You know those stories about old folks who, in a torrent of 3am bad judgment, order all manner of useless shit from infomercials? My coworker Laura also suffers from this disorder. Last night, Laura was feeling tired and unfocused and saw a commercial for a product called Focus Factor. They have a deal where you can order a free bottle and only have to pay for the shipment costs. So Laura decides she could use a little more Focus in her life, gets on the laptop, and orders her some “free” Focus Factor. When she told me about this exciting miracle drug, I was slightly concerned about her health, but I bit my tongue and tried to keep the cynicism to myself.

I think most of that herbal supplement shit is, at best, sugarpill placebo hooey—particularly the ones that are supposed to improve brain function, and Focus Factor purports to do just that. Anything that claims to alter your brain chemistry worries me, no matter how “natural” or “organic.” I expressed my concern to Laura and got her to look up the ingredients online, just to make sure she wouldn’t be popping ginseng-coated amphetamines or the like. It’s mostly vitamins, and some trademarked blends of grape-seed extract, bilberry fruit, guano, that type of thing. As we’re doing research on the googles, we see a couple of entries about consumer complaints, and more of the story starts to unfold…

Apparently the scam works like this: Vital Basics will send you a free bottle of the pills, and initially all you have to pay is the shipping fee. Then, if you don’t like it, all you have to do is call and cancel the order and Vital Basics will stop automatically shipping and charging your account every two weeks. Easy peasy. It was at this point that I said something characteristically insensitive like “well, you didn’t give them your credit card number or anything, that would be crazy! you have nothing to worry about! …right?” Wrong. Laura did give them her credit card number and in about 10 minutes—after discovering the unsatisfactory BBB rating, 30-some-odd unresolved claims, lawsuit, and subsequent bankruptcy—was on the phone first with Vital Basics (aka Tai Basics, aka Factor Nutrition Labs LLC) canceling her order and then with her credit card company, stopping the charges.

I feel kind of bad for harshing her mellow all day (she was really excited about the pills) but I suppose it’s better that the truth came out. Hopefully now she’ll only have to endure the endless teasing from me and the rest of our office and not hundreds of dollars of unauthorized charges to her account. I told her the next time she’s up at 3am with credit card in hand, about to order some sham-wows or diet pills, she is more than welcome to call me first.

EDIT: For the record, despite her actions and the label on this post, I do not think Laura is a dumb-ass. I respect Laura and enjoy her company immensely. We are all afflicted with lapses of judgment every once in awhile (particularly at 3am) and make bad choices. Laura is just doubly unfortunate because she has to work with a snarky cynical jack-ass like me. The kind of snarky cynical jack-ass that would not only take great pleasure in her misfortune, but also post that misfortune all over the internets. Sorry, Laura. =)