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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

BBB Tip of the Week: Lumosity’s Deception

Erin T. Dodge

The Federal Trade Commission has reached a settlement with the online brain training program “Lumosity” for allegedly deceiving consumers with unfounded scientific claims. The complaint from the FTC claims that the advertisements stating that Lumosity’s games help with work and school performance and reduce or delay cognitive impairment from serious health conditions and cognitive decline were not backed up by science.

The company, Lumos Labs, settled to pay $2 million to the FTC, much less than the $50 million imposed by the order, due to the company’s financial condition. So users looking for refunds will not be receiving any. Instead the company has agreed to notify subscribers with an auto-renewal plan that began before January 1, 2015 about the FTC action and to provide an easy way to cancel their subscription.

Anyone who signed up for a subscription in 2015 or 2016 will need to go through the usual steps for subscription cancellations and refunds, found at http://bit.ly/1OCKIvl.

This case hinged on the fact that scientific claims in advertisements need to be supported by competent and reliable scientific evidence. Such scientific evidence needs to have been conducted using methods that experts in the field accept as accurate and evaluated by people qualified to review it.

But how can consumers know if an advertisement is supported by such evidence? Better Business Bureau offers the following tips when evaluating the scientific claims:

Scrutinize testimonials, even those from doctors. Conduct an online search of those providing testimonials to identify their areas of expertise. Not all people who can claim the honorific of “Dr.” are medically trained. Also any medical training may not be within the specialization of the product, system or service.

Ads that claim scientific proof but don’t provide a reference or link to that proof should not be trusted.

Celebrities and regular users may have been compensated for their testimonial. Be leery of these types of “proof,” especially when scientific evidence is lacking.

When in doubt, conduct some research on the topic to understand what is known to be possible by the scientific community. Knowledge of the basics of science can help spot pseudoscientific claims.

Claims that the government or big corporations are conspiring to conceal a scientific breakthrough are often red flags that the claims are unsubstantiated or lack scientific proof.

For more tips you can trust, visit www.bbb.org or call (509) 455-4200.