Bonnie Fauls just wanted a dazzling white smile for her daughter’s wedding. Instead, she ended up grinding her teeth in anger over a nearly $300 bite on her credit card and a long string of hassles.

The 57-year-old Floridian responded to an online offer for a free trial of a product called Whitening Now. But soon after her order arrived, at a cost of $6.99 on her credit card for shipping, so did the first of several shipments of monthly supplies—and charges of $86 each.

Many tooth whiteners sold online are the latest examples of an old scam—a free trial for a product that fails to live up to its phony testimonials, while triggering repeated billings for other items and services that prove hard to stop.

The Better Business Bureau (BBB) says it has received thousands of complaints from consumers who ordered tooth whiteners online only to see their credit cards billed for additional shipments before their free trial ended or they had time to cancel. Many say they also got hit with charges for other products, such as weight-loss aids.

A deadline you can’t meet

Fauls’ experience is typical. “I ordered my free trial, and it arrived more than two weeks later,” she told Scam Alert. But according to the small print in Whitening Now’s terms and conditions, customers had only 14 days after placing the order—not receiving it—to cancel future shipments. So before Fauls could even try the tooth whitener, her allowed cancellation period had already ended.

“And within days of receiving my free trial supply, I got the next shipment and the monthly billing started,” she says. That shipment, according to the company’s terms and conditions, should have taken place 30 days from the initial order.

On top of everything else, Fauls said, the product “didn’t even whiten my teeth.”

She tried to stop the charges on her MasterCard, but her dispute was denied. It took her months to eventually bring a halt to subsequent shipments, and she says she received a refund of only $60 from Advanced Wellness Research, which sells Whitening Now and other tooth whiteners sold as Max White, My Whitening and Gleaming White Smile.

Advanced Wellness Research previously generated thousands of BBB complaints over shipments that followed “free trials” for acai berry supplements and other products. The company did not return phone calls from Scam Alert.

Tooth-whitening products marketed online by other companies have also prompted warnings from the BBB, include Dazzle White, White Smile, Teeth Smile, Dazzle Smile, Ivory White, Bella Bright and OrthoWhite.

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