Svelte Media review: Svelte media one and done

In a moment of weakness I signed up for the Svelte One and Done programme, figuring that with all the talk of no-questions-asked money-back guarantees, what did I have to lose?

A lot, apparently. Firstly, the $29 charge was not clearly advertised as being in US dollars, so that was twice the expected price right off the bat. Then, as you sign up, they persuade you to try a free trial of some Accelerated Something-or-Other course. What they do not tell you is that after these free seven days, they will start charging your credit card US$49 a month, whether you access this programme or not.

Unlike some other victims, I did actually get access to the videos and Facebook page. That's when the cracks started to show. I did a few of the exercise videos, and they were... fine. Perfectly decent mild exercises. I was a little amused that after banging on about "ONLY seven minutes a day!", each exercise was closer to 10-11 minutes.

A bigger concern was that, despite the infomercial lamenting all these women who had sabotaged their irisin levels by over-exercising (because seven minutes a day is All You Need!), the programme recommended that you do the 'seven-minute' exercises several times a day!

I was also suspicious that these exercises were bog-standard exercises such as every workout video has. I went onto the Facebook page and asked what exactly this magical point of difference was.

The admin declined to accept my post - in fact, deleted it entirely so I couldn't even view it as pending. Now I was mad. I used Facebook Messenger to message the company and ask what gives.

The CSR told me smoothly that sometimes they delete posts that contain misinformation (questions, apparently!) or which might cause trouble; however, she was so terribly happy to answer any of my questions.

She then proceeded to not do that. The magical irisin-building qualities of the exercises were all due to how carefully they were 'arranged'. So if I performed them in a different order, I asked, they wouldn't work? No response. Overtraining would not be an issue with repeating the exercises, she assured me, because... reasons? Everything was canned AI-type corporate-speak (in fact, for all I know, she was AI - I asked and she denied it, but then, that's what a computer might do.)

In the end she just stopped responding to my questions at all. Classy.

When I tried to cancel my subscription using the "we will get back to you in 24-48 hours" form, the company just ignored me. That was about a month ago, and the company has just charged me ANOTHER US$48 for the Accelerated programme I never consented to buy!

I tried clicking the "cancel my subscription" link on the website. It took me to a very very long, pleading page trying to get me to stay. After scrolling down for about a mile I clicked the 'nope, still want to cancel' button... and a pop-up page opened up. This one said "I understand you said no, but..." (hint for the media team: maybe sounding like a rapist isn't the ideal way to build trust?). There were two buttons: an 'actually yes, I want to stay for 70% off' button and a 'No, I still want to quit' button. The latter... was UNCLICKABLE. A long, looping video of someone telling you not to quit was playing in the background; I get the impression that if you listened to it for a full half-hour, maybe eventually the button would activate; but of course, nobody's going to do that. I listened to it fully twice through and the button still wouldn't work. This is absolutely foul, scammy, predatory behavior, and I can't believe it's legal.