Scammers' Fake Goods 'Could Cause Serious Damage'
You have heard and read a great deal regarding the use of weight loss injections to lose weight, it feels like it is time to try them out in the run-up to the festive season. The problem is cost.
But it seems alternatives exist rather than obtaining a doctor's script and going to the pharmacy. An SMS comes through providing a URL to a site with more affordable drugs – and requiring no necessity to navigate official channels. You also noticed a comparable advertisement on social media recently, so you decide to go for it.
The catch is such promotions are almost certainly scams. At best, you'll receive nothing and forfeit whatever money you paid. In the worst, you obtain a counterfeit item, with unknown ingredients which may result in severe health problems.
The popularity of authentic slimming drugs has resulted in a rise in fake goods hitting the market and scams set up to merely steal people’s money.
Health authorities have advised avoiding purchasing such unlawful weight loss medicines absent a doctor's order from aesthetic clinics, bogus online chemists or through digital platforms, saying they might include “toxins and other ingredients which may provoke real harm”.
New figures from a high street bank show a sharp rise in the quantity of customers who have been affected by the scam. The bank says, the amount of money lost to scams related to slimming jabs, injector pens, pills and lipid-reducing solutions during the third quarter this year, was more than double the overall amount lost in the previous three months. Each incident typically sets back sufferers £120, it says.
“Scammers are actively exploiting individuals' self-doubts and medical worries, with such frauds soaring in recent months,” says a financial institution's fraud prevention lead.
How It Appears
Most take place on messaging apps and social networks. Across platforms, a profile may mimic the company that you are looking for, but there will typically be slight variations in spelling or logos.
The messages or updates will often use urgency-laden phrases such as “time-sensitive deal”, “exclusive deal” or “free giveaway”.
As the price of some legitimate weight loss jabs, rose of late, the fraudsters will set the cost of their “item” lower.
“Purchasing from unverified sellers online can come at a significant financial, health-related and psychological toll,” warns the security specialist.
What to do
Like any deceptive scheme, the wise saying applies: should something seem too good to be true, it likely isn't genuine.
Health regulators have warned people to be extremely cautious when buying medicines via the web. They should only be obtained from a licensed chemist using a prescription issued by a healthcare professional, it says. When procured from other sources, they can present significant dangers to health.
Fraudsters can go to great lengths to make their site or social media page appear completely genuine. If they claim to be an online pharmacy located within Great Britain, it's possible to verify the online portal of the medicines oversight organisation to ensure they are correctly licensed.
