4 Ocean Scam Review – Is It Really a Scam?

Is 4Ocean a Scam?

Official Site: 4Ocean.com

Pay $20 for a bracelet to fund the removal of one pound of trash from the ocean and coastlines, sounds like a worthy cause, right?

We thought so too, but according to consumer feedback across the web, 4 Ocean is nothing more than “a scam” where the operators are becoming ‘rich’ due to preying upon individuals good nature.

There are many unknowns regarding 4 Ocean that we plan to make more known to you.

The learn more regarding 4 Ocean we invite you to read our honest, insightful review.

What is 4 Ocean?

4 Ocean is a garbage removal company that is headquartered out of Florida.

Specializing their operations around the cleanup of our oceans, for every $20 bracelet purchased through 4Ocean.com, 4Ocean is said to remove one pound of trash that is polluting and congesting the ocean and coastlines.

The bracelet is said to be made from recycled glass bottles, plastic bottles along with ocean glass.

After purchasing a bracelet, 4 Ocean will allegedly pull a pound of trash from the ocean and coastlines on your behalf.

So how did 4 Ocean Begin?

The 4 Ocean story began when co-founders Alex and Andrew were taking a surfing trip to Bali, Indonesia.

Devastated by the sheer volume of plastic in the ocean, they set out to find answers as to why no one was doing anything about the plastic in the ocean and coastlines.

When walking through an old fishing village one day, it dawned upon the two surfers that the proliferation of plastic threatened not only the ocean ecosystem but also the fisherman’s livelihood.

Then a thought came into action.

Could the fisherman use their nets to pull plastic from the ocean?

However, after realizing the the demand for seafood was driving fisherman out to the ocean (not the plastics) both Alex and Andrew knew they had to create something that could fund the desired cleanup efforts.

From there, this was how 4 Ocean was said to be incepted.

Who is Behind 4 Ocean?

Alex Schulze and Andrew Cooper are disclosed as the co-founders behind 4Ocean.

Other notable operators of 4Ocean are as followed:

Andi Fiaruz – Direction of Operations (Bali)

Gina Bowling – Boat Captain

Edouard Carrie – Direction of Operations (Haiti)

According to the Better Business Bureau, 4Ocean has been in business for 3 years and reflects an “A+” BBB rating.

While we are unable to confirm this, 4Ocean is said to employ over 150 employees worldwide.

The Contact Us page featured at 4Ocean only discloses a contact submission form to reach out to operators – in order to touch base with them more effectively at the BBB we found the following contact information:

Physical Address

6560 W Rogers Circle Ste 19, Boca Raton, Florida 33487

Telephone: (561) 270-0650

4Ocean has 4 different locations, although we are not provided with any physical addresses so we are unable to confirm the legitimacy of their various locations apart from their headquarters.

4Ocean Global Headquarters – Boca Raton, FL

4Ocean Fulfillment Center – Deerfield Beach, FL

4Ocean Cleanup Operations – Boca Raton, FL

4Ocean Bali – Denpasar Bali, Indonesia

4 Ocean Reviews

4 Ocean reflects a strong pool of positive consumer feedback along with negative reviews across the web.

For instance, at TrustPilot, 4 Ocean reflected a 3 out of 5 star rating.

Shared below are a few of the most recent reviews we found:

“Their effort is shameful. They “fund” their cause with bracelets which when discarded (after they break in 2 days) they will enter our waterways, our oceans and look like fish eggs to be consumed by the animals of our 4 oceans. What a joke of a company.”

“Love the bracelets and what they represent. Great colors and design and my daughter (13) and I give them to everyone we know.”

“I love my bracelets…it’s nice to show that you care about the environment. When I got my first one, I didn’t know how to adjust it and when I wrote to them, they immediately sent my another one free of charge and showed me how to adjust the size. I lived in California for 30 years and don’t want to see the pollution in our oceans.”

More reviews can be found at Quora and the Better Business Bureau.

