also find just as much, if not more information on the subject through simple google searches for free.  Also, there are many online fitness programs (like their “club” offer) that are free as well.

So in reality, don’t let these freebies be much of a temptation for you.  You can easily find similar things for next to free if you do a little searching anyway.

The Company Behind Bowtrol

As I always do, I checked with Better Business Bureau to see what opinion they had of the company.  Much to my (initial) surprise, I found the following rating for Bowtrol Corporation:

Given the shady business practices and the complaints about Bowtrol, I fully expected to see at least a D rating.  I probably would have given it an F.  What could explain this high rating?

Bingo. The company is almost brand new, and as such, there hasn’t been much opportunity for people to file complaints with the BBB.  This is from the state of California’s business portal website:

At the time of this writing, the company has only been around for less than a few months.  On top of that, it likely took them at least a little while after the initial filing to actually start the marketing of the product.  Therefore, I’m not so sure that the A- rating really even has much effect.  I’m sure that you can count on the BBB rating falling over the next little while.  I’ll try to update this review as necessary to reflect it.

Conclusion

Bowtrol is like many of the other colon cleanse products on the market that are out to make a quick at the consumers expense.  They engage in shady sales tactics by offering a free trial and pushing the unsuspecting customer into an autoship program that is anything but consumer friendly.  Complaints have risen over the inability to cancel the autoship and to get refunds on the money that was taken out of their account.  Don’t let the currently high BBB rating fool you, Bowtrol is nothing short of a scam.