I want to focus in this post on the issue of tinnitus scams, as this can be a problem for any tinnitus suffer who turns to the media for advice, as well as for people and institutions who offer genuine advice and services regarding tinnitus, be they paid or free ones likes this blog or my own tinnitus advice website and tinnitus forum.
For everybody who starts suffering from Tinnitus, the most pressing question is how to cure the condition as quickly as possible. Doctors usually can't help, as there is no acknowledged treatment or therapy for it, so the tinnitus sufferer is left to his/her own devices to treat the condition. Naturally, these days he/she turns first to the world wide web, and here one can find a bewildering number of various medicines, therapies, books and e-books being offered, all claiming to result if not in a complete cure then at least a substantial improvement. The question arises which of these offers are genuine and which are mere scams aimed at making money out of essentially worthless and useless items and services. This is in most cases difficult to say, as there is no guaranteed (and medically or scientifically acknowledged) method of cure for tinnitus. There are certainly ways and treatments to at least improve the condition, if only temporarily. But which ones work for a certain person can not be said in advance but has to be found out by trial and error. It is therefore fair to say that offers promising 90% or even 100% success rate are scams, as such a claim is exaggerated at best and a completely fabricated lie at worst. An example in this respect is the 'Tinnitus Miracle', an e-book by Thomas Coleman that is aggressively marketed on the world-wide web, with dozens (if not hundreds) of websites having been set up to dominate the search engines and drive traffic to their Tinnitus Miracle site to download the e-book for a payment of $37. They also regularly post spam entries in my Tinnitus Forum to directly drive people to their site, often claiming to be tinnitus patients that have been cured by the 'Tinnitus Miracle' book. Of course, one could argue that this is not a scam as people get something for their money (an e-book), but the question is whether it is worth the money. And in this respect it is fair to say that this is not so. I haven't read the book myself, but from several other reviews I know that it contains little more than information and common sense advice that can be found for free on many other websites on the internet. Certainly not anything in the way of miracles.
I do not want to question that Thomas Coleman (the author of the Tinnitus Miracle book) or other doctors, practitioners or researchers who offer books, medicines or on-site therapies against tinnitus are in the genuine belief that their product may help some clients/patients, but they are clearly misleading in their claim that everybody will be cured by it. This is not possible in the case of tinnitus with any therapy, even medically acknowledged ones. The tinnitus is simply too different from person to person for this. Unfortunately, some people simply try to exploit the fact that no reliable medication, therapy or treatment against tinnitus exists, and they try to make money on the back of claims to offer something that actually works reliably for everybody. It is like with most things: if it sounds too good to be true then it probably is a scam. So you should be careful where to put your money. Before spending it on something questionable, search the internet for independent reports about the product (be aware though that the Tinnitus Miracle have set up many fake sites that appear to give independent reviews supporting their claim).
If you have any comments or even your own experiences regarding the Tinnitus Miracle or other medicines, treatments or therapies you suspect or know to be a scam, you are welcome to post them here or in my Tinnitus Forum.
Thomas
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Posted on Monday, July 27. 2015
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