Tactistaff & Deceptive Advertising
I cannot speak to the quality or usefulness of the product, but here is my experience with them. I received an email promoting their product, and two "action buttons": "Are you over 45", and "Are you under 45". I'm a security expert, and those two questions don't make sense with respect to selling a hiking staff, and not knowing what the buttons ACTUALLY do, I did not click them.
At the bottom of the email was a series of testimonials, and I "tested" five of them on Oct 4, 2024. Clicking on all five of the testimonial photos opened FaceBook profiles. All five profiles had their profile pictures set up in or near October, 2020, suggesting that if the profiles are fake, then they may have all been set up as a batch. All with profile pictures had something of a non-photo character, in my opinion. None of the profiles had comments, other posts or pictures, but only the one saying that the profile picture had been changed. The only information in the "About" section was the current city; none of the other fields were filled out. Also, there were no spelling mistakes (that you might expect in a number of writings by random people) in the testimonials, other than 3 of them having issues with missing apostrophes (Hmmm; why is that a "thing"). I did reverse-lookups each of the selected testimonial photos, finding that each appears in the public eye (actors, writers, journalists, models), and three of those people have different names in real life than the names on the testimonials; the other two reverse searches yielded no name).
So my personal, informal conclusion was to skip the action buttons and delete the email. As a side note, I have several sets of trekking poles from Bass Pro Shop. They are light weight (you come to appreciate that after a few miles and days on the trail), are adjustable length (I recommend those with external binding clips rather than internal compressing rings), with wide wrist straps (which you can use to “hang” your weight on the up-hills). I prefer the T-handles, which you can better use as a cane on downhills and for relief (I have leg issues). Modification you might consider include wrapping the handles, giving them a greater circumference so you don’t “grip out” on the otherwise slender poles. I use sprayable “headliner” glue available at any auto parts store to affix a piece of gray plumbing insulation around the handle (available at big box hardware store, of appropriate inside diameter to fit your pole), followed by a wrapping of self-adhering ankle-wrap (from the drug store). I further wrap that in a bandana, which can be removed and washed. This gives the handle sufficient width to grip without fatigue, absorbency to prevent sweaty hands and slipping, and washability. For really long hikes I’ll wear padded biking gloves to avoid palm & bone-pain & fatigue in the hands. And because of my leg issues, I use the shortened, T-handled poles for any kind of longer walking about town or to the store, etc. Oh, and trekking poles also have shock absorbers to cushion hard landings.
Good Luck!
