Today I’m going to give a thorough review of PureCleanse Pro, but consider yourself warned because I have a feeling that this may end up being a rather lengthy review.  PureCleanse Pro is one of the worst and most sneaky colon cleanse scams that I’ve seen so far.  Their marketers have gone the extra mile to make this one quite convincing and notably different from other free trial scams.

It appears that consumers may be catching on to the classic one page websites with the glaring free trial offer form always seated on the right of the web page (picture at right is an example).  As such, PureCleanse Pro takes a little different approach in order to snatch your money.  They take you through a few (very professional) sales pages craftily designed to gain your confidence and help you ignore the content that explains their scam-like tactics.

Before I get ahead of myself, however, let’s first look at the actual product to see how effective it might be.  I’ll then delve into the company behind the product and highlight some of their shady sales tactics.

Is PureCleanse Pro Even a Colon Cleanser??

Even though it took me a minute to find it, I did find the ingredients in PureCleanse Pro.  They listed the following ingredients in one of the paragraphs of their sales copy:

• Garcinia Cambogia Extract
• Chromium Polyniconate
• Gymnema Sylvestre

These ingredients are very common ingredients in diet pills.  Are these ingredients found in any of the more established colon cleansers today? Not usually.  Your average colon cleanser will usually be high in fiber and designed to actually cleanse the colon.  PureCleanse Pro looks as though it won’t be doing anything for cleansing the colon but is purely designed to help you lose weight through other means.

Make no mistake about it, PureCleanse Pro is a diet pill being advertised as a colon cleanser.  I’m not disputing the fact that you might lose some weight with this product, but PureCleanse Pro will not do anything to actually cleanse your colon.

But Will I Still Lose Weight?

While I’m certainly no expert on diet pills, I found their following “proof” that you’ll lose weight interesting.

The average weight loss was 14.99 and 12.54 pounds with PureCleanse’s key ingredients1 vs. just 3.06 and 3.53 pounds with a placebo in two 8-week clinical studies. Both groups dieted and exercised. That means the key ingredients in PureCleanse Pro were found to help cause up to 450% MORE WEIGHT LOSS than dieting and exercising alone will get you.

They cite some study (that they probably performed themselves, if at all) which provides no information about the details of the study.  How large of a sample were in the “groups?”  What were the amounts of the ingredients used?  Was it a double blind test?  And most importantly, where can I find documentation of the study?  If I can’t verify it, then I don’t consider it to be of any worth.

The Company Behind PureCleanse Pro

A quick search with the Better Business Bureau was quite insightful.  Here’s the company profile provided by the BBB.

Both the phone number and the website verify that we’re talking about the right company.  The business start date is of particular importance: 3/17/2009.  So at the time of this writing, the company is only a little over a month old.  *I did, however, see complaints about the company online that dated back further than this date - interesting.

For only having been in business for such a short time, their complaint history with the BBB isn’t looking pretty.  You can see below that they’ve already had 4 complaints filed with the BBB, all of which have gone unanswered.

This is especially interesting given their stated “policy” on responding to such complaints.  From their website:

Actions speak louder than words PureCleanse Pro.

Not surprisingly, the BBB gave PureCleanse Pro an big F.  Not quite the way you would expect a company to start out after only a month of being in business.

What the Complaint Boards Had to Say

Another fairly good source of information about a company’s business practices are the various complaint boards on the internet.  ComplaintsBoard.com had a few complaints posted about PureCleanse Pro.  Nearly all of the complaints were regarding the customer receiving unexpected charges on their credit card after they had ordered the free trial.

Others mentioned having difficulty getting the company to refund them the money after they had taken it out of their account.

It is quite clear that the website isn’t as obvious or clear about the autoship policies as PureCleanse Pro claims it is trying to be (more on that later).

PureCleanse Pro’s Attempts to Inform the Consumers

At the bottom of the first page on their site you’ll see a link called “Advertising Practices and FTC Policy Compliance.”  The information found when following this link is the company’s attempt to appear as legitimate and honest as they can.  Anticipating complaints and possible lawsuits, they are trying to cover their bases by providing “evidence” that they have done everything they can to inform you about their sneaky autoship policies.  I’m not buying it.

They provide a heat mapped image of their website that shows where most people spent their time viewing.  It is clear that in their test, most people spent the vast majority of the time viewing the details about the autoship.  This is placed directly next to the order form (which is a good thing). 

I found, however, one major flaw.  When I went through the order process 20 minutes ago, the details about the autoship were not shown in the same way.  Instead they were placed in a sidebar in much smaller font than in this test (see the end of this review for a screenshot).  So quit patting PureCleanse Pro on the back for trying to be so honest and upfront.  They are doing nothing of the sort.

A Walkthrough of the Order Process

In order to point out that, depsite their claims, PureCleanse Pro is not making a good enough effort to inform consumers about the autoship, I’ll try to provide a quick walkthrough of the purchasing process.

Page 1

PureCleanse Pro is using classic marketing tactics to gain your confidence.  For example, they try to add credibility to themselves by discrediting others in their section “Don’t Be Fooled By Companies Who Make False Colon Cleansing Claims.”  Don’t fall for it.

In an attempt to not look like other autoship scams, PureCleanse Pro has stepped away from the over used free trial form that’s normally seen on the right hand side of the page near the top. They use this starter form near the bottom of the page:

I have to see if I qualify huh? Please. As if they aren’t going to get everyone they can to accept the free trial.  Otherwise, they don’t get paid.

Page 2

I input some fake information and away I went.  I was shown the following:

According to them, if I’m 6′5″ (which I’m not) and a measly 150 lbs (wanting to lose 1 lb), I’m a “perfect candidate” for one of their “remaining weight loss packages.”  Any 6′5″ male weighing 150 lbs should certainly not be trying to lose weight.

Oh, and isn’t this a little contrary to their “warning” found at the top of each page?

I hope you’re starting to see through the marketing tactics of the company.

Page 3

They show me a nifty BMI Calculator which actually looks to be accurate:

The BMI calculator rightly shows that my fictitious weight may be too thin.  And yet they still say:

They truly seemed concerned for my well being don’t they?

Also seen all over this page is the classic tactic of trying to get you to rush through your order.  Near the top they claim that unless you complete your order of your free trial within 3:15 minutes, they will give the package that they are “holding” for you to the next customer.

They later claim that “at the beginning of the day” they had a “certain number” of trials remaining, but since they “regularly get seen on top news networks’ websites” the trials they have may “disappear within just a few short hours.”

I hope you can see through these shady and over used tactics.  Rest assured that they will have a free trial ready for you no matter what day you visit the site. Also, I waited a good 5 minutes before continuing and they still offered me the free trial.

And by the way, I have yet to see any information that explains the free trial or autoship details.

Page 4

The first thing I see on this page is the following:

I must complete this page within 4:15 mintues to get my trial.  Gee, do you think they want me to hurry though this page so that I don’t see or read the details of the free trial (that they supposedly make so obvious that you couldn’t miss it)??  My guess is that this is the page where we’ll see the details.

It’s also a very long page with a lot of content.  I’m sure this was by design to get you to rush to put in your credit card.

Near the top, they mention two “bonuses” that you’ll get. 

What they don’t want you read however is in the smaller print below them.  The first one comes with a 7 day trial period and the second with a 28 day trial period.  After your trials are over you will be billed $4.95 per month for the first and $9.95 per month for the second “bonus.”  What? You didn’t see that there?  That’s because the numbers are spelled out so as not to grab your attention.

I’ll skip now to the part where it actually details the autoship and free trial offer.  You’ll notice that it is quite different from the screenshot of the heat map that they are so proud about before:

In fact, it looks as though they swapped the sizes of the details and credit card info sections.  The current discloser is certainly not painfully obvious and is sure to be missed by many consumers.  This was also evidenced by the number of consumers that have complained about not knowing about any future charges.

If you actually do read that small print, you’ll also find that they charge you for a 3 month supply right off the bat.  Of course, this is to get as much out of you as possible before you catch on to their scam.  So add that to the other monthly charges from the “bonuses” that they were so kind to give to you, and you’re looking at around $194 being taken out of your account unless you can successfully cancel within the 14 days.  And good luck with that.

PureCleanse Pro claims to be unlike other scams on the market because they fully inform their consumers.  Unfortunately, this review finds that they are just as much, if not more of a scam than all the other colon cleanse scams on the market.  The only thing that makes them different is that their marketers seem to be some of the best that I’ve seen at tricking people into giving them money.

Their Privacy Policy

If you aren’t convinced by now that this company is only out to get your money, check this out.  It’s their privacy policy:

We may share or sell your Information, including your nonpublic personal information, for compensation with third parties; such third parties may include, but are not limited to, our affiliates, marketing companies, advertising agencies, data compilers, advertisers, data companies, data brokers, and, to the extent permitted by law, individual reference and look-up service programs. Such Information may be used by such third parties to provide you with information, advertisements, commercial communications and materials on products and services that may be of interest, for direct marketing or any other business.

Not so private is it?  Since they sell your personal information to pretty much anyone they want to, you can also expect a massive influx of direct marketing to your mail, email, and phone.  Ouch!

Conclusion

Ok, I feel as though I may have gotten carried away.  I hope the review wasn’t too long.  I just wanted to make sure that you saw the company for what it is really.  In my opinion, despite their sales pitch, they are not concernced about helping you lose weight.  In fact, they are not concerned about your well being in any way.  They are out to get your money, and they are pretty good at what they do.  Don’t fall for it.  Unless you are fully aware that you’re enrolling in an autoship program, I’d stay far, far way from PureCleanse Pro.