Normally, I write about malware scams. However, I have been seeing quite a few ads recently along the lines of “Teeth Whiteners Exposed”. Curious, my scam radar started going off. I know a fair amount about internet marketing and affiliate channels, and started digging a bit.
“Celebrity Sexy Teeth” purports to provide amazing benefits in whitening teeth (as it “works with both the inner and outer enamel” and the weird statement that a “combination of key ingredients are amazingly effective at drawing hydrogen peroxide in to the tiny pores of your teeth to whiten both the outer layer of enamel for immediately noticeable whiter teeth, and the inner layers of enamel for long lasting results”).
Pushed through affiliate sites such as best-teeth-whitening.com (these fake review sites easily fool people), running ads promising to show “Teeth Whiteners Exposed”, the company is making money off of a product that is quite likely… snake oil.
A search on the product’s name reveals significant dissatisfaction, such as “It doesn’t work and when I opened it the stuff came bubbling out making a mess and wasting a lot of it.”, “I’ve been using it for more than two weeks, haven’t noticed any difference at all. I’m going to try to send it back, hopefully they’ll up hold their guarantee.”, “I tried it exactly as directed. Completely useless, no result whatsoever, “This product is a scam, total ripoff. I paid $50.00 for this crap and I couldn’t see any difference after using.” and so on (although I did find one positive review, against an overwhelming negative stream of user comments).
A dental group on Goggle Groups discusses the product with skepticism, as one reader even notes that the first ingredient listed is Propylene Glycol (antifreeze).
A site with real user reviews shows similar issues. Of course, blogs that likely make affiliate commissions tout the product’s benefits.
So what does the BBB say? Errr… Nothing good. The company behind this product is Ionoline, which the BBB gives fails here (for Celebrity Sexy Lips) and here (for some other service called “GetWired”). They also have launched a new product, Celebrity Sexy Body (the female fat burner!).
There are plenty of solutions if you’re looking for such a product, including the cheapest — Hydrogen Peroxide.
But certainly, I would stay clear of this one.
Alex Eckelberry