TINA.org’s Year In Review 2013

This year TINA.org had its first success when it brought a legal complaint against an Illinois-based supplement maker NourishLife. The company, which markets a supplement aimed at children with speech delays, made significant changes to its website that addressed the deceptive marketing issues identified in TINA.org’s complaint to state and federal regulators.

We also filed a complaint and asked readers to sign a petition against both a An inherently deceptive form of multi-level marketing where participants are told they’ll get paid for recruiting other participants, and not necessarily for selling products or services. Typically, participants must pay some sort of initial investment in order to join, and will then earn a commission for each participant they recruit. Unfortunately for the unsuspecting consumers, pyramid schemes are doomed to collapse because the number of potential participants is limited. and a for-profit school, and filed an amicus brief in California federal court that addressed the deficiencies of voucher and
[gs coupon settlement]s in class-action lawsuits involving false advertising.

• Resorts360
• Philips Sonicare Airfloss
• TEFL Institute

Based on consumer submissions and our own research, we alerted the public this year to more than 200 ads that are either deceptive or should be viewed with caution.  The top 10 alerts of most interest to consumers based on page views were:

• Healthy Man
• Social Security 211
• Freecourse 101
• Ty J. Young
• Bystrictin
• CCW Safe
• Vapex e-cigarette free starter kit
• Biblical Money Code
• Code Red Seven
• Tommie Copper

From our special investigation on Vemma Nutrition Company, a multi-level marketing company many have complained is a pyramid scheme, to our series on Decoding Cosmetic Claims, TINA.org covered a range of issues this year with hundreds of articles to educate consumers about misleading marketing tactics and false advertising. A majority of our posts this year focused on food and alcohol, health, finance, and beauty.

In 2013 we tracked more than 200 class actions alleging false advertising and/or deceptive marketing. The top complaints involved:

• All-natural and organic claims
• Joint relief claims in glucosamine and chondroitin supplements
• Unlimited data for phone plans that weren’t actually unlimited
• Body building supplements

In addition to the petitions against Resorts360 and TEFL Institute, we also started a petition against Jack3d and similar products to engage our readers and ask them to take action.

We were also called upon dozens of times to offer comment and analyze false advertising issues for the press in 2013. You’ll find our quotes in The New York Times, Fox Business, Law360, WebMD, The New York Post, Consumer Reports, and CBS Radio, to name a few.