The ads are everywhere now: acai for weight loss, acai for sexual dysfunction, acai for cancer, acai with a free trial that can cost hundreds of dollars and leave you on hold for hours trying to stop more charges. The growing problem of questionable acai sales on the Internet has reached proportions never before seen by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, according to David Schardt, senior nutritionist for the center.

Today, the attorney general of Connecticut, Richard Blumenthal, and the Center for Science in the Public Interest will issue a warning about credit card schemes peddling supplements made from the acai berry.

"Once we started looking at it we saw it was so widespread, so rampant, that we felt that we had to do something," said Schardt.

Aside from the questionable "free trial offers" targeted by the Better Business Bureau earlier this year, Schardt said he has doubts about even some of the benign nutritional claims for acai. "It's sometimes touted as the fruit with the most antioxidants, that's probably not true," he said. A full comparison of the acai to other fruits will be discussed in the CSPI's report today.