4 Ocean Complaints

Many complaints can be found at the Better Business Bureau and TrustPilot but perhaps the most relevant complaint that brings up some burning questions would be the following that we found posted by an individual who claims to be a restoration biologist:

“I believe 4Ocean it’s a scam for the following reasons…. One is that I am a restoration ecologist. That’s not how it works. This is like some community service project designed to keep the charter for the sorority. The kumbaya, feel-good buzzwords aren’t doing anything but making buyers imagine they’re making some huge difference. The biggest issue I have is the lack of transparency and the same 20 images and 250-word description looped everywhere. No information available ANYWHERE that describes the processes, the results, or anything to really give any clue as to how this business actually functions. One of the links on their website says “previous causes.” Sends you to a sold out bracelet for the Great Barrier Reef. It’s the end of July. It’s essentially summer in our hemisphere. Probably a GREAT time to have a whole bunch of cleanups, get some brand exposure, and so forth. As of right now, they have only ONE worldwide cleanup scheduled: in Queens. I just feel as if there are way too many questions and even if it IS a legit COMPANY, that’s fine. People want to know and should be able to find the information about how this all works, from the start and well into the growth and maintenance phases. I just saw YET another one of the ads today and decided to do some checking into it again. Yes, again. Nothing had changed. I started digging in a few months ago when some friends and I were talking about the Garbage Patch and the Ocean Cleanup’s cleanup efforts and failures when 4ocean came up. No matter where I looked, though, I couldn’t find any real information and that bothered me. Seems they would make a lot more money if they provided people with data. Let’s be honest… People would see a webpage with “data” or charts or something but few would actually read it, yet be impressed that the info was there, and buy bracelets, checking out with the feeling that they really did something impactful because the data was RIGHT THERE! Let’s do some simple math. I was a manufacturing process control and cost estimating engineer. The bracelet cost a few pennies to make. Paying a third world worker a few dollars a day to pick up a few hundred pounds of trash costs another few pennies per pound. The bracelet and a pound of trash pickup is probably less than $1. That leaves a huge profit. Why is this a for profit company and not a non-profit if their goal is to save our oceans? I think this is a couple of surfer dudes preying on the ignorant with a pretty smile and touting a very noble cause. 4Ocean is for profit company pretending to do good for oceans. More than 1,500,000 lbs of plastic are dumped into the ocean EVERY DAY on our planet. They have collected the equivalent of 3.5 days worth of plastic trash dumping over their entire multi-year lifetime. They will never make a dent in anything. And are mainly selling “good feelings” to people who think they are helping the ocean. You aren’t helping anyone except the scammers get rich off a $20 bracelet that costs $1 to make. I have an idea for a business: Please buy my overpriced plastic bracelet and I’ll clean the planet’s air. For every $20 bracelet you buy, I’ll run my Home Hepa air filter for 1 minute. I’m cleaning OUR PLANET’S polluted air! You do like clean air don’t you?? Just think if only 10,000,000 people buy my bracelet, I’ll run my $100 air filter for 10,000,000 minutes. That will make a difference right??? No, not all.”

This review was gathered from the review section of the Better Business Bureau.

Domain Insight

4Ocean.com was privately registered on March 21st, 2004 through the GoDaddy, LLC registrar.

Detailed in a SimiliarWeb report, 4Ocean.com reflected a global rank of 25,491 with a US rank of 9,659 as of July 29th, 2019.

According to the report, 4Ocean has reflected a significant surge in popularity and has raised their average monthly visitor count of around 1 million in March 2019 to 2.90 million as of June 2019.

Over 33% of the sites traffic stems from visitors based out of the United States while nearly 40% of the sites traffic sources derives from social media hubs, with the most contributing platform being YouTube.

Is 4 Ocean a Scam?

No, we do not believe 4 Ocean to be a scam but we do believe much more corporate transparency needs to be infused into their operation to increase transparency and credibility.

4Ocean Scam Review

4Ocean appears legitimate when it comes to their corporate status and cleanup efforts but there are many unknown variables that need to be solved.

The question of why 4 Ocean is a profit based company opposed to a non-profit company is a question that needs to be answered while many consumers wish for 4Ocean to disclose financial statements to show transparent proof and evidence that their investment (donations) are being used responsible.

When conducting this review on July 29th, 2019, 4Ocean states that they have removed over 5,464,700 pounds of trash from the ocean and coastlines since their inception over 3 years ago.

Over 1.5 million pounds of trash is said to enter the ocean on a daily basis.

While many argue that Alex and Andrew are becoming rich off of 4Ocean donations, it can’t be said that 4 Ocean isn’t making some sort of positive environmental impact (as long as their bracelets and emissions from shipping boats don’t go on to hurt the environment more than they are trying to repair).

We do not believe 4 Ocean to be a scam – their corporate ties appear strong but as we mentioned earlier, and before you commit with 4Ocean, make sure to do some external investigations of your own and pursue at your own risk.

Verdict: 4Ocean Should Be Pursued at OWN Risk!

Site: 4Ocean.com

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