Reddit user youngGod928 asked:
“What is the most misleading advertisement you have ever fallen for?”
foam bath
“Age 4—I really thought Mr. Bubble would show up in my bathroom and be my friend. Instead, I got contact dermatitis.”
~ Primary_Difficulty19
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Weight loss pill
“A weight loss pill that promised to burn fat while I slept.”
“All I lost was $19.99 and a little self-respect.”
~ Hot_Jerrica_xoxo
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Body spray
“Was it the Tag or Axe body spray with the commercial showing the guy running away from a horde of horny women? I believed it wholeheartedly.”
“What?! I was 13, I didn’t know any better and thought that if I gained enough weight I would be safe.”
~ HeartonSleeve1989
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Manglors
“When I was little, I begged my parents for this toy, a little rubber monster that gets covered in slime.
“The advert said, ‘You can rip his arm off and sew it back on!'”
“I got the toy, ripped the arm off and never reattached it. I think I played with it once or twice and never touched it again.”
~ Thomisawesome
“MANGLORS! Great idea – you could take them apart, put them back together, swap the body parts, then take a bath in the slime pit and they’d be as good as new.”
“Crazy 80s box art, cool character designs, fun accessories. I had Manglord, Manglodragon, and even Manglor Mountain (with the slime pit).”
“The only catch is that they didn’t work. Like, not AT ALL.”
“It’s not that the attachment was weak or that the plastic deteriorated over time, it just fell right off. It was completely incapable of performing the one task it was marketed for.”
“One try and it’s garbage.”
“For this reason, complete, uncut figures now sell for a pretty penny.”
~ Gamera__Obscura
Manglor’s toy advertisementYoutube
Gaming apps
“Probably every ad for a game on the App Store.”
“It’s completely different than it seems.”
~ Very amusedADM
“I see so many cool ads for mobile games and never get one of them because I learned early on that it is only Set with jewels.”
“Its ever Set with jewels.”
~Reddidnothingwrong
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Popcorn
“The rainbow-colored popcorn kernels.”
“You can’t make rainbow popcorn with this shit – it only makes regular popcorn with a little bit of the shell colored. Boo!”
~ Maybe-a-robot1
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Moon shoes
“As a child, I was totally fascinated by Moon Shoes.”
“Complete nonsense. They were really heavy and clunky.”
“You could hardly jump. I was so disappointed.”
~ LotusFlare
“OMG, I forgot about those! I pretended they were fun so my parents wouldn’t be mad, but they sucked!”
~ BendyBitch95
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Triops
“Sea monkeys!”
~ csiren
“Oh man! I was devastated when these came in the mail.”
“My father obviously anticipated the problem because after I started crying, he took me to KMart to buy a goldfish.”
~ TeacherPatti
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Baby Alive
“When I was a little kid in the late 80s, there were these Baby Alive dolls in the adverts that could walk and stuff.”
“I got one for Christmas and it barely moved its head. I ran to my room and cried.”
“As a parent, I feel so bad for doing this to my parents.”
~ Eat your Checkers
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Car insurance
“Did you know you can save 15% on your car insurance with Geico?” No, no, that didn’t fucking happen.”
~ Dbouakhob
“UP TO, of course they get away with it.”
“If they save that much for just one customer, it’s not technically a lie.”
~ golden_fli
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Action Figure
“I bought what I wanted for a war of starsAction figure on eBay.”
“What arrived was a comic-sized card with a photo of the action figure I wanted to buy.”
~ Weapons train
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Termination of service
“‘… and you can cancel at any time!'”
~ MyFootballProfile
“I remember being pressured to join a gym. I said I would just pay monthly, but they said no, I had to sign up for a longer period.”
“I said, ‘What if I move for work and can’t make it to your gym?'”
“‘No problem,’ she says, ‘we just need a certificate from your new employer stating that you cannot visit one of our fitness studios because you have to move for work.'”
“I don’t plan on my new boss writing me a note to get out of the damn gym.”
“Rogue.”
~ lazarus870
Guess who
“When I was little, I saw a commercial for Guess Who and I thought the characters would come to life and talk like in the commercials.”
“The advert even literally says that the playing cards don’t talk. I think I wasn’t the only one.”
~ Deca Cube
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Army men
“When I was about 10 years old, I applied for the offer with the soldiers on the back of a comic book. About 400 small plastic soldiers and a few boats, planes, jeeps, etc. …”
“When it came in the mail, I opened it and sure enough, there were hundreds of soldiers and vehicles… all made of die-cut hard plastic and flat. Like they were cut out.”
“It was a rude awakening regarding misleading advertising.”
~ Repeat offender
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Sun protection
“When I was a kid in the late ’90s/early ’00s, there was a commercial for a purple sunscreen that turned the kids who applied it bright purple from head to toe.”
“So you can imagine I was upset when it didn’t turn me purple. It didn’t even turn parts of my body purple.”
“Not even a purple stain. It rubbed in CLEARLY! What kind of bullshit was that? I couldn’t believe they could lie so blatantly in their advertising!”
“I lost a little of my innocence that day.”
~ Will-o-the-Wisp
“So what I can tell you is that if you put it on the soles of your feet and then walk around on your parents’ brand new white carpet… well, it will turn purple.”
~ bubblegumhole23
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Which misleading advertisement has deceived you?
