January is the month when well-intentioned consumers buy exercise equipment hoping to lose all the pounds they put on during the holidays. It is not surprising, therefore, that equipment manufacturers are now advertising their latest contraptions heavily on TV, and making all kinds of claims for them. This week, we examine the claims being made for the Bowflex TreadClimber — a combination stepper, elliptical, and treadmill all rolled into one.

Here is one of their recent commercials. Listen in particular for their calorie burning claims and the amount of weight that people claim to lose using the machine:

Their primary claim is that you can burn “up to 3.5 times the calories of a treadmill.”

*MOUSE PRINT:

The fine print indicates that their claim is based on a 2011 study by the University of Wisconsin. MrConsumer tracked down the professor at that school who conducted the actual study, asking for a copy of it. The professor wrote back:

“I am not at liberty to share the final report of the study, since the data and the results belong to the company. Please contact the company for a final report.”

So we did. And Bowflex’s PR spokesperson said:

“Our corporate policy does not permit us to disclose proprietary studies.”

MrConsumer also asked the professor a series of pointed questions about the study and the claims being made. The only one he responded to, before leaving town for 10 days, was to disclose that the company paid for the study. (And as Seinfeld would say, “not there’s anything wrong with that.”)

Having run into a roadblock at the University, Mouse Print* turned to the company for answers to some tough questions.

For example, we found a graphic on the company’s own website that seemed to contradict the 3.5x claim and burning 612 calories in 30 minutes:

*MOUSE PRINT:

So we asked the company which was it — 3.5x the calories/612 calories burned or twice the calories/321 calories burned?

[that graphic was] “from a study conducted in 2004 with older technology, in which participants burned up to 321 calories. Since then, we have redesigned our TreadClimber® machines and have conducted new independent research from a university which determined users can burn up to 3.5 times (612 calories) on a TreadClimber® machine vs walking on a treadmill.”

The company also makes extremely large weight loss claims in their commercial.

*MOUSE PRINT:

Despite depicting users whose weight loss ranged from 24 to 88 pounds in their commercial, the fine print disclaimer told a different story:

“In a recent modality study average weight loss for participants was 18.8 lbs. Average weight loss was 17.4 lbs.”

Mouse Print* asked the company whether they thought it was fair to depict people with 50-70 pounds or more of weight loss, when the average was actually around 18, and whether they thought a tiny disclosure that appears on the screen for just a couple of seconds could actually be read and understood by the average viewer.

“Our disclaimers are positioned after every individual testimonial in our television ads. These appear up to 4-5 times over the course of each :120 spot. Like any weight loss program, all results may vary …. The 50, 70 or more pounds weight loss you reference are real results taken from testimonials from actual customers. In many instances the users state “in about 3 months” or “in my first year I lost” etc… ” — Bowflex spokesperson

In fact, none of the participants who claim weight losses above the 18-pound average states how long it took them to lose the weight in the above commercial.

So what are we as viewers to make of the TreadClimber commercial and claims? Feel free to offer your opinions in the comments.

All three major drugstore chains (CVS, Rite Aid, and Walgreens) now advertise sale items only for loyalty cardholders. No card, no savings. Unlike the old days, when you saw Bufferin on sale for $1.99 and actually paid $1.99 for it, now you pay maybe $2.99 (at CVS and Rite Aid) but a get a $1 coupon on your register receipt good only toward a future purchase. It is like getting an IOU for the savings they promised, rather than them giving it to you on the spot. Some would say it is almost like a pyramid scheme.

There are several problems from a consumer standpoint with this scheme. You don’t get instant savings, you are forced to come back again to use up the coupons, you might lose the coupons and thus lose the savings, the coupons expire in 14 days (Rite Aid) and 30 days (CVS), failing to use the coupons means in essence you will have often paid regular price for the advertised items, you may be forced to buy something you don’t want to use up the value of the coupons, and if you buy another sale item with the coupons you will be issued more coupons that will trigger the whole process again.

MrConsumer hates shopping at CVS and Rite Aid for those very reasons. When he does, he places back to back orders at the checkout, with items that will spit out coupons first. He then uses those very coupons immediately on his second order of non-coupon generating items. It a complete pain not just for the customer, but for the checkout clerk as well.

Not able to resist a Black Friday sale even at the drugstore, MrConsumer went to Rite Aid to buy some Russell Stover chocolates and some butter cookies. The chocolates came with a $3 coupon back from Rite Aid and the cookies were a straight $1.69 a tin. The plan was to first buy the candy in one transaction, and then use the $3 coupon toward the $3.39 for two cans of cookies in a second transaction.

As MrConsumer got closer to the checkout he overhead the cashier telling a customer some disturbing news. She said that their coupons are no longer printed out on the bottom of the sales receipt, but rather loaded automatically onto the customer’s loyalty card. Smart idea, I thought. Then she said that the value of the coupons loaded onto the card would not be available until the next day.

What? You are going to make me make a second trip back to the store just to use that damn $3 coupon on the butter cookies?

Upon protesting this change of policy, the manager on duty who happened to be nearby said that anyone can opt-out of the “load2card” program and they can do it right at the register.

Sure enough, they could, they did, and it worked.

Checking to see if people who sign up online for “load2card” are told about the opt-out provision, there it was in the fine print:

*MOUSE PRINT:

By opting out, coupons will continue to print at the register and back-to-back transactions will still be possible.

The worst part about “load2card” for shoppers is this: with no coupons to shove into your wallet or pin onto your refrigerator, you are more likely to forget to use up those dollars before they expire in 14 days. How clever of those execs at Rite Aid to make the coupons out of site, out of mind. To be fair, however, they do offer an app for your smartphone to remind you what coupons are still loaded on your card.

Next time you go to the supermarket, pick up a can of chunk light tuna fish and shake it close to your ear. You will hear a lot of sloshing around of water, making it sound like there is more ocean than tuna in the can.

That is not far from the truth. This past summer, three California district attorneys filed a lawsuit against the makers of Bumble Bee, Chicken of the Sea, and Starkist tuna alleging that they were putting less fish in their cans than the label promised. The companies agreed to pay $3.3 million to settle the cases.

Now, Chicken of the Sea has come out with “no-drain” tuna in a can:

*MOUSE PRINT:

The new no-drain tuna comes in a tiny four-ounce can (compared to the now common five-ounce can, which used to be six-ounces, which used to be seven-ounces, and a few other sizes in between).

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But it is not just tuna that is water-laden. Consumer Reports decided to check 63 cans of vegetables, fruit and chicken to see how much food was in the can and how much was water.

*MOUSE PRINT:

The results: they found water comprised 34 – 48 percent of the contents! And, that amount of water was totally legal based on federal standards.

Here is a video of their tests.

To help prevent illness and death, some states require carbon monoxide alarms to be installed in various parts of your home.

Kidde is one of the large, recognized brands of smoke alarms and other fire prevention products. Certain of their carbon monoxide detectors, however, come with conflicting promises and warnings.

In the manual’s introduction for one of their basic carbon monoxide detectors, it reassures customers they have made a good choice:

“Thank you for making Kidde a part of your complete home safety program. With proper installation and use, your new Kidde CO alarm will provide you with years of dependable service.”

Buried on page 8, however, is some starting news:

*MOUSE PRINT:

A similar disclosure appears in fine print on the box itself. On one hand, the company seems to take safety seriously and doesn’t want to give customers a false sense of reassurance that their detectors are working when they have really lost the ability to sense carbon monoxide. On the other hand, one would not normally expect to have to throw out a $25 to $70 product after only seven years.

What’s going on here? The answer is that carbon monoxide detectors do indeed have a limited life. Inside many detectors is an electro-chemical cell that reacts in the presence of carbon monoxide. It tends to be very accurate. But, over time, the chemical can degrade and its performance is diminished. Accordingly, a national safety standard for carbon monoxide detectors published by Underwriters Laboratories (UL) requires that manufacturers build in a warning system to alert consumers that the unit is no longer functioning properly.

*MOUSE PRINT:

8.1 The unit (including the sensor) shall have a specified lifetime of at least 3 years from the date of manufacture, or from the date the unit is placed into service.

38.1.6 The unit shall indicate end-of-life, based on the manufacturer’s specified lifetime, with an end-of-life signal (see 3.11). This signal shall be triggered either by an internal timer or by a self-diagnostic test(s).

3.11 END-OF-LIFE SIGNAL – An audible signal, differing from the alarm signal, intended to indicate that the device has reached the end of its useful life and should be replaced. … The end-of-life signal shall repeat once every 30 – 60 seconds ±10 percent. – UL 2034, Standard for Single and Multiple Station Carbon Monoxide Alarms.

So, no matter what brand of carbon monoxide detector you buy, the unit will automatically commit suicide at the end of its useful life.

Note: MrConsumer is a member of UL’s Consumer Advisory Council.
 

Novartis, the maker of Excedrin, has suffered from a bad headache for the past nine months because it had to recall all Excedrin products from store shelves. Apparently, they had a little problem with mixing pills from other Novartis products in Excedrin bottles, and according to the FDA they also had a little issue with contamination and ignoring consumer complaints.

The company announced last week, however, that it was resuming production, and that Excedrin will be back on store shelves soon.

Now seems the appropriate time therefore to shed a little light on the smoke and mirrors marketing tactics of the company.

People who suffer from migraine headaches may well turn to specialized products for their particular condition. One such product is Excedrin Migraine.

On their website, Novartis says that Excedrin Migraine is the “first non-prescription medicine approved by the FDA to treat all the symptoms of a migraine.”

Sounds great. But how is Excedrin Migraine different from regular Extra Strength Excedrin?

*MOUSE PRINT:  It isn’t. When you look at their ingredients statements, you learn that they both contain exactly the same active ingredients in the same proportions.

Here is the ingredients listing for Excedrin Migraine:

And here is the ingredients listing for regular Extra Strength Excedrin:

It is interesting to note that regular Excedrin has many clinical uses, but the migraine version only lists one. Of course, both of them should be capable of doing the exact same things.

So the question is why does Novartis have a specialized migraine product when their regular one is really identical?  Here is their answer:

As you may be aware, Excedrin Migraine received approval from the Food and Drug Administration on January 14, 1998 as the first over the counter product indicated to relieve the pain of mild to moderate migraine headache.

Excedrin Migraine contains 250 mg of Acetaminophen, 250 mg of aspirin and 65 mg of caffeine per tablet. It is the same Extra Strength Excedrin formulation, which has been on the market for over twenty years. When our clinical studies showed that this formulation was also effective for the relief of migraine headache pain, it had been our intention to simply add this information to our existing Extra Strength Excedrin labeling. The Food and Drug Administration, however, required that we market Excedrin Migraine as a separate product because Excedrin Migraine has important patient information, instructions and warnings for use in treating the pain of migraine. This information does not appear on Extra Strength Excedrin. This was the only reason that we came out with a separate product.

I am sure the company did’t protest too much because this gave them a great new marketing angle.

And maybe that gave the company a new idea that they could market the same exact pills under different names and increase their sales. Enter Excedrin Menstrual Complete:

Bet you can’t guess what their magical mix of three ingredients is in this product.

*MOUSE PRINT: 

Yep. It has the exact same three ingredients in the exact same proportions as Excedrin Extra Strength and Excedrin Migraine.