[Closed] powerbands-do they work?

I bought 250 of them from China, sold them on E-bay with a 400% mark up, did my inner calm the world of good with a 10 day holiday to Cyprus on the profit. Thanks very much Powerbalance!!

Cubemeup; you seriously mean to tell us you paid [i]thirty pounds[/i] for one of those silly things?? 😯

For why, pray tell; for why?

How to report a fake

If you have any doubt, or [b]wish to report a suspect seller[/b], please call the Power Balance Head Office on 0844 770 4099 or email legal@powerbalanceuk.com. This is a confidential email address that is only accessed by the Power Balance legal representatives. Unfortunately due to people abusing the system we are can no longer offer a free product for reporting a counterfeit.

Temptation to report their own website to them is massive.

Had no idea CRC were selling them.

Just emailed this to CRC, FWIW...

-------------

Dear CRC,

I am disgusted and horrified to discover that you are willingly retailing the range of PowerBand products marketed by PBUK.

These products have been consistently and repeatedly shown by medical and sports researchers to be no more than a placebo. Selling these products through your website clearly indicates the seriousness with which you take cycling and sports technology and your willingness to relieve your customers of money for precisely nil benefit.

Your retailing of these products will clearly guide my choice of online cycling retailers.

Yours sincerely.

Chris Palmer

Temptation to report their own website to them is massive.

It's got to be done. Sorry.

Andituk; well done for thinking of that. Brilliant. 😀

Nothing wrong with selling snake oil to idiots- an awful lot of bike shops will have overpriced tat after all. But I wouldn't accept a word of advice from any shop that sold these things, it says in big letters "Don't trust me, I'll sell rubbish to any idiot that'll buy it if they'll let me".

It would appear they certainly don't bring you good luck
[img] [/img]

(I wonder if they monitor their site traffic and check out who's hotlinking 😈 )

Mark - Resident Grumpy

And that is absolutely fine so long as there are no fraudulent tricks plied on the customer to TRICK them into believing in the product. If Derren Brown applied his tricks on innocent people in the street as he does for entertainment but instead of just walking away managed to make them believe enough for them to part with £30 then it would be a whole different situation.

Cycleworlduk.... Good to hear you won't be selling them. I hear the margins are very good.. In fact that's what one supplier said to me when he tried to flog some to us. I said, 'What's so good about them?'.. he said,'The margins are bloody fantastic!'

That's a fine moral stand you're taking there. I assume you'd never accept any advertising revenue from a company that sold them with claims like the following.....

What is Power Balance? Power Balance is Performance Technology designed to work with your body’s natural energy field. Founded by athletes, Power Balance is a favourite among elite athletes for whom balance, strength and flexibility are important.

How Does the Hologram Work? Power Balance is based on the idea of optimizing the body’s natural energy flow, similar to concepts behind many Eastern philosophies. The hologram in Power Balance is designed to resonate with and respond to the natural energy field of the body.

I'd feel horrid selling these to someone.

Shop guys feel guilt too.

In fairness, Onion; those companies have been advertising on STW for longer than they've been selling these silly things. Plus I wouldn't imagine STW would be too willing to give up the revenue the likes of CRC provide. Although it would be interesting to find out how many STW advertisers sell them.

On the other hand, would CRC want to lose out on being able to advertise on one of the most popular cycling websites on Earth?

It's an interesting conundrum. I can't see as there's any simple answers. Tis a fair and valid point you make, however.

Pressure on companies like CRC, through email and even total boycott, would work.

But then, if they've got X product at a lower price than anyone else, will your principles remain so firm?

Maybe it's products like Powerband, that bring lots of profit, that enables the sale of other stuff at lower prices?

Innertubes cost what, a quid, even including VAT? And they sell for a fiver? Why? Because bike shops can, pure and simple. Because they know we'll need them.

The difference with Powerband is that it's just a bit of plastic and rubber, that offers no benefits whatsoever. It's the spurious claims that are unethical, not the selling of the things.

Still wish I'd thought something like that up though....

I'm guessing some emails are flying as we type.....

EDIT; seems STW has made up its mind, but given that I have espoused the feasibility of traditional Chinese medicine more than once on this forum, I feel honour bound to add that there are more things in Heaven and Earth, etc, etc.

there are indeed more things in heaven and earth... etc.

but these band-things are total bunkum. even worse than horoscopes - at least you get those for free.

I feel honour bound to add that there are more things in Heaven and Earth, etc, etc.

You are quite right there are but the universe is such a wonderful place that there is no need to make stuff up, it's remarkable enough as it is.

When it comes to this sort of guff though, those that produce it and sell it must come up with proof that it actually works. Which they haven't. In fact I'd be surprised if they even tested it.

* puts hand up and quietly whispers " I love mine" *

try one of these:
[img] http://www.oneredrubberband.com/userimages/toby_christian_red_elastic_band.jp g" target="_blank">http://www.oneredrubberband.com/userimages/toby_christian_red_elastic_band.jp g"/> &t=1[/img]

i hear they're ace...

i've got one on my desk, you can have it for £25 posted, yes i'll accept paypal.

The distressing truth is that placebos do work. A real drug in a clinical trial has got to prove that it works better than a placebo, not better than nothing. My LBS stocks them, so I asked when the lucky rabbit's feet were being stocked. The reply was that the wild rabbit that visited their garden just died of myxomatosis, and as it had four feet, they couldn't be [i]that[/i] lucky! 😆

Not sure if this link has been posted already, but I thought it quite interesting:
http://www.cyclingtipsblog.com/2010/11/powerbalance-band-does-it-work/

Placebos work very well - for the right kind of people.

Billions of people also beleive in God, Allah and the power of homepathic water. They tell us it benefits them, so why not Powerbands?

Sadly you really need mis-directed belief to pedal anything like this (snake oil, religion etc). That would rule me out on nearly every level, otherwise it's a nice little earner.

not a huge shock that crc are stocking them....i cant see them that bothered about opinion on here or anywhere else really..theyre the tescos of the bike trade.interesting if you get a response from your complaint.

interesting thread on bikebiz about powerbands....and an ansa from the uk bike trade supplier. http://www.bikebiz.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=17610

100!

If I can have one with a thundercats hologram on it I'd happily give it a go

Princess Leia with the Death Star plans for me!

Boots sell homeopathic remedies and we probably all still buy stuff from them. Can't see much difference, tbh.

good point, well put.

what would be best is if you were feeling good and happy to be on the bike it could be a hologram of He mans face, putting out good radiowave thingys. but then right, if you saw another cyclist you wanted to dish out some hurt too, you could swivel the hologram and Skelotors face could appear and it would start outputting fearsome radiowaves to make you go superfast, can they do that, can they, can they???

Yeah I don't give a damn who sells them, loads of the bike industry is bullshit, this is just more obvious. CRC is cheapest, has free delivery and easy returns and normally has loads of what i want in stock. I'm still going there power balance bands or not. If people are dumb enough to buy them then thats fine by me. If you were going to ban these things then you might as well ban any other "faith" based products.

warton - Member

"but then right, if you saw another cyclist you wanted to dish out some hurt too, you could swivel the hologram and Skelotors face could appear and it would start outputting fearsome radiowaves to make you go superfast"

This thread's been making me think of Supernaturals, but probably nobody else remembers those because they were rubbish. Is it a ghost, is it a man? Aaaargh! It's a hologram.

NW- i remember Supernaturals, had quite the collection!

Were you into Visionaries too?

I'd like to have some power-ballads around my wrist......

DrP

From their website:

COUNTERFEIT - IMPORTANT

UPDATE 21 NOVEMBER 2010 – PLEASE BE AWARE THAT FOLLOWING WEBSITES ARE SELLING COUNTERFEIT POWER BALANCE PRODUCT. DO NOT PURCHASE FROM THEM AS THE PRODUCTS DO NOT WORK.

And why would that be reason not to buy one? 😆

Hmm, swear filter doesn't work (I've tried)...

what powerband as a c**k ring ?

mountaincarrot - it's not just those who believe in religion or spiritual forces that respond to the placebo effect, ben goldacre often refers to* a test where patients at an NHS hospital were prescribed sugar pills. the doctors said 'here's a pill, it's made out of sugar and a bit of water and nothing else' and a statistically viable percentage said that they thought the treatment worked - because a doctor told them it was to treat the condition they had.

We are all susceptible to powers of suggestion or peer/elder pressure because it's part of the human learning process.

*apologies for not finding the link it's late and I can't be arsed, it's on the badscience website somewhere...

what the.... I missed all this, and now I feel inadeqwut 🙁 boo, can I have a bit of plastic to make me feel better about it?