Before you waste your money on any of these products, make sure you understand the evidence that proves they can't work.
- Bad Medicine.
Children grow at a steady rate for the first 10 to 12 years of their lives, then experience a growth spurt for the next two years. After this, their growth rate slows until it stops at the end of puberty. This usually happens around age 18 for girls and age 20 for boys.
The final stages of this growth occurs in the Epiphysis, or growth plates, at the end of the long bones (arms and legs). Before puberty, the Epiphysis are soft and bone can be added to them. During puberty they begin to solidify. Medical experts agree that once the Epiphysis
have fused, further growth is not possible. Companies that sell Height Increasing products promise to turn around the process but there is no medical basis for their claims.
Here are a few articles that speak to this:
We will post more as we find them.
- Where's the news?
Short Persons Support receives about 20 contacts a month from people who are desperate to grow taller and want to know which product is best. Some of them have tried one or more products, achieved no growth, and seek advise on which ones to try next. A wish to be taller is very common, especially among young people. The
company that comes up with an inexpensive solution for height increase will
make big news and big money. Every newspaper will carry the story. Do yourself a favor. Before you invest in any of the products, go to your favorite search engine and look for a news story from a credible news source about the product you are considering. You won't find even one and that is your first proof that magic growing pills exist only in our imagination and Alice's Wonderland.
- Why prescribe HGH injections?
Here is another way to think about it. In July 2003, the U. S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the use of Human Growth Hormones for short children who do not have abnormally low growth hormone levels or other medical conditions. There is a great deal of controversy over this decision. The treatments cost between $10,000 and $40,000 a year, depending on dosage, age, height and weight. The children must endure up to six injections a week for up to 10 years to grow just 1.5 to 3 inches more than they would have if they had not taken the injections. If any of the Internet-sold height increasing products actually worked, would any parent spend so much money and inflict so much discomfort on their children? Would there be any reason for companies to manufacture Human Growth Hormones at such great expense?
- Why Leg Lengthening?
A similar argument exists for adults who choose to undergo Cosmetic Leg Lengthening surgeries to increase their height by two or three inches. These surgeries typically cost between $40,000 and $70,000 and are not covered by health insurance. They are extremely painful and require the patient to be in a wheelchair for half a year or more. If potions, lotions or exercise could do the same, why would anyone endure that kind of interruption in their lives.
- Beware Guarantees.
Many people feel comfortable taking a chance on these companies because they advertise a Money Back Guarantee!! Beware of such claims. The reality is that once the company has your money, there is very little you can do to force them to honor their guarantee. Many readers report that the companies simply stop responding to email when their customers begin to complain that they are not growing as advertised. Some companies don't list their mailing address or a phone number so it's not possible to contact them in any way other than email. And email is so easy to ignore. Other companies require that their customers show proof from a hospital that they did not grow during the three or six month period that the product was used.
Many companies offer a 30-day money back guarantee.
Most people using a product like this would not expect to grow immediately. By the time they realize the product isn't working, it's too late to get their money back.
That's the bad news. The good news is that a few companies have provided partial refunds. However, the customer who is looking for a refund must write to the company multiple times and report them to the appropriate government agencies before the company takes any action. If you have been scammed by one of these companies, don't let them get away with it. Complain to them often and report them. You may at least receive a partial refund.
- Beware Online Discussion Groups.
There are many online Discussion Groups that are dedicated to Height Increasing methods. A new one is created every few weeks and we have stopped providing links to the newer ones. They tend to fall into two categories. Some of them discuss the issue realistically and question the likelyhood that any product works. Many of the people who contribute to these discussion groups
are still hopeful that some new development will let them grow a few inches easily and cheaply. They are rightfully suspicious of new claims because they previously spent money on products that didn't work.
The other category of discussion groups are simply fronts for the companies that sell the products. The "customers" who post success stories are really just company staff who have found another form of marketing. While they may not admit ownership outright, links to their own sites are blatantly listed all over the discussion group. When real customers post messages claiming the product did not work, the messages are removed and the person posting the message is blocked from further access. Be very careful of what you read in these groups. There is no reason to believe that any post is from a person who actually had any success with a product.
- Testimonials.
Almost all of these sites devote a whole page to testimonials. Our readers sometimes ask if these sites are scams, why have so many people had so many good things to say about the products. Remember, the people who run these sites are unscrupulous criminals. It's remarkably easy for such a person to sit down and write glowing testimonials, giving each a fake name or the name of a friend. There is no contact information with these names so there is no way for a consumer to authenticate the testimonial. One company, P-Tech, used to include email address. A reader contacted some of those people and reported that they were very irritated about being contacted and that they never used the product. Writing fake testimonials is very much like establishing Discussion Groups that are really just another sales avenue for the company.
- Where's the law?
Many people ask us:
If these companies are cheating so many people, why aren't any governments doing anything about them?
This is a very good question. If you are like most people using the Internet, you have been bombarded in the last few years by spam. Most of these messages advertise body enhancement supplements. But products to increase the size of a man's penis or a woman's breasts are just as worthless as products that claim to help people grow. The difference is that there are many many more people who want bigger gender-specific body parts than there are people who want to grow taller. As a result, there are more scam companies that are profiteering off this larger market. Government consumer protection agencies and state attorney general’s offices have limited resources and are just now ramping up their charges against this industry. Of course, they are prosecuting the worst offenders first.
The good news is that it is starting to happen. This article describes a small family company that cheated consumers out of $74 million selling products to "enlarge penises or breasts, make the consumer taller or hairier..." Their height increase product was called "Stature".
The family lived like kings, owning 13 luxury homes and a fleet of automobiles. The came to their wealth off the backs of people like you.
The property of this family has now been seized by the government and the perpetrators are facing jail time. We hope and expect that owners of companies that sell fraudulent height increase products will come to a similar fate.
These are our arguments why you should not be fooled by Internet scam artists who sell Height Increasing products. We think they are good arguments. If you decide that you still want to take the risk, then we ask that you to file a complaint with a consumer protection agency after you find that it did not work. File a Complaint lists a few agencies for people living in the United States.