The attorney general’s office announced another consumer settlement this week, smaller than some headline cases it’s prosecuted. A-G’s office spokesman Bob Brammer says it was an offer too good to be true.The company couldn’t prove its claims were true and it refunded money it had collected and promised not to do business in Iowa any more. The state learned this year that they were back, after a customer asked for a refund for their “Strauss Heart Drops” and didn’t get it, which alerted the consumer protection office that the banned company was doing business after its orders to stay out of Iowa. The company’s now been told to refund all money it collected selling products to Iowans the last couple years. The “Doctor Knoll” (noal) company apparently reached people through direct-mail appeals, and offered questionable medical remedies. The main product, sold for $59.95, was “Strauss Heart Drops,” which claimed to help people with everything from plugged arteries and strokes to macular degeneration, an eye problem. Brammer says the claims were “pretty far-fetched” and ingredients in the 3-inch, 60-dollar bottle were things like pepper, garlic oil, motherwort, willow bark, and water. The agreement signed in 1991 ordered the company not only to stay out of Iowa, but to put a line in ads telling people who saw them anywhere that the products couldn’t be sold in Iowa. Most refunds coming to customers are for 59-dollars, though the company’s refunding a total 35-thousand dollars to customers of the miracle heart drops.
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