Sellers of Hoodia Coffee Settle with FTC for misleading Weight-Loss Claims

The producers of Slim Coffee which is an instant coffee product that presumably contains Hoodia, have agreed to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that their marketing falsely claimed that their product would help its customers to lose great amount of weight without any diet or exercise. They displayed ads on television saying that it has been clinically proven that drinking Slim Coffee will result in weight loss up to 5 pounds every week and almost 20 pounds a month. They also claimed that you don’t even have to go on a diet.

As per a complaint filed by the Federal Trade Commission, the claims made by them were false and was not proved by any reliable scientific research. Under the proposed agreement, Diet Coffee Inc. and its principals are banned from declaring that any product makes people lose weight without cutting their calorie intake and increasing physical exercise. It also forbids them from representing that any product results in weight loss, reduces fat, curbs appetite or any other health related benefit or efficacy representation unless it is factual, not deceptive and verified by reliable scientific proof. It also mentions that they are forbidden from lying about the contents, validity, results or analysis of any test related to the products. The settlement also contains a monetary judgment of $923,910 that is suspended based on the defendant’s incapability to pay. However, full judgment will be forced if they are found to have misrepresented their financial condition.

The defendants had advertised Slim Coffee on the radio, television, the internet and as well as the newspaper and magazines. The Commission vote to authorize staff to file the complaint and specified the final orders was 5-0. The complaint and the final orders were filed in the U.S. District Court